Apotheoclypse Now: 10/17/16 - 10/23/16

"I'm Looking For a Man / Who Knows the Rules of the Game"

(Anubis, who is not taking your !@#$, anymore)

(Art by the Lemonade Project)

* * *

1

* * *

So... that's him? one Watcher asks the others with her as they observe and participate in the Fiction they have written for the six people they've plucked from Bastogne, on Christmas of 1944: The uncouth one?

Yes, the one who brought them here says, pointing to the one who can make swords come from his hands: That is (REDACTED), as he was then.

He seems rather... unimpressive, one of the others says, observing a bit closer as he shoves a very large mouthful of the fine food they've created for this meal into his mouth.

His speech is tiresome, another opines, clearing the plates from the table: He seems capable only of annoyance and self-satisfaction.

And his attempts at humor are... lacking, yet another chuckles.

True, their guide says: But consider how far he came. How he grew and changed. Also what he did, when it was truly important to have one clear, far-seeing person to usher in the changes of the 21st century.

So what is the purpose of this lesson? the least shy of the Watchers asks: Are we to glean the future from his excessive profanity?

No, Shift says to his five apprentices: You are, under my direction, going to decide how the future is to be shaped, and why.

They look at him with some confusion, so he elaborates: This meeting we have constructed is not so much a contrivance as an intervention. If we had not acted, they would have killed one another, and the world would be without six of its most influential men.

But they cannot all survive, one of the Watchers says: They cannot all prosper. That one there, the one known as Heimdall? He dies in a Soviet camp, not many years from now.

Yes, but why does he have to? Shift asks: Why does he not live? Why does that other one? What is the purpose of their survival, or death?

The Watchers look to their silvery leader, and slowly begin to comprehend.

We must not see the weave of history, the least shy one says: We must understand the pattern itself.

Yes, Shift says, pleased to see his words are likewise understood: You must be with them, now. Examine their lives from all angles. See what was, what is, and what could be. Collaborate, compete.

And when you have learned what you need to see... well, I will be here to answer any questions you may still have.

With that, they all take their places behind the men they have each chosen to explore. They wear the faces of people from their past.

And then -- as (REDACTED) gets up to relieve himself -- they make contact, and the lesson truly begins.

But as Shift's most fearless student begins to explore the life, potential, and possibilities of her chosen subject -- the one called Major Force -- she happens to come across another life that has crossed his, and becomes much more interested in that one.

The shining, nighttime crusader of Chicago. The man who gives rise to an entire line of heroes -- stretching all the way into their present, and beyond.

The Owl, eternal.

And as she looks at him and his life -- public and private, recorded and redacted -- she realizes that she, somehow, has become a part of it...

She looks up to her teacher in alarm, only to see him looking back at her. His eyes are as sad as ever, clearly knowing what she has learned this day.

And in that white-hot instant of total understanding, she knows that this is not merely a lesson for her, but prophecy -- both beautiful and terrible...

* * *

It's Sunday morning, in Washington DC -- oddly still and quiet after the tumultuous week it's had to endure -- and the Interim President really, really needs a !@#$ing drink.

He looks at the man sitting across the Oval Office desk from him, as if he just heard the most incredible and outrageous thing ever. And in a way he has. 

"I..." he starts to say, shaking his head. 

"I know," SPYGOD says, leaning back in the chair he's parked his butt in, and adjusting his new eyepatch: "It's some !@#$ing crazy !@#$."

"Well..."

"I mean, I'm having a damn hard time believing this crap. And I was there. Hell, I even knew it was gonna !@#$ing happen before it did, and I still can't take it all in."

"And you're telling me that... this whole thing was all part of the plan?"

"Sort of..." the superspy defers, looking this way and that: "It's more like I was following a !@#$ing flowchart. This !@#$ing thing happens, then that thing !@#$ing happens, then this other thing is gonna happen, except that something else happens inbetween..."

"Uh-huh," the Interim President says, tapping the report the Director of the COMPANY handed him, a rather confusing half hour ago: "But you wrote the flowchart?"

"I think so," SPYGOD says, shrugging.

"Well, either you did or you didn't!" the man shouts, pounding his fist on the report and causing everything on the heavy desk to wobble, just a little: "Were you... were you drinking? Or worse?"

"Mr. President, let me tell you something," (REDACTED) says, leaning forward and pointing to the poor, abused report: "When you !@#$ing meet yourself from a couple months in the future? And the bastard hands you the keys to the damn future, and then tells you not to ask any !@#$ing questions, or tell anyone else exactly what the !@#$ is to go down? Especially since they might be about to die?"

"Or not die, as the case may be," the Interim President says, shaking his head: "You know how much a state burial at Arlington costs?"

"Well, look on the bright side," SPYGOD says: "Now you don't have to !@#$ing dig them a grave when they die. It's already waiting for them. Just slide them on in."

"I'm not sure I understand that either."

"What, burying them later?"

"No," the former Speaker of the House sighs, tapping the report: "The bit where the Mars force didn't die when we were told they did. And how they've been hiding all this time. And where those crabs were actually coming from...?"

"Well, it's like I was trying to tell you, sir," the superspy says, staring the man in both eyes with the last one he's got, and then leaning back: "All this past and future and present and !@#$ing flowcharts? If that isn't enough to make a man drink on the damn job, I don't know what will..."

"Yeah," his audience nods.

"Speaking of which...?"

"I had that bust taken out of here after the Apocalypse," the Interim President admits: "I guess I can't be trusted around emergency booze."

"Well, good damn thing I can," SPYGOD says, pulling a pair of flasks out of his coat, and handing one over: "Because I have the !@#$ing feeling you're going to want me to go over it all again-"

"Oh, absolutely," his Commander in Chief sighs, taking the flask with something akin to resignation -- and yet relief -- on his long face.

"And if so?" his guest says, popping the top of his with a well-practiced thumb: "Then we're both gonna need to knock back a few."

They take a snort in a weird kind of unison, which causes them both to chuckle a little -- something they clearly both need as much as the booze. 

And then, after a few more rips to loosen the mind and tongue, the Interim President takes a deep breath, drums the desk with his fingers, and says the fateful words: "From the top, then?"

"Yeah," SPYGOD says, taking another snort before he gets into it: "So, the Great Mystery was shot and killed with the whole damn world watching, which is when the !@#$ well and truly hit the goddamn fan..."

Monday: 10/17/16

"Okay, this is officially !@#$ing disgusting, now," Black Freedom says, wiping gobs of Gosheven off of her boots as she stomps through the crime scene: "What the hell is wrong with him?"

"He just saw his god die, Florence," Randolph says, trying to take pictures of the aftermath with a broken arm -- careful not to step too close to the dead: "If he needs to fall the !@#$ apart, I think he's allowed."

"How can this happen?" she asks, looking at the red puddle that was the Great Mystery, and the leather-clad woman who's been kneeling beside it since it happened: "What the hell kind of gun can kill a god?"

"Probably the same one that picked off those riot cops after the panic started," the Outlaw Reporter says, looking at the beheaded, over-armored police in question: "Which made them freak the !@#$ out and start shooting."

"Which made everything go the !@#$ downhill," Black Freedom grumbles, kicking a handy abandoned helmet: "God dammit! Why did I have to be so !@#$ing late to this? Why?"

Randolph could tell her that it didn't matter, really. Because once the Great Mystery was shot -- right in the heart, from the looks of things -- and began to melt into a horrifying, human-shaped pile of red goo in Yanabah's arms? 

Well, there wasn't anything one more hero on either side could have done. 

* * *

To Gold Standard's credit, she realized where the gunshot hadn't come from, and tried to stop things from getting out of hand. But the protesters, already on edge from the back-and-forth with the police, diggers, and Freedom Force, panicked and ran, assuming the worst. 

And as soon as the police were killed, well, the blue line did what it always did in a case like that -- assume everyone that was not them was involved, somehow. 

At which point they went from contain and control to cripple and confine, with terrible results. 

The shame of it was that, if it'd been just the police, Gold Standard could have turned things around. She could have literally pulled Gosheven back together and gotten him to spawn extra copies to do crowd control. She could have gotten Free Fire or Black Falcon to investigate where the shots came from, or done it herself. 

But Free Fire had his orders, and carried it out on the side of their fellow law enforcement. Before she could call him back he'd turned into a one-android rampage -- knocking protesters this way and that using his fists, feet, and the dull ends of his signature flame wheel. 

Thankfully he was aiming to subdue his targets, and just going for broken bones and serious sprains. But Black Falcon wasn't holding back. Something in his dark eyes lit up as soon as he saw that he had a clear reason to cut loose.

And that is exactly what he did. 

Randolph was so caught up in the melee -- a whirling dervish of camera and commentary, along with the occasional kick to a rampaging cop or protester -- that he didn't even see what was happening until the Toon hero came at him, fists and feet wet with the blood of others. 

"Worthless flesh !@#$!" the caped crusader shouted, bearing down on him. Randolph instinctively went for his handgun, only to realize that he didn't have it on him. 

(He'd left it at the tent with the rest of his weapons, just as Yanabah did...)

The gesture got him grabbed by the maddened Toon hero, who managed to break his arm and fling him over his head with the same fluid maneuver before going on to the next victim.

And the next. And the next...

And all Randolph could do, other than try and secure his busted arm as best as he could, was sit on his ass and continue to film, knowing that the whole world was watching this craziness unfold. 

And hoping, somehow, that their seeing it would cause things to calm down elsewhere, rather than getting worse...

* * *

"Unfortunately, it didn't  !@#$ing help," SPYGOD goes on: "The whole world saw that !@#$ go down. And what really stuck the !@#$ out was that someone actually managed to kill a god."

"Which is why our country exploded on Sunday," the Interim President sighs.

"And burned on Monday," the superspy agrees: "All these gods, thinking that the police had a !@#$ing way to kill them? Of course they panicked. Of course they flipped the !@#$ out."

"And you knew this was coming?" 

"I did, yes," SPYGOD says: "But here's the thing. I couldn't change it."

"Now that's... that I can't accept-"

"Sir, you !@#$ing watch television, don't you?" the superspy asks.

"Well, not as much as I'd like..."

"What' the one thing every show that deals with time travel !@#$ing teaches us?"

"That you shouldn't go back in time and try to change things," the Interim President says, nodding.

"Yes," SPYGOD says: "And by !@#$ing extension? If, by some weird damn miracle, someone from the future comes along and says 'hey, here's what's about to happen?' Then you don't change a damn thing.

"Even if it's gonna be !@#$ing painful."

"Well," the Interim President says: "A good thing we had people to help with that."

"Yes it was," the super spy says: "And people you all didn't even !@#$ing know about, at least until they all showed back up again..."

Tuesday: 10/18/16

"You will not continue this rampage," the glowing purple man says, pointing his finger at the five Egyptian mortuary deities he's addressing at the other end of the burning street: "This has gone on long enough. You will cease your actions, return to your homes, and think of how to make amends."

"Amends?" the Jackal-headed god sneers -- looking somewhat ridiculous dressed like some kind of gangster, complete with a ball cap and baggy pants: "Do you hear him, my brothers? He thinks to scold us like naughty children!"

"Well, that is much better than putting a god-killer bullet in our buttocks," one of the other four says, pulling out a golden gun that's festooned with Egyptian hieroglyphs: "What say we anticipate his actions?"

They all grin and pull out their guns. New Man looks at them, and allows them their moment of seeming triumph.

And then, as soon as they start firing, he sends Anubis and his posse of visceral protectors sprawling down the road, and tumbling into the nearby river.

This is St. Louis. The Arch has been turned into an ankh.

And the dead are walking...

* * *

"So tell me how they didn't die, again?" the Interim President asks.

"Well, that is !@#$ing complicated," SPYGOD admits, knocking back some more hooch: "But it has to do with what was !@#$ing sending those turd crabs to us, down that long damn hole in time."

"Which was the future?"

"Right. Where some small pieces of the Decreator had !@#$ed off to, after the pounding they took when Mars got liberated the first damn time. And there, in the future, they hunkered the !@#$ down, spawned, mutated, all that !@#$..."

"And then started coming back to us, here in the present."

"Right again," the superspy says, noticing he's drinking too fast and slowing down a bit: "Well, while our people were blowing the !@#$ out of them, and planning to go into that hole to close it the !@#$ down? There were other people on the other side, working on pushing those things into the hole, and trying to close it up from their end."

"What sort of people?"

SPYGOD smiles, somewhat ruefully: "Believe it or not? We have no !@#$ing idea."

"Really?" the Interim President asks, raising an eyebrow: "How is that even possible?"

"Well, my fiance tells me he could !@#$ing tell me..."

"Oh?"

"... but then he'd have to !@#$ing kill me," the superspy grins.

"Well then," the Interim President says, frowning somewhat: "I fear for our country's safety if you can't completely share intel."

"You're a married man, aren't you, Mr. President?" SPYGOD asks: "Isn't the key to a good marriage knowing when not to !@#$ing tell the damn truth?"

"Fair enough," the former Speaker says after a moment, nodding: "So, all other considerations side, there was a hole in time. And our people went in?"

"Not like they had much of a damn choice," SPYGOD chuckles, deciding that was worth a slug of the good stuff after all: "Not after how things went down..."

* * *

"How does it feel?" Winifred finally asks from her co-pilot's chair in the new and improved Drill Tank, looking at the weird, new arm that Myron's sporting.

"I don't know, yet," he says, looking at how strangely the skeletal fingers and thumb move as he fans them, this way and that: "It's like... I can feel them, and I can feel with them. But they're distant, somehow."

"Not as good as what they gave you there, huh?"

"No," Myron smiles, remembering that nice prosthetic their hosts set him up with -- and then, sadly, took back before they all returned to their regularly-scheduled lives: "Not at all."

"Hey Myron, this is Dragonfly," the white-clad, former assassin communicates with the drill tank: "You there?"

"Yeah, we're here," the former Underman says, wondering why she's talking with them directly: "What's up?"

"We're being asked to keep eyes out for Black Falcon," she says: "He took off after what happened at Standing Rock, and no one's seen him since."

"Good," Winifred frowns: "Hopefully he just crawls under a !@#$ing rock and stays there."

"Well, if you do see him? Keep it on this channel," Dragonfly requests: "He doesn't need to know we're after him."

"Any word on Yanabah?" Myron asks: "Randolph hasn't broadcast since Monday, and he didn't mention her."

"I think she's at the camp," Dragonfly says: "I don't really know. I... well, I was hoping you knew...?"

"Because we were in the future?" he sighs: "Look, Gayle, our guests had us housed in some seaside village and didn't let us see where or when we were. We were told some things then, and learned more when we got back to this time. But we didn't get told every little thing about what's going to happen, or what happens to everyone involved. Frankly, I don't want to even know."

"Yeah... I'm sorry for asking. It's just..."

"I know," he says, smiling: "It's okay. If we see that sorry suicidal son of a !@#$ we'll let you know, okay?"

The white-clad former assassin nods, and disconnects.

"You two... right?" Winifred asks, holding his hand.

"Just once," he admits, squeezing hers: "It was more stress relief than anything else. Our clones were both about to get taken off the board. Or we thought so, anyway..."

"Oh yeah," she smiles: "That's some crazy !@#$, man. You'll have to tell me all about it, someday."

"Why not?" he asks, leaning over to kiss her: "We got time-"

"What have we got, folks?" Josie interrupts, doing her best to coordinate the chaos according to the rather long flowchart she's working from: "We're supposed to be getting past Chicago by now."

"Chicago's taken care of," Myron radios in: "Slambang and The Sound got the south side under control."

"Excellent," she says: "Once they're back, you need to rendezvous with Transport 112. You're needed in Green Bay."

"Don't tell me," the former Underman sighs: "More restless native spirits?"

"Actually, Sumerian agricultural gods trying to barricade the city," the pink-haired clone replies.

"Why Green Bay?" Winifred asks.

"Maybe they thought it was green?" the clone offers: "Maybe they're Packers fans? Who the !@#$ knows?"

"My money's on the latter," Myron says, seeing that his two teammates are coming back: "Speaking of teams you hate to love, when are we going to !@#$ing calm everyone down by telling them we didn't shoot the Great Mystery?"

And Josie looks to SPYGOD, who looks back at her with that look. 

The one that says...

* * *

"You couldn't," the Interim President says, looking over the report. 

"No," the super spy admits: "And before you ask? Yes. I !@#$ing hated doing that. But there were other considerations."

"Such as...?"

"Well, the only reason the whole damn country didn't burn the !@#$ down in those couple of days?" SPYGOD says, taking another hit from his flask and leaning back in his chair: "It's because a number of the Gods were scared as !@#$ of official reprisal. They thought that we could kill them."

"So when the stupid ones got all violent and crazy...?"

"They did the smart !@#$ing thing and stayed the !@#$ inside and down,"  the Director of the COMPANY says, nodding as he taps the President's desk with his free finger: "So the only ones we had to put down were the ones who were going to be a !@#$ing problem, anyway."

"Yes, I'm looking over that," the Interim President says, marveling at the arrests made: "That's a lot of them."

"Well, good thing we've got someone on the team who can !@#$ing handle arresting a god," SPYGOD grins...

Wednesday: 10/19/16

"I cannot believe this indignity!" a very battered Anubis grumbles, being marched off to a hole in time and space -- his hands and ankles shackled by high-tech manacles.

"The irony is quite inescapable," Mister Freedom says, overseeing the prisoner transfer: "As are those chains. Please do not strain yourself?"

The Egyptian mortuary god grumbles, but shuffles off to his waiting cell.

"One down, a whole lot more to go," Gold Standard sighs, looking at the long line that her drones are herding towards the hole -- all overseen by one of the Revolutionary Men.

"There is always room for one more in Hell," the manacled Olympian says, smiling at her.

* * *

"How long are they going to be kept there?" the Interim President asks, looking at the rather long list yet again.

"Well, some of them need to !@#$ing stay there," SPYGOD says: "Especially that one !@#$ing freak from Baltimore. The one who was eating kids and !@#$ing out food for street people?"

The President picks that moment to turn very, very green.

"Easy does it, now," the superspy says, holding up a hand: "Deep breath. Slow deep breath."

"I... I didn't see that," the man says, shaking his head: "Did we... did he...?"

"We most certainly did not allow him into the !@#$ing country," SPYGOD insists: "He came in illegally before the Haitians showed up during that last damn hurricane. We were going to deal with his !@#$, eventually. We just didn't have time."

"But all that's taken care of, now?" the Interim President asks, somewhat weakly: "All those gods are locked up, and going to stand trial for what they've done?"

"Yes," SPYGOD lies, deciding not to get into the really deep details of the whole damn thing.

Especially seeing as how it might color his perceptions of certain individuals...

* * *

"You dare to stand against me!" the slithering snake-diety hisses at his assailant, deep within the darkest recesses of the Void -- a place so far from the light of the all-consuming maw that one can only see in shades of darkest black. 

"I do, yes," Senator Ted Cruz says, raising his fists -- bloodied with the ichor and entrails of several, now-dead entities, all sprawled out about his feet: "You're a monster that has no place in this world. And I'm the !@#$ing cure."

"How dare you speak to me in this fashion!" Yig-Damballah screams, rearing back to strike with its many, sharp fangs: "I will devour your soul!"

"As if," the man says, allowing the thing to think it's got the upper hand -- right until all its teeth strike his skin, and break into small, white pieces upon it. 

The toothless beast howls and skitters away, looking rather pathetic with its face broken and teeth missing. One eye stares off into the wrong spot as the other rolls about loose in its socket. 

And Ted Cruz says one more prayer for forgiveness, and then administers a two-fisted coup de grace -- beating the brains out of the proto-human snake god before it has a chance to heal. He punches with fists blessed by the God he used to pray to, every day, until the head of the thing is nothing but bloody pulp and pulverized bone.

Then he kicks its neck-stump for good measure, just to make sure it doesn't come back to life.

"Mr. Senator," he hears SPYGOD in his ear about ten seconds later: "I need you topside, fast."

"A moment, here, (REDACTED)?" the man scowls: "I just killed 34 gods with my bare hands."

"Which you've !@#$ing known you were going to do for, what, five years now?"

"Yes, but I'm not exactly ready for primetime," the Senator says, wiping venomous slop onto his pants: "I need a shower. Fifty goddamn showers."

"Yeah, well, make 'em !@#$ing quick," the superspy insists: "Our mutual opponent's about to get on the !@#$ing TV to make his case. We need you ready to give the other side."

"Right," Cruz says, looking at his messy hands: "Maybe just one shower?"

"Don't !@#$ing blow dry."

"I never do," the Senator chuckles, and turns to find Shift standing there, waiting to take him to where he's fated to go...

 * * *

"... which is why we don't have the internet, right now," the Interim President says: "Right?"

"I'm !@#$ing getting to that," SPYGOD says, downing his own flask for the hell of it: "Hang on, sir. Hang on..."

* * *

"Good evening, America," the Candidate says to the camera he's sitting in front of, in the rather opulent living room of his three-story Manhattan penthouse: "I really must apologize for intruding upon your normally-scheduled television and webcasts. But, seeing as how our historic, first ten-person Presidential debate has been called off due to a national emergency, I find this is the only way to get my message across, one last time before the election."

Loki smiles through the beefy-faced man he's riding, thinking of all the technological wizardry his servant's press-ganged into existence, here tonight, just to make this possible. Most of them look rather scared.

(The others are rather changed -- most likely by the magic eye his servant keeps locked away for safety...)

"Speaking of that national emergency, I am being told, as are you, that this is currently under control. We are told that the gods who were raging through our city streets have been dealt with. We are told they are being locked away, or otherwise punished, and that this will never, ever happen again. 

"We are being told that. 

"But I see the fires and I am not comforted. I hear the screams and I am dismayed. I see a dark world growing darker with each day, each hour, and I am not satisfied with their progress.

"And so I am certain you do not need to be a reader of minds to know that this truth they peddle is not something I choose to believe. 

"One thing you can say about my forthcoming Administration. You will always know what is foremost on my mind. And that is because I will tell you, without reservation or hesitation. 

"And I tell you now that this problem will not go away," Loki says, preparing the glamour to end them all -- borrowed eyes glowing a poisonous, bright green: "That you should be afraid. That you should listen to what I have to say on this matter, and with rapt attention, for mine is the only plan that will stave off this danger. Mine the only voice you should listen to, for comfort and direction. 

"Mine the only-"

"Sir?" the person behind the camera says, looking rather afraid.

The Candidate looks up at him, furious to have been interrupted in mid-spell, but soon realizing the fear on the man's face has a purpose: "Well?" he demands.

"The camera... it's working, but," he says, pointing to the television feed from the other room.

It's blank. There's nothing but a black screen on every channel they flip to -- eventually replaced by the ubiquitous NO SIGNAL indication.

"I think they've... they have, yes," one of the more willing participants in this says: "They fucking pulled the plug, sir. They killed all the broadcast mediums."

"And the internet!" someone else shouts: "Oh my god..."

"Hey," yet another one of his helpers says, pointing to the window: "Is it just me... or is it getting lighter outside?"

And before the Candidate can call to them to come back and attend him, they're all at the windows -- basking in the first proper sunset they've seen in weeks.

"Looks like something fucking shifted, sir," the SPYGOD of Alter Earth says, coming up behind his master and leaning down to speak into his ear: "What's the plan, now?"

And the Candidate glowers at him, but then looks askance.

He has no plan. None at all.

* * *

The sun's light flares, at least so much as the people of the world can see.

For the first time since the debacle on Mars, everything is bright and shiny again. No lack of light. No growing false shadows. Just the sun, burning and beautiful.

As the light shines, it begins to coalesce in various places -- in front of every television and computer screen in America, every iphone and communications device.

And it takes the form of the face of Senator Ted Cruz, long since thought to be dead and gone in the fighting to retake the red planet, all those weeks ago.

He smiles, looking out at the nation he loves, and speaks to it -- his words somehow traveling from the hard light projections that the reborn Raitha is creating.

"My fellow Americans," he says, raising his hands to them: "I'm sure you know who I am. I'm also sure you thought I was dead, which is something I'm probably never going to get tired of hearing.

"But I apologize for the confusion and distress. It was not my intention to deceive you, or cause you to worry. I was simply unable to tell you that I was alive, due to the nature of what happened to us, and where we were for all that time.."

He smiles again, and the world smiles with him: "But I have returned, now. And I do so in the proverbial nick of time, in several senses of the word.

"I return in time to help stave off this current crisis which has embroiled our nation. As I speak to you, the last vestiges of rebellion and strife are being dealt with. But I want to say to all Americans at this time to be understanding, as what has taken place is an understandable reaction to what happened at Standing Rock.

"When a movement attracts a leader, and that leader is killed, several things can happen. Sometimes the movement embraces peace, and turns the other cheek. And sometimes it turns to violence, and forgets itself.

"And none of us can say that we would raise a hand in friendship rather than a fist, unless we, too, faced this awful thing.

"And so I ask for understanding and forgiveness, in spite of the damage done. The guilty will be called to account, and put to work righting the wrongs they have done. I hope that, when they have made restitution, you will join me in offering them another chance.

"The same chance we would all want in their place..."

He pauses for a moment, and then looks humble: "Speaking of other chances, I would like to ask for one of my own. In the past I have said some very awful and untrue things about a group of those gods. I picked a fight with the Olympians, out of fear and ignorance, and also to try and gain an upper hand politically.

"I humbly and deeply apologize for this. I now know how good these people are, even though they seem strange and unusual to us. I have seen the good they do with my own eyes. I have witnessed what they can be when they work alongside us, as allies and friends.

"And I promise, from here on out, to be an ally and a friend to them, whether or not I am elected President.

"Speaking of which," he smiles again, a little less humbly: "I want it said now, and clearly, that I wish to still be the Candidate of the Freedom Party. But the party I left here on Earth, before my apparent death, is not the party I have returned to. Neither is it something that currently embraces my feelings, as they have changed in many other respects.

"As soon as the internet resumes service, in 24 hours or so, please go to our new website. There you will find a new platform, a new ethos, a new vision for America. I hope you will join me in embracing free markets and free destinies, and help us all to usher in an America where we can all join in.

"There are some things that are about to happen that will not be very pleasant. All will be revealed in time. But for now, please go about your day secure in the knowledge that this nightmare is passing, and soon a better, stronger dream will unfold for us all.

"Thank you for your time, and may the Gods bless our country..."

With that, the image fades. All over America people put their hands to their hearts, thinking that they have never been so uniquely touched by such a message. So uplifted, so ennobled.

So filled with hope...

* * *

"Which was, of course, when things really started to get !@#$ing ugly," SPYGOD explains to the Interim President, pointing to the report.

"Right," the man says, almost afraid to turn the page...

(SPYGOD is listening to Headhunter - Beefcake Remix (Front 242) and having a Freedom Lager)

Apotheoclypse Now: 9/12/16 - 9/18/16

"What do you want from me today? / Going through the tunnel of another drain"

(Ted Cruz, Myron, Shining Guardsman)

(Art by the Lemonade Project)

* * *

7

* * *

Over the ages, many a person has asked me "why?" Why do I do these things that I do? 

Why do I knock over the cooking pot, or spread the rumor? Why do I lie and cheat, and then make it seem as though others were at fault, and not I? 

Why do I play jokes that lead friends to become enemies, lovers to quarrel, and kingdoms to go to war?

Why indeed, Loki. But why not? 

If a joke be told and not understood, does not explaining only diminish the humor? Ruin the jest?

Well, so too is it with my actions. I do not feel the need to explain them, any more than the bear needs explain its hunger, the squirrel its need to hide nuts for winter, the Sun to rise and to set.  

But what would I say to the All Father, were he here before me, asking me why?

Well, I suppose I might have a great deal to tell him. And perhaps this would make all manner of things plain.

But, as I have said, I have no intention of ruining my greatest jest in ages.

Especially now that, thanks to this new body I have claimed as my own, the laughter be around the closest corner...

Monday: 9/12/16

"Well, this is... awkward," Director Straffer says, watching as almost every hero Myron brought with him to Mars intervenes to keep one Aesir from killing another, right on the deck of Naglfar. 

"That's putting it mildly," Shining Guardsman says, using every ounce of his suit's strength to keep Freyja from pulping the person that hitched a ride with them, halfway to Mars. 

"It would be a good thing for the two of you to cease your argument," New Man says, maintaining a purple cylinder of light around the stowaway in question. 

"Do not interfere in this matter!" Freyja insists, doing her best to unsheathe her sword: "This is none of your concern!"

"This is our war, too, lady," Myron insists, walking forward to stare the goddess in the eyes: "And she's-"

"He," the stowaway reminds him, through borrowed lips.  

"He is part of that war effort," the former Underman goes on: "So whatever problem you have with your..."

He looks at the stowaway, trying to see past the large frame of the woman he had thrown off his lightship, less than a week ago, and tries to see the god inside. 

"Her husband, Odr of the Vanir," the Aesir riding Xhasm's body insists from behind the purple cylinder: "And I would have words with this wife of mine, who seems more intent on killing me than kissing me of late."

That brings out a gale of laughter in the other Aesir, who are all watching this. That includes Odin, who seems entirely disinclined to interfere on either side.

"This is !@#$ we really don't need, right now," Myron says, looking to all godly beings within eyeshot: "We got giant time traveling crap-crabs down below, hurling balls of acid diarrhea up at us. We got a time portal we need to shut down before this gets any worse. And we got people I don't and can't completely trust along for the ride."

"Gee, thanks," SlamBang snorts -- crossing his heavy, armored arms -- but gets rather quiet when Myron gives him the death-look.

"So if you two need to have a damn moment, you have it after we're done," the former Underman insists, looking at the two of them: "Then you can totally make the dreams of those people who write the 'can this marriage be saved' column in Ladies Home Journal, for all I care.

"But for now? I need you," he says, pointing at Odr/Xhasm: "To remember that the body you're riding made me a promise, and I intend to extract it from you."

"I have no issue with that, good sir," the Aesir says, holding up her hands: "Her word is my bond, as I told you during our journey here."

"We saw what that was worth already," The Sound says, shaking his head.

"And I need you," he says, pointing to Freyja: "To put aside whatever thousand-year-old problems you got with this guy, and be a kick-ass warrior lady who doesn't let a man get the better of her."

She glares at him for that, but, by degrees, she lets go of the pommel of her sword, and relaxes.

"For the good of the battle, then?" Odin finally deigns to interject, stepping forward to look the two of them in the eyes.

"For the good of the battle," Freyja agrees, nodding in her husband's direction (but not looking at him)

"For the good of the battle," Odr says, nodding, and New Man lets the cylinder vanish. 

"Well, I'm glad we all got that out of our systems," Straffer says, nodding to each of them in turn: "If you'd all care to get back to your duties, I think the cooler heads need to talk strategy."

They all leave, after that, other than Odin, Myron, and Straffer, who looks at the former Underman with a newfound respect.

"Ladies Home Journal, huh?" he asks as they walk to the holographic map of the battle plan.

"My mom had a subscription for years," Myron weakly defends himself, putting his hands up in defeat: "And I got bored sometimes, you know...?"

"I'm not judging you, really."

"I just read it for the sex articles, I swear."

"Uh-huh," Straffer winks at him.

"Gentlemen?" Odin asks, gesturing: "Now that we have narrowly escaped one cataclysm, I think we would do well to plan our next."

"Oh, now you're helping?" Myron scowls as he walks up beside him: "Fat lot of good you were back there." 

"What I did, and did not do? I did as a mark of respect to you," the Lord of the Aesir explains, putting a fatherly hand on Myron's shoulder: "To lead, you must command. If I had led, just now, you would not command those two, nor my Aesir. You would be forever in my shadow. 

"But by remaining silent as you dealt with the problem? I showed that you, my friend, are the one who leads here. And after how well you put those two in their place? Well... I would be proud to follow you to the frozen gates of Hel, my friend."

"Oh," Myron says, nodding: "Yeah. Okay. Thanks." 

"Twas the least I could do, truly," Odin says, winking his one good eye.

"Well then," Straffer says, calling up the areas of approach on the Lunar Planum: "Shall we decide where Myron is going to lead us, then?"

"Most likely to a hotter version of where Odin wanted to follow me," the former Underman sighs.

Tuesday: 9/13/16

"Wait, you got an interview with... who?" Velma asks over the phone.

"The old man," Randolph Scott says, standing on a bluff overlooking the Standing Rock campsite at night.

"You don't mean..."

"I do, yeah," the outlaw reporter says, looking around at the goings-on down by the fires: "It was pretty !@#$ing revealing."

"Is that good or bad?" the Toon asks.

"Depends on how you look at it," Randolph sighs: "There's gonna be a lot of pissed off activists in the American Indian movement, I'll tell you that for sure. But there's also something more to it. Something almost hopeful."

"I could use some of that," she sighs.

"How bad is it?" he asks: "How are they?"

"Not good," Velma says, quietly: "Helga's having problems walking. Helmut's forgetting things. And Karl is... well..."

"What?"

"He woke up with half his hair gone this morning," she says: "It was grey and thinning last night. This morning... it just fell off."

He grits his teeth and tries to close his eye -- except he can't. All he's got now is the prosthetic, and it doesn't close.

(It's making sleeping interesting, that's for damn sure.)

"I need to be home," he says to her: "I need to be there with them."

"With them."

"With them, with you," he begs: "With what we made. With what we've done."

"What about the truth, though?" she asks him, not without some acid: "It was worth killing for, a couple weeks ago. What's it worth to you now? Don't you owe the story enough to stick around and watch what happens next?"

"Damn it, Velma!" Randolph shouts down the phone: "The truth isn't worth a !@#$ing thing unless there's someone there to hear it! Unless we tell it to each other, and learn something from it, it isn't the truth. It's just a fact. And facts..."

He trails off, thinking of a song he hasn't heard in a long damn time. 

"Facts are just things that happened until someone makes them mean something," she finishes the thought: "And then it's the truth."

"And the truth is that I love you," he says: "And I love our kids. And I love what I do, even if it sometimes drives me to do stupid !@#$-"

"Stop," she says, and he does.

They remain in silence for a while, both waiting for the other to break it. She isn't sure. He doesn't dare.

"If you got on a plane and came here, he'd track you and kill us all," she says.

"I won't get on a plane," he says: "I got connections he can't track. You know that."

"Then get your ass back here," she says: "We need you."

And no sooner does she say that than he's got another burner phone out, and is calling someone he's going to owe one hell of a favor to when all this is over.

Wednesday: 9/14/16

"Well, that wasn't so !@#$ing difficult," SPYGOD says, lighting up another one of the black cigarettes he's convinced are trying to kill him, and looking around what's left of the United Nations Space Service lab.

Everyone who was there is dead, or worse than dead. They stood there and screamed forever as time went mad around them -- aging them forwards, backwards, and sideways at a whim. 

Human skeletons float in the air. Super-aged men and women sprawl across the floor, turned into Methuselahs in the space of seconds. White splotches on the ground indicate where people were brought back to the moment of conception. 

One poor guy -- the only one who tried to stop it, to his credit -- runs the gamut, his body going from sperm to skeleton in one long, painful arc both forwards and backwards. 

All to no avail, sadly. None of them had a hope of stopping what was begun the moment they tried to get into Space Commander's timeship. 

For that, a more powerful ally was needed. 

"Such a terrible thing," Shift says as he holds the thing they came for aloft. It's a large, silver sphere the size of a beach ball -- its skin shifting under the Olympian's touch. 

"Unavoidable," SPYGOD argues: "This started a long !@#$ing time ago, without us. And it's going to keep !@#$ing going on, without us. This !@#$? This is just the part where we finally come in."

"That is true," the Olympian agrees -- his silver mark as featureless as ever: "But I was not referring to what has taken place. That was merely a tragedy.

"This?" he says, holding the ball up a little higher: "This is the terrible thing I speak of, my friend. It is wonderful and horrible. A thing of power and terror."

"Damn straight," the superspy says, looking at what it's done: "You got a way to contain the !@#$ing thing?"

As if to answer, the supergod lowers the ball and, very carefully, brings his hands together as he twists them about, as if turning a lock. As he does, the ball gets smaller, and smaller still, until it's the size of a cantaloupe. 

And then, with that, he opens up a large pocket in the side of his silver suit, and outs the ball into it. The fabric folds around it, and then it's like it was never there at all.

"And now?" SPYGOD asks, wondering how the !@#$ he's going to explain all this to his fiancee the next time they talk. 

Shift doesn't answer. He just looks at SPYGOD, who sighs and nods, knowing full well what the time-traveling being is trying to tell him. 

There is no now, here, anymore than there's a then or a later. There's just this one place where it all meets up -- where the present, past, and future become one another.

And there's just the two of them to make sure it all goes according to the plan -- a plan they can only hope they both understand.

Especially since they're getting it somewhat second-hand from their past/future selves...

Thursday: 9/15/16

"I never want to see this scummy, sad town again," the Candidate says as he gets into his waiting limo -- parked outside a Methodist church in Flint.

"Well, hopefully we won't have to, sir," his campaign manager says: "This was just a one-time thing-"

"The nerve of that lady," he goes on, shaking his head: "They want me to take time to come speak, and when I do, they tell me not to talk about that moron I'm running against?"

"Well," the young man says, not wanting to push the point any further.

"Not good," the Candidate says, not caring to look out the window as they speed away to his next destination: "Not good at all."

"Okay," his manager goes on, deciding to change the subject: "So we fly from Detroit to New York and get that interview with Fallon for the show, tonight. And then it's New Hampshire."

"Fine, fine," the man shrugs, leaning back in his seat: "Should be good. Fallon's a good guy."

"Well, he's promised to give you a fair shake."

"Doesn't matter, really," the Candidate smiles, patting the sigil on his lapel: "Fair, unfair, what can he say about me? Nothing that will matter."

"True, but-"

"And I can do anything I like, you know? I can say anything I like."

"I guess that's true-"

"Yes, it's true. I'm going to be the next President. And if that guy wants to be stupid I'll just deal with him after I get into office."

He smiles at that, thinking of all the people on that lengthy list of people he's planning to deal with. And his campaign manager tries not to swallow too hard -- finally realizing that his client hasn't been joking about that.

Which is when his call phone rings, and he realizes something is wrong when he sees the number.

"Hey man, what's up?" he asks King Whip, knowing he'd never call him unless it was a severe emergency. But as he listens to the voice on the other end, his face falls, and then goes very, very pale.

"What is it?" the Candidate asks, unable to hear the other end of the call.

"Um..." his manager says, shaking as he hands the phone over: "I... I think you better take this call, sir."

"Who is it?"

"It's.. well-"

"Give it," the Candidate insists: "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad."

But then he takes it, and hears what the Penitent has to say.

And he realizes just how bad it can be. 

Friday: 9/16/16

"How, exactly, does one lose a comatose patient?" the Assistant Director of FAUST says, not really amused at the latest turn of events.

"Very !@#$ing carelessly, apparently," SPYGOD says, glad he's got a bunch of his AGENTs around him on the bridge of the Flier. He'd be afraid to face this woman alone, otherwise -- even if it is just a video projection.

"I see. So Mister Freedom is, shall we say, rather ironically named, then?"

"He always was," the superspy says, hoping the joke means the worst part of this conversation is over.

"And now that he is an Olympian, and supposedly the pinnacle of restraint and containment, how does he explain this utter lapse in security?"

"That's just it, Ingrid," SPYGOD says, not daring to drink in front of this stern-faced woman (and desperately needing a !@#$ing slug right about now): "He !@#$ing can't. It's like it was with the President's daughter and that guy you all sent over. One minute everything was fine..."

"And the next, she's wearing his face out like a mask."

"Yeah. Only this time, one minute the damn bed was full, and the next it was !@#$ing empty."

"Nothing on camera, and no one saw anything?"

"The damn life signs monitors didn't even !@#$ing go off. It's like they thought the poor guy was there, too."

She nods, and considers that: "There are any number of meta-humans who could engineer such a feat, I suppose."

"We're !@#$ing running them down. We just need a motive."

"Revenge for Moscow?"

"Possibly, though it's my understanding the bastard that was riding him wasn't really on their side at the damn time."

"No," she smiles: "I suppose not."

"Well, I'll get back to you as soon as I know more."

"Oh, I expect you will," the temporary head of FAUST says, pointing a finger at him: "And you tell that lazy-eyed fool who looked after my man that I am keeping a very close eye upon his failures. At some point I am going to have to stop looking upon this as incompetence, and instead call it collusion."

"On that day, I'll !@#$ing drag his ass in myself," SPYGOD says: "You know I will."

She looks at him with something approaching surprise, and then shuts off transmission without so much as an other word.

"Well, !@#$," the superspy mutters, realizing he's really put a goose into the shark tank now. 

Saturday: 9/17/16

MISSION REPORT
AGENT (REDACTED)
TIMEFRAME 09/10/16
OPERATION ERASER 

There are times when I have to wonder if the reason we're mind-wiped after each mission isn't necessarily to protect us from going mad due to minor changes to the timeline, but rather because the irony of our actions has to be thick enough to spread on toast.

Case in point: to save my life, and maintain the mission, I just simultaneously created and destroyed the Wandering Shadow.

Yes, you have heard that correctly. It turns out that, while he was more skilled at temporal combat that I may ever be, he never had any safeguards. Killing him was only a matter of time, if you'll excuse the turn of phrase...

*coughs*

Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning.

I decided to take advantage of a lull in my observation of the primary subject of OPERATION ERASER and look into the 2016 assassination of the Japanese Prime Minister, at the Rio Olympics. The true culprit was never ascertained, as we know, as there was a lot more pressing business going on at the time.

However, the subject, (REDACTED), was convinced that the murder weapon had to be Hǫfuð, given the ballistics involved. At the time, the weapon was known to be in the hands of his Alter-Earth doppelganger, (DETCADER), which would indicate that he was the culprit.

However, the subject was uncertain of this. The act lacked his doppelganger's usual mad poetry, as he put it. I had to agree, so I decided to take advantage of Hǫfuð's presence, on my person, to look into the matter.

I tracked the real murderer to the central domicile of the legendary Wandering Shadow, only to find a dead NGUVU agent, known as Khalil. You might remember him as being one of the subject's suprspy contemporaries, notably active in the run-up to the so-called Reclamation War, and then occasionally useful afterwards.

Following a failed romance with Skyspear, he fell of the grid, and not even his fellows could locate him. I can now confirm that he had been working with the Wandering Shadow for some time, following the end of his relationship with the teleporter. I can also confirm that he died here, at the hands of the Wandering Shadow, either before or after being dismantled, for want of a better word.

I'm not entirely certain how this could have happened, but somehow (DETCADER) used his so-called Eye of Horus on the Wandering Shadow, and flipped his brainwaves to match those of someone from Alter Earth. This turned him into a sadist, a voyeur, and a cannibal -- terrible traits for someone with time manipulation powers to have,

But the Alter-Earth AGENT did an even worse thing. He gave the man Hǫfuð, and talked him into using it to cause chaos and panic on a global scale. Gods alone know what might have happened if I hadn't blundered into him at home, and been forced to defend myself.

And yes, I am calling all this an act of self-defense. I was temporally shielded the entire time. He saw right through it, as though I wasn't so much as a second out of sync. He attacked me from behind, and confirmed that he had killed and partially eaten Khalil.

And as soon as he realized that I had the same weapon he did, just 28 or so years older than his, he went berserk.

No, he didn't try and shoot me. He somehow knew the same thing that I did, that him firing at the wielder of the same weapon would create a paradox that would destroy both weapons, to say nothing of ourselves. So he just tried to punch me backwards and forwards along my own timeline, hoping to send me to its end, or murder me at its beginning...

As I said, he was very skilled at temporal combat. He almost got the drop on me about three instances in the first two seconds of perceived timeflow. However, once my suit analyzed the pattern of his attacks, we were able to formulate an effective countermeasure, and match him blow for blow, dodge for dodge.

Not that it wasn't painful. It was like fighting a stone mountain that decided to shake itself to pieces on top of me. And as we danced about one another, with me blocking his every attempt to harm or erase my past, he fought bravely to prevent me from doing the same to him. Bravely and expertly, I must say. If I hadn't possessed the safeguards I did...

*pause*

The enormity of my action didn't strike me until I was standing over his badly-pulverized body, breathing his last within sight of his teenage self. In that instant, a connection was made between past and present, and all that time energy was sent right into his younger body.

All I could do was watch it happen, and then close the loop with extreme prejudice before things got any worse -- killing his adult time-aspect with a blow to the third eye Chakra, not quite driving his nose back into his corrupted brains. 

Thankfully he'd dropped Hǫfuð on the ground of his cavern before we began to truly fight, so I didn't have to risk the paradox associated with holding onto two temporal slices of the same thing. As of now I've secured it, here, thus ensuring it'll be found by the right people at the right time, between this timeframe and our own.

Which means I've taken one of the most dangerous weapons in the world off the board, until we take control of it in about 24 years. Which would be very satisfying if it hadn't come at such a cost.

We never really knew what happened to this amazing man. He cast a long, deep shadow across the 20th century, and then just vanished, leaving no successor. We'd all assumed he'd gone down fighting some ultimate foe in some unseen battle, blessedly raging just beyond or beneath the world's ability to see.

But no. He died because a monster turned him, and then I came across him while satisfying my curiosity after I got bored and went off mission.

I understand the need for the mind wipes. But this time, I'm actually kind of glad I'll be forgetting this when I get back. I don't know that I'll be happy knowing I did what had to be done, but only because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"When I get back," I just said. More like if I get back. Let's not forget that.

The combat took several days of elapsed time, even if it only felt like minutes. I'm tired and my chronal batteries need recharging. I will get back on Operation Eraser within a reasonable amount of time.

But right now I just want to lie here, and pretend I didn't just have to perform two-fisted euthanasia on a man more remarkable and honorable than I may ever be.

REPORT ENDS

Sunday: 9/18/16

"What are you doing?" Freyja asks, coming around to the side of Odr, who's kneeling prostrate upon a towel on the far end of Naglfar's stern, and muttering to himself.

"Praying, my wife," the man in the woman's body says, rearing back up: "Earth is that direction, and so is Mecca. So I pray."

"You... pray?" the shield maiden of the Aesir says, incredulous: "To whom does a God pray? Have you gone addled at long last?"

"I pray to the one who created us, my wife," the Vanir says, putting his hands on his borrowed hips and turning to look at her: "The source of all power and matter. The one who created Man from a blood clot, and gave him a soul. And that soul gave him belief, and thereby created us."

She looks at him with some mixture of confusion and pity: "Odr... I know something of being in a body not well suited to our true nature. I fear your time in this woman's frame has confused you."

"Perhaps," Odr says, nodding: "It is a melding of souls, in many ways. I am not as accustomed to it as you have been. And perhaps the circumstances of our joining have affected my views."

"How so?"

"When I found her, she had just been condemned to die in the cold of the void between worlds," he explains: "She had never been in such a situation, before. And in such a time, her mind turned to Allah, whom she scorned and had turned her back upon long ago. She remembered the certainty she felt as a child, and the comfort such faith provided. 

"In that moment, I came upon her. I made her my offer, both to speed my journey to you and to save her life. And in that moment, many things within her mind came together."

"And so you would worship their God?" She asks, somewhat offended by the notion.

"I would, if you would permit me," he smiles at her: "But I am glad you are at last willing to speak with me, rather than strike at me. Perhaps the tide of our battle has turned?"

She looks at him again, and shakes her head: "The true battle begins in but a few days. I have sworn to the All Father to put all my strength into that. And that means that, for the time, you and I must be as one, as allies.

"After that..."

She pats the pommel of her sword, and raises an eyebrow. Odr nods, sadly, and turns back to Earth to pray.

And the stars roll on above them -- perhaps uncaring, perhaps not. 

* * * 

"I... I don't know what to say..." Syphon says, putting her hands over her mouth as she shakes her head: "This is... it can't be happening-"

"My son is gone," Martha Clutch says, doing her best to not let her fists talk for her, the way she's been wanting them too since she first crossed paths with this irritating Olympian.

"I see that...." the large woman says, looking over stacks of paper and things on her office desk, as if the answer were there: "But that can't be possible-"

"I closed my eyes to go to sleep," the heroine says, stepping closer to the desk: "When I opened them, he wasn't in the chair. He was gone."

"I can check... I mean, I'm sure we can find him..."

"Save it!" Martha shouts, knocking all the handy stacks of paper off the woman's desk with a swift kick: "What are you hiding?"

"Hiding...?"

"You told me he'd be awake in a few days," the Owl insists, pointing a finger at the zaftig Olympian: "I've been there for weeks, waiting. And you keep saying he'll come out any day. And I keep waiting.

"And now..." she puts her hands over her face, and then puts them down at her sides: "And now he's gone, and you can't explain a damn thing to me."

"He's... he's got to be somewhere-"

"You don't want me to see the security tapes," Martha suddenly realizes.

"No, it's not that-"

"Yes it is," the Owl says, stepping closer: "You'd have offered me a look right away, otherwise."

The Olympian looks at her, and her face falls. She's been caught.

"What haven't you been telling me?" Martha shouts: "Where is my son? Where is Thomas!?!"

* * *

"How..." the alter-Earther starts to ask, holding his bleeding nose: "How... did you..."

"An excellent question," the man who just abducted him from his slaughter-safari says, giving him a lightning-swift punch to the kidneys before he can get his wind back: "But not, perhaps, the question you should be asking."

"I'll fucking... fuck you..." SPYGOD's doppelganger hisses, going down on his knees and wondering where his nearest knife is.

"No doubt you would," his assailant says, stepping well clear of the man's arm-range: "And even worse, in fact. I have seen your handiwork, sir. Especially what you and your servants were doing when I found you. Not a pretty sight."

"It's not like this fucking world is going to miss a few more idle rich," his 'guest' sneers: "Do you know how much they paid me to shoot that damn rhino?" 

"I do, yes. But I suspect your tour brochure did not include your letting the rhino stomp them to death, before you killed and cooked it yourself," the man chuckles: "That being after you and your servants had your way with your clients, in several senses of the word."

"What... what do you fucking want?" the damaged man says, looking around the square and featureless room he's been transported to for some kind of weapon, or advantage. 

"Many things, in fact," his host says, making an ornate, wooden chair appear from seemingly nowhere, and dropping it down between his guest and himself -- straddling his legs around the back of it: "To take you from your current playing board, and minimize the damage you do to this world by merely existing within its confines. To place you onto my playing board, in turn, so as to secure your unique services for things to come." 

"My services?" the SPYGOD of Alter-Earth says, judging that he can raise himself up on his knees to look his captor in the face, instead of his feet: "You could have just fucking asked. I'm flexible."

"Yes, but then you would inevitably betray me," his captor says, grinning ear to ear: "This is your nature, as it is mine."

"Who says I won't, now?" 

"Because you have something to gain from this," the man goes on, pointing a finger at him: "You spoke of a way to kill gods, my servant. I would have this magic for myself. I would be the one who decides who dies and who lives, and then only at my sufferance."

"How do you know..." the counter-world man says, rubbing his nose -- enjoying the pain that is his alone to give. 

"Because Loki Laufeyson of the Aesir knows many things," the god wearing the body of Thomas Samuels says: "And I know that it would be a good thing for these gods to be dead or suborned ere my father returns to the world..."

And as he smiles...

* * *

... Randolph Scott cries with helplessness as his son, Helmut, dies in bed from a disease that should only take the aged and infirm... 

... SPYGOD takes the news with a lot more stoicism than he should, and wonders why he's suddenly so uncaring about something so damned tragic...

... Straffer, Myron, and Odin make their battle plans a final thing, all wondering if this will be the last they all stand together as one...

... as Freedom Party Candidate Ted Cruz stands nearby, wondering if the grace he feels watching this moment is God's hand in his life, or the calm of the condemned...

... and the Candidate wonders if the dead body he found in Detroit -- what little remained of King Whip -- means this election is lost, or his administration saved...

... while the American people are shocked and scared by the image of the Great Spirit, himself, and what he had to say in the interview going viral on THIS IS BULL!@#$'s website, right now...

... and Shift, knowing more than he can ever say, casts aside a useless tear as he puts the future and past together, once more...

* * *

... and the Alter-Earth SPYGOD -- so long used to no longer being anyone's slave -- bows and scrapes before a God, of all things, and promises that one day he will avenge this gravest of insults.

But not before he finally gets the one thing he's wanted to do since this whole, protracted mess of a mission began. 

A thing that this God has claimed he will, at last, let him do.  

Kill SPYGOD.

 (SPYGOD is listening to Fuel (Front 242) and having an Abandon Ship )

Valhallopolis: 6/20/16 - 6/26/16

"I will walk into a court while erect / screaming "Yes! I am Guilty, Mother!@#$ers. I am Death!"

(What Rough Beast, Come Round at Last)

(Art by the Lemonade Project)

* * *

14

* * *

"Somehow, I don't !@#$ing think we're in Kansas, anymore," SPYGOD says, turning up his collar to the harsh cold and wind of the world that he and Chinmoku have just appeared in.

"That seems readily apparent," the tall, Asian man says, adjusting his black, round glasses as he looks around the utterly white landscape.

They stand ankle-deep in show in a field that seems to go on for quite some distance. Beyond that field is a large and timeless forest, filled with pine trees as tall as castles. Beyond them are impossibly large mountains, seeming as large as worlds.

And here and there, lit up in spaces within the storm, mighty castles made from impossible materials...

"This is... Valhalla?" Chinmoku asks.

"If we !@#$ing got sent to the right damn place, then yeah," the superspy replies, adjusting his own glasses -- for all the damn good it does him -- and cocking his ears to listen for any noises hidden within the wind.

And he does not like what he hears. 

"If we do not move, we will be set upon," Chinmoku says, perhaps stating the obvious.

"Yeah," SPYGOD says, creating a pair of very short, very heavy swords -- one in each hand -- and starting to trudge forward through the deep snow: "Either that or !@#$ing freeze to death."

"I would prefer to die quickly," the Kung Fu master chuckles: "But something tells me that I do not die here and now."

"Good for you, then," the superspy grumbles, looking ahead into the grey, snowy wind -- trying to see if the tall, imposing mountains above the treeline are their destination, or just another damn horizon to aim for. 

Because they're going to have to get to where they're going the hard way...

* * *

It sounded simple -- in theory, anyway. 

All SPYGOD had to do was go back to where the Aesir came from, and see if he could get some help from any beings that had been left behind, there. He was hoping for Odin, but frankly he'd settle for anyone at this point. So long as they could talk some sense to the beings that had taken Moscow, he'd call it good. 

As for getting there, he knew he had to go back to the Beehive. He also knew he had to hope no one had messed with it in the meantime, so he could just go back to the last place it had been aimed at. Because trying to figure out its controls was something he didn't have !@#$ing time for, right now.

Not with the world about to end and all, thanks to the Aesir's savaging of fortune, the goddamn Antichrist Godzilla-stomping around Eastern Russia, and more 8-Balls on the !@#$ing way...

He also knew he'd need a lot of death-based energy, because that was what the infernal thing ran out. It was how those commies in SQUASH had used it, before. It was also how Odal had used it, this time, if he'd understood the sequence of events in Moscow correctly. 

Lucky for him, he knew someone who could get him death energy to spare. Luckier still, he was still able to call Tombo up, using her calling card, and get her to agree to meet him in the Beehive that day. 

Unfortunately, the timing was more than a little off. 

Tombo was always saying that time went !@#$ing weird in the land of the dead, and she was damn right about that. He'd had situations happen before where he'd talked to her about something, only to find out they'd already had the conversation, before. Which meant that, at some point, he'd be having another conversation about that very same something, but it would be the first time she'd ever heard of it. 

Well, he'd called her up again when he got to the Beehive. Only this time he didn't talk to the same Tombo he'd conversed with the other morning in Washington DC, after his meeting with the Interim President and what remained of his Cabinet. This time, he was talking to the Tombo he'd sent into the deepest parts of the Deadlands -- off with Chinmoku and Doctor Power, in search of information on the Decreator from the oldest of the dead gods down there. 

Of course, after everything that had happened, he didn't remember any of that. All he knew was that he needed what she could do for him, and she wasn't !@#$ing prepared for it. She did, however, have an ally he could use, along for the ride. 

And given that he was already dead in the here and now, well, wasn't that just perfect?

She she'd done her thing, Tombo had. She summoned up enough death energy to activate the Beehive, and open a portal to the last place the mechanism was aimed at -- the afterlife of the Norse gods, nestled in some weird, frozen corner of Godspace. 

She channeled it all through the sorry remnants of the necromancer her future self had abducted from Detroit. It really couldn't have done that poor !@#$ any favors, but to hear everyone talk she'd had it coming, and then some. So SPYGOD didn't really give two tugs on a dead horse's dong what happened to her. 

What he did care about was the fact that, while she could piggyback the spell the machine created, she couldn't really recreate it. Which meant she could get SPYGOD and Chinmoku to Valhalla, but not in the same way the others had gone. 

Which meant they couldn't travel at the speed of thought -- appearing exactly where they intended to be, right away. Which meant they'd have to find the great hall of the Aesir, themselves, and travel however far it took to get there. 

Which also meant they'd have to deal with whatever !@#$ed-up things were laying in wait, between their landing place and the hall in question. 

And that meant that SPYGOD had really underpacked for the journey...

* * *

Running, now, and without looking back. 

Whatever the !@#$ was behind them is gaining. They're sure of that, just as they're sure that SPYGOD's shooting blindly into the white, whipping snow-wind behind them had either not hit it, or just made it !@#$ing mad. 

"We should stand and fight," Chinmoku opines, but he's clearly in no hurry to do either.

"We should run like !@#$ing !@#$!" SPYGOD insists, pointing ahead to something dark. Is it a cave? A chasm? Either has to be better than all this plain, level white. 

It breathes down their backs, practically. The smell is ungodly -- curdled milk and rotten meat, like the rank stink of a dog's breath.

(Is that what's harrying them, then? A giant !@#$ing dog?)

The dark hole comes closer still. It's a cave of some sort. Smaller than they thought, but that might just be perfect. 

They look to one another, and the decision is made. They take two long strides, and then, as one, bow and dive into the blackness ahead of them. 

Wet rocks. A horrible, dull smell. Blackness -- slight and then absolute. 

And the feeling of hitting every single hard and jagged surface on the way down...

* * *

When SPYGOD comes to, it's to a world of pain -- total, sharp, and roaring. 

He feels like every piece of him has been either battered or sliced. He can tell that there's broken bones, healing under his skin, as well as cuts knitting themselves together. 

He can also tell they're deep down in the cave. It's warm and humid, and he can actually see the walls. Phosphorescent fungi, maybe. Or !@#$ing radioactive rocks, which is the last damn thing he needs...

Where's Chinmoku? Oh, he's up ahead. He can see him, there, in the lime half-light given off by the rocks. A blur of white motion, there -- punching, kicking, sliding, breaking...

Fighting, though what he's defending himself from isn't easy to see.

"Well, !@#$ me in the ass with a stalactite," SPYGOD mutters, realizing his jaw his just over getting broken. He gets to his feet like a damn drunk, hoping his legs have healed up enough to walk right. 

And then he's forming swords, and joining in the fight against whatever his companion is dealing with. 

"They tried to eat us as you slept," the tall, Japanese man explains, driving his open palm into the grimy, iron helmet of something that seems as much dwarf as rat, and then sending one, two, three more reeling with well-timed kicks.

"How long was I !@#$ing out?" SPYGOD asks, slicing another rat-dwarf-thing into rough, spurting quarters before moving on to the next, and the next.

"Not long," Chinmoku answers, calm as ever: "Perhaps an hour. Perhaps two."

"We don't !@#$ing have time for me to be snoozing for a goddamn hour or two!" the superspy shouts, continuing to kill their attackers, one after another, and wondering what the exit strategy is.

"Relax, friend," the Kung Fu master says, executing some move that should be anatomically impossible, but kills half of the mob attacking them in one swoop: "Time moves differently in Godspace. We may have been gone for a minute. We may come back in a year. We have no way of knowing until we arrive."

"Well, that doesn't !@#$ing fill me with a damn ton of !@#$ing confidence..." the superspy grumbles, deciding not to be shown up by Chinmoku -- even if he is the only living practitioner of Hungry Ghost Kung Fu -- and creating a literal tree of blades from his hands, killing all the assailants on his side. 

"It is not supposed to," Chinmoku counsels, deftly finishing off the last one of his: "I am merely saying that we cannot worry about being too slow, as being too fast will not help. We need only do what we have come to do, and hope that we return in time to be of use."

"I really don't !@#$ing like operating like that."

"I know. But unless you brought some device that allows us to control the flow of time, what we like and do not like has very little bearing on the situation."

"Well, alright then," SPYGOD says, after a moment. He collapses the tree of blades back into his hands, leaving the dead to fall to the ground. 

And then, carefully, they try to feel and sight their way out of the cavern they've just turned into a slaughterhouse. 

* * *

How long are they down there, in the half-lit dark? How many more fights do they struggle through, against these strange, half-rats? How many more lives do they take to survive?

They don't know. After a point they stop counting. They stop talking. They only move, and fight, and kill, and pray they're actually going up, instead of further down into the wet, warm depths of this world. 

On the way, they begin to encounter things other than rude, wet caves. They walk through rooms that have been hewn from the living rock. They feel their way along expertly-carved surfaces -- walls and ceilings made smooth, and decorated with repeated motifs.

What were these rooms made for, and for who? The rat things they've been fighting? Other creatures, or beings? Or did those beings eventually become these rat things, over the ages?

As they puzzle over that, they realize things are getting colder, and lighter. Before long they can actually see, and then they know they're on their way to the surface. 

And in a sudden burst of white light, they come out into a wide, tall cavern mouth -- one studded with crumbled, ancient structures much like the one exit from.

One peopled with legions of the scrabbling rat-things, clearly unhappy that something other than themselves has appeared directly behind them.

In the light, he can see them clearly. They walk like men, but hold their paws like rats. They wear armor that is old and rusted, as though it were found in a trash heap. Some of them carry weapons, but the swords and spears were clearly made for hands, and not paws.

And all of them have red, angry eyes, and very long, jagged incisors -- all wide open, and in their direction.

"Well, !@#$,"  SPYGOD grumbles, looking at Chinmoku. They're both coated in blood -- their own, and that of countless others -- dirty, grimy, and very tired. 

But the only way out, it seems, is through. 

Which is when they raise their hands, once more. And when the hordes of rat things hiss as one and run towards them.

And when a bright burst of snow-wind turns the entire cavern stark white, and they can both no longer see a damn thing...

* * *

A warm drink. Somewhere between wine and honey. Spiced and strong. 

SPYGOD's drinking it. It doesn't know how, anymore than he knows how he got by this fire, or in these warm furs. 

The cup is metal. Brass, he thinks. Expertly carved in a style that reminds him of old, Norse carvings he'd seen in a museum, once or twice. 

He sips the drink. It's better than anything he's ever had -- even without having had to fight for his life for the last day or so, down in the caves. 

"So, if I may make short of your long tale," the person tending the fire says, tapping he roaring flames with the butt end of a heavy, blackened spear: "You were chased by hungry Garm into the cave of the Ratdvergr, where you did somehow survive against those crawling beasts for what may have been a day and a night, or longer. Would I have these words correct, stranger?"

"Yeah," SPYGOD says, grinning as he drinks more of whatever this is, and wondering why he can't see anything but blackness beyond the fire -- or make out his new companion's facial features: "That's about !@#$ing right. I just didn't know what the hell chased us..."

"A perceptive man, you are, then," the stranger says: "For indeed, the dog was of Hel."

"You don't say?"

"Ah, but I do. The beast was left hungry when its mistress took her leave to Midgard, along with the others. I suspect it loosed its mighty chain to seek food upon the plain. Had you and your friend not blundered into the cave of the Ratdvergr, you may well have been its meal."

"Thank !@#$ for caves, then," SPYGOD says, wondering why the cup isn't empty, yet. How long has he been drinking...?

"But another part of your tale has me curious, traveler," the stranger goes on: "The one who came with you. The dead man who walks. He says that you seek the hall of the Aesir?"

"Yeah," SPYGOD nods, having two more hits of the stuff in due course: "We gotta !@#$ing find Odin. See if we can get him to come back to Earth with us. Talk some !@#$ing sense into those guys. Tell them to stop !@#$ing with luck, go back where they came from."

The stranger considers this for a time, and then nods: "The cup, stranger. I would have it back."

"Yeah, I guess I bogarted this !@#$ enough," the superspy grins, handing it back. 

The second he does, he stops smiling. The happy, warm drunk he'd been feeling is gone. All that's left is the fact that he's naked under the furs, baked by the fire. 

And sitting in the presence of the most perfect and beautiful man he's ever seen.

He's tall, pale-skinned, and well-boned, this man. His mustache comes down to his breasts and his eyes are as blue as the underside of an iceberg. His hair is golden brown, straight, and pulled back into a very handsome, well-knotted tail.

And his neck is adorned with a cord, knotted with gold teardrops.

"So you seek the hall of the Aesir," the man says, putting the cup down and handing SPYGOD a wine skin. It's full of water, and suddenly the superspy realizes just how badly he needs some.

"We do, yeah," SPYGOD says, downing the skin in one massive, heavy squirt: "I know you don't !@#$ing know us, or anything. But we'd be massively obliged if you could tell us where to go."

"Tell you?" the man chuckles: "Why, friend, I think I should show you, else you will doubtless become food for Garm, or else be frozen by the winds ere you get there. This world is not kind to mortals. It is barely hospitable to the likes of we."

"And who are you?" the superspy asks, wondering about a few things, now.

"One who knows you to be telling the truth," the stranger says, tapping the brass cup -- now filled with wine, again: "And one also who wishes the Aesir home. As our interests are as one, there is no reason I should not help you."

"Do you have a name?"

"I do, aye," the man says, smiling just a little, and then leaving the fireside without giving it.

SPYGOD holds the wineskin up, somehow not surprised to see it's filled itself once more. He has another full blast of the sweet, lukewarm water inside, and then another.

And then, against all reason, he lets himself sleep in the furs, by the fire -- somehow knowing he can trust this handsome man, here in the dark.

* * *

"So what happened, then?" SPYGOD asks between bites -- eagerly tearing into the tender, aromatic goat meat that their host provided them for breakfast.

"We found the oldest of the old gods, down there," Chinmoku says, deftly tucking into the meat with the same gusto, but somehow maintaining some semblance of decorum: "It was a reptile of some kind, that much was certain. Its shape was... fluid. It was every dinosaur I have ever seen a picture of, and yet none of them."

"That's !@#$ing odd," SPYGOD opines, grinning a little: "Was it having a gods-damned personality crisis or something?"

"Doctor Power claimed it was the Ur-God of the dinosaurs, and was affected by their memories of themselves," the martial artist goes on, either not getting the joke or not caring to respond as expected: "Tombo said it had been down there for so long that it had forgotten its original form. I suspect the truth is somewhere in-between."

"But it hadn't !@#$ing forgotten the !@#$ing Decreator," SPYGOD says, having a heavy hit of some weird bark tea -- something with twice the power of espresso. 

"No," the Japanese man says, looking over his dark glasses: "It remembered that very well."

They had both woken up around the fire, and were gently ushered out of that darkness into the light of a well-appointed hall made of the hulls of wrecked ships.The place stank of goats, and every so often a tall, well-fed beast would run into and then out of the hall, quickly corralled by the children.

The people who tended to them were simple and kindly folk with long, red hair and a notable girth. They clearly liked to laugh and to eat, as they did a lot of it. They did, however, always keep one hand upon their sword.

(And one eye upon their guests.)

"So you found out what I needed," SPYGOD says: "If I remember my files right, it was that the Chandra Eye was from the Decreator?"

"Yes," Chinmoku says: "This god remembered them falling from the sky. They gathered them to use against its creatures, and realized it could also be used against it. But by that time it was too late, and the beast had eaten its fill."

"And then it !@#$ed off back to the stars."

"Yes, but they knew it would one day come again."

"And I !@#$ing killed it," SPYGOD grumbles: "Only not !@#$ing hard enough."

"It would seem not, from what you have said," the only living master of Hungry Ghost Kung Fu says, having some more of the strong tea: "But I suppose this will not be my problem, as I am dead, now."

"Yes," SPYGOD admits, not seeing a reason to lie: "Do you need to know details?"

"I do not," Chinmoku says, smiling a little: "The first thing I ever did to walk this path was to see the moment of my death, clear and without distraction. I saw my end, and accepted it, knowing that this meant that I could not fail in any endeavor until that moment. And even in death I still succeed, for in so accepting, and understanding, I was judged worthy."

"Well," SPYGOD says, not sure what else to say. He's rather !@#$ing impressed, all of a sudden. 

(And from him? That's saying something.)

"You need not worry about Doctor Power," the Japanese man goes on, having some more of the tea: "He was... disposed of, as you requested."

"Painfully?"

"In a sense, yes," Chinmoku says: "He behaved as he has always behaved, and it was his undoing. He sought more power to be able to hold off those he had bargained power from before. And it worked, but it came with a price he did not expect."

"So... what? Is he gone?"

Chinmoku smiles, taking some more of his tea: "What happened is a thing neither I nor Tombo will speak of. But you may be assured that he will do no more harm to any, given where he has to remain. And he will have an eternity to consider the foolishness of his actions, there."

"That's not as good as !@#$ing dead."

The Japanese man shrugs, and puts down his tea: "Sometimes even the dead will come back to haunt you."

SPYGOD thinks, then nods -- slowly -- and puts his tea mug down: "Was Tombo alright with it?"

"She, like you, was in favor of a more stringent penalty. But as events unfolded she came to understand he was given exactly what he deserved. Unfortunately, three can make the journey easier than two, and we quickly became lost on the return. So it was very fortunate you called upon the wrong version of her."

"Damn straight," the superspy says: "Speaking of which. What do you make of our host?"

"He spoke to me first, as you know," Chinmoku says, finding the choicest piece of meat that remains on his bone, and quickly eating it. 

"Yes. And?"

"I had no reason to lie to him. I told him everything, without need of his special cup of wine. He was wise to be cautious, of course, which is why he spoke to you, and used that wine."

"Crafty !@#$er, huh?" SPYGOD says, looking around to make sure the man in question isn't nearby, listening.

"Yes, but I sense no deception in him. Only the guile one learns to live in such a world as this."

"You got that !@#$ing right," SPYGOD says, roughly tearing into what's left of his portion of the meat: "Mythology wasn't really my damn specialty. I got experts for that kind of !@#$. But I knew Thor, back during the war. I remember the stories he used to !@#$ing tell, late at night. Seems like everyone was pulling a big damn fast one on each other."

"And fate alone carried the day," Chinmoku chuckles: "A lesson for us all, I should think."

He smiles at that, and sips his tea. If he cares to elaborate, he does not.

* * *

"It will be a few days' travel on foot," their host tells them, helping SPYGOD put on a set of heavy, fur-lined armor as his many helpers bring out supplies for the journey: "Which is why we three shall be doing something different. No offense to you, but I doubt you would last a half a day in this storm."

"Is this normal?" Chinmoku asks, politely refusing the same armor -- and getting very strange looks from his hosts.

"If you mean snow and wind and frost and ice?" the stranger says, smiling: "Then yes, friend. It is. But it has worsened of late, given what has taken place."

"What's that, exactly?" SPYGOD asks, taking the sword and axe they gave him, even though he really doesn't need either.

"I fear I must now dash your hopes upon the stones, my friend," the man says, looking sadly towards the door of the hall -- shaking on its hinges from the hard and bitter wind outside: "You have come to find Odin, but he is no longer here to be found."

"Wait, what?" SPYGOD almost shouts: "Odin... he's !@#$ing dead?"

"Aye, that he is," their host goes on, turning to look at his now-incensed guest: "And with his passing, the natural order has broken down. The wind has become as swift and hungry as the Hel-hound you barely escaped, the snow thicker and deeper, and things that should remain below that snow have become bold enough to crawl to the surface, as you have seen."

"When shall the season change?" Chinmoku asks, adjusting his robe -- seemingly ready to go back out into the cold -- and not too surprised to hear this news.

"Not until the coming of the Wolf-Time," their host says: "And if what you tell me is true, then that time is now upon us. And we shall all fall before Fenris as he rages across the sky."

Their host looks sad for a moment more, and then smiles -- big, perfect teeth: "But that day is not today, I think. And we have many more deeds to be done before then."

* * *

'Something different' is a snow chariot, made from the once-proud prow of a raiding ship, and hauled through the snow by somewhere between ten and twenty of the largest, most muscular goats SPYGOD has ever seen. 

He laughed at first, but once it started going he stopped. The chariot somehow even outraces the wind, and turns the landscape into a blur of white, black, and green. It quickly spirits them away from the hall -- just up the shore from a frozen sea, dotted with cracked and rotting ships -- and towards the destination their host has in mind.

"We shall make the hall of the Aesir well before nightfall," he says, turning the chariot slightly to the right to avoid an obstacle that is far off when he starts to turn, and then upon them a second later: "Once there, you must fend for yourselves. I am not permitted to enter."

"I understand," SPYGOD says, wondering how they can hear each other over the crazy, whipping wind: "Thanks a lot for this. You have totally saved our !@#$ing asses."

"I have, yes," the stranger replies: "I am only sorry that the man you have traveled here to see is no longer here to be seen."

"Well, there's gotta be someone else, there," the superspy says: "Someone else I can !@#$ing convince to come back and get the Aesir to leave."

"Mayhap there is," the man says: "But I fear you may be disappointed further still ere this trip is over."

"Then why help us?" Chinmoku asks.

"Because I feel you are good of heart, or at least well of intention," their hosts answers: "And, if I am being completely honest, my friends? I now believe that you were put before my path for a reason. And in that, I think you may return the favor before long."

"That is the !@#$ing plan, yes-"

"Look!" Chinmoku says, pointing far ahead of them -- something in the white winds that only he can see, at the moment. 

And then they all do. 

And then their host screams -- in anger and surprise -- and just barely turns the chariot in time to avoid the giant, blue foot that's about to step just where they were about to be. 

* * *

As their host explains later (much, much later) the blue giants are called the Jotnar -- the Frost Giants of Earthly legend, and magical fact. 

Most of the time they are confined to their icy home world of Jotunheim, further down the World Tree -- barred from leaving it, both by magics old and hoary, and the threat of the Aesir raining fire down upon them. But with the passing of Odin, and the Aesir's leaving for Midgard, the massive creatures are free to ravage the world once more. 

This, then, is the true reason for the worsening of the winter. For the Frost Giants have brought their cold with them, and stumble through the plains and mountains in search of prey and sport, now that the Aesir are no longer there to provide them with either. 

He might have told them that at the time, but they had the very bad fortune to encounter an entire group of those giants -- all of them some three hundred feet tall. It was only by the grace of Chinmoku's eyes, and his steering, that they were able to swerve around each and every footfall, and then the heavy, tree-wide spears the creatures launched after them. 

Even now, two hours later, they must go from side to side so as to avoid being struck by one of those spears. 

Even now, two hours later, they must work the goats near to death to stay well ahead of the giants, who pursue them still through the seemingly-endless white waste, whose dark horizon of ancient trees seems no nearer now than when they started. 

"I really should have brought a !@#$ing gun," SPYGOD grumbles as they veer hard to the left, yet again -- just managing to avoid yet another spear as it lands almost ahead of them. 

"If you refer to one of your loud, Midgard weapons?" their host asks -- his face somewhere between a sneer and a laugh: "I fear it would do you no good, friend."

"Oh, you haven't seen some of the !@#$ing guns I have."

"Big or small, it would avail you not," the stranger explains: "Their breath brings the cold, and their skin the snow. The things you fire upon them will either lose their way to the target, or shatter ere they got there."

SPYGOD looks rather dejected at that, and their host laughs, apparently very amused by the fact that they might die at any second. 

But somehow the goats do not die, and the spears do not hit them.

And somehow, the dark horizon that seemed to be no nearer a mere minute before is now looming tall before them. 

And into that dark they go, down a thin, white road of tightly-packed snow.

* * *

The forest brings its own dangers, in time. They learn to duck when they hear the sound of an arrow whipping towards them. They duck down even further when their stranger does, knowing he can somehow tell the presence of a thin, brass wire, stretched between trees and ready to take off their head. 

Goblins of some kind, he explains. They lay tricks and traps for the unwary, always hoping to get a meal. In times past this road would be well-patrolled, and goblins nailed alive to the trees as warning to the others.

In times past, he says, sadly. But then grins once more.

On their way they see more wonders. A castle made of ice as blue as a sky. A keep made of cast iron, and burning hot to the touch. The bones of dragons and giants lashed together to make war engines, broken and abandoned by the side of the road as their long-vanished armies retreated. 

And then, at long last, the great hall of the Aesir -- beetling magnificently upon a hill, surrounded by palisades and walls of stout tree, stone, and bone. 

"Inside, friends," the man says, slowing his cart down for the first time in hours. Somehow the goats do not stumble and fall down, but merely stand about -- stupidly staring into the wind. 

"Can we... just !@#$ing knock on the front door?" SPYGOD asks, not sure what the etiquette is, here. 

"You may, if you plan to stand there til comes the Doom of us all," their host laughs: "None guard these walls, now, friend. Your pleas for entrance fall upon the ears of the deaf and the dead."

"Wait," SPYGOD says, feeling even more dejected now than he did when he learned Odin was dead: "You mean there's no one here?"

"Indeed. I suspect others have been here, for word of Odin's passing was spread in some manner. But it is a cold and empty place, now. Its chimney does not smoke, laughter and song do not fill those halls. The dead alone are home, there, and they alone may keep it."

"Then we remain fortunate," Chinmoku says, leaping down from the back of the ship-turned chariot: "How shall we enter, if none may greet us?"

"Merely enter, as a friend, and with no motives hidden and dark," the man explains: "It will allow you in."

"No motives hidden and dark," SPYGOD says, looking at their host from the corner of his eyes: "Why do I get the !@#$ing feeling you can't go in, yourself?"

"You see much, friend," the man chuckles: "But not so quickly as you should. Take care. That may be your undoing."

SPYGOD looks to the man, now, and sees a different thing than what he saw before. And yet, somehow, he cannot be terribly angry.

Somehow, when he looks behind the forced smile in the man's eyes, he thinks he can understand...

"Thank you," the superspy says, shaking the man's strong, large hand: "Saving our lives was good enough of you, but bringing us this far was a kindness, whatever your real reasons."

"If you would have my thanks?" the man says says, leaning forward to speak softly -- all laughter gone from his eyes, with only wistful sorrow remaining: "Then know my reasons, friend. When next you see fair Freyja? Tell my wife she is missed greatly. Tell her the golden tears she sends me are found, in time, and I wear them all. 

"And tell her I, Odr of the Vanir, will be with her come the Wolf Time, if she will have me there by her side."

With that, he lets go, and indicates SPYGOD should go after his friend -- who's already opened the mighty, tall door to the palisade, and entered without any problems. 

And by the time SPYGOD can follow him -- wondering if his sins and secrets will strike him down -- the goats have spirited their host away, into the blinding white. 

And then he's gone, and there's only the long, steep walk up from the walls to the great hall.

And whatever lies inside. 

* * *

"Well, !@#$," SPYGOD says, looking down at what's left of what they came to find.

The hall itself was easily breached. The front door was left open, and stuck by the snow. They were both able to squeeze through, somehow, and entered the darkened space beyond.

There, their noses were assaulted by the smells of carnage and death, rot and decay. There was blood on the floor, and offal spilled every which way. All the great tables had been hacked to pieces and fed into the dark and cold fireplace. All the food had gone bad, the mead spilled to mix with the blood, heaps of bird!@#$ spattered all over the floor...

And Odin, himself lay on the ground before them -- hacked into more pieces than they can easily counted.

"This place is dead," Chinmoku says, looking around: "Our friend did not lie, in that."

"Didn't !@#$ing tell us a whole lot of truth, did he?" the superspy grumbles, wishing that just one bottle had survived what was either one hell of a fight, or the mother of all post-fight vandalism jobs.

"He had his reasons," the Japanese man says, smiling somewhat: "We have been agents of love, this day. A message of hope from a man long lost and far from his heart."

"That's great, but it doesn't !@#$ing do us any good," SPYGOD grumbles -- all the good will he showed earlier, with Odr, evaporating: "There's no one else here, man. No one to talk to. No one to bring back! We !@#$ing wasted our goddamn time..."

"Somehow, I do not think so," Chinmoku says, holding up a hand: "But please, allow me to concentrate."

SPYGOD looks at him, and then around the room: "If you're going to feng shui the place, I think you're gonna need a damn mirror-"

"SPYGOD?"

"Yeah?"

"Please do not take this the wrong way," Chinmoku says, turning around to look the man in the sunglasses: "But could you please be silent?"

And, somewhat chastened, the superspy decides to find some half-broken thing to sit down on, and do exactly that.

* * *

Minutes pass. Hours. Half the damn day.

Chinmoku stands silent and still -- one hand raised up, as if to feel the room.

All the while, SPYGOD sits there, quietly, thinking of all the time they're wasting. All the time they've wasted, chasing this !@#$ing mirage.

He should have stayed back on Earth, he thinks. Gone back to the Eldridge to find some of the deadlier, world-killing weapons he had locked up there. Maybe some of his stranger toys from his office in the Heptagon.

(How many of them are still there, though? He's lost so much damn memory he doesn't know what's been used and what's still sitting around, waiting for the one, black day such a terrible weapon would be called for...)

He looks at Chinmoku, thinking he saw him move, or at least inhale. He hasn't been breathing this whole damn time. More Hungry Ghost bull!@#$.

And then, suddenly, the man drops his hand. He takes a deep breath.

And he says one word -- "Chikusho" -- muttered as if he'd just stepped in something nasty.

"What's that?" SPYGOD asks.

"Nothing good," the martial artist says, sighing and rubbing his eyes: "I am sorry. I have tried to call the ghosts, but they will not speak to me."

"Can't be the first !@#$ing time that ever happened?"

"No," Chinmoku says, turning to look at SPYGOD: "This has never happened. Ever."

"Never ever?"

"No. And this is very... troubling."

"So, just to sum up..." SPYGOD says, holding his hands up: "We got brought here by a guy who first didn't tell us Odin was dead, and then didn't tell us until we got here that there's no one else here to talk to, just so he could have us send a !@#$ing love letter to his wife, and for all we know there's some kind of goddamn restraining order on the door because he couldn't come in here, himself?"

The martial artist just looks at SPYGOD -- clearly not wanting to dignify the awful truth with so much as a nod.

"Well, that's just !@#$ing great,"  SPYGOD spits, getting to his feet and kicking the half-a-chair across the damn room. "Worse than !@#$ing Arabs."

"Your racism is not helping matters," Chinmoku says, turning to look at something.

"It's not racism, friend. It's a fact of the culture. They never !@#$ing tell you bad news right away if there's a business deal involved."

"So you say."

"That's damn right, I do say. I ever tell you about the time I got !@#$ing led around the nose by some asshole contact in Dubai that didn't have the heart to tell me what I'd come for was long gone?"

"You did not, no," Chinmoku says, still looking around the room -- his eyes trying to find something either very small, or very hard to see.

"Well, one big damn meal later, and a few !@#$ing business proposals under the table-" SPYGOD starts to say, but stops when he realizes he can see it, too.

A shape that sits in the corner, shaking and cold. They thought it was a shadow at first, but then realize it's the darkened, transparent ghost of an old man.

An old man with a long, grey beard, and one staring, blank eye -- the other eye long gone, with only a raging, black socket to mark its passing.

"Odin," SPYGOD says, getting up to head to the spirit of the man they've come to find: "Holy !@#$ing !@#$..."

"Wait," Chinmoku says, holding SPYGOD back with a deceptively-gentle hand: "It is not him."

"But... wait. How can it not be him?"

"He is missing something," the master of the Hungry Ghost path says, indicating the blank stare on the face of the ghost: "He is a shell. The remnant left over when the higher self leaves the body, and only the armor of the soul remains behind to guard the body."

"Wait, what?" SPYGOD asks, clearly confused.

"It does not happen always, or often," Chinmoku explains: "The Egyptians of old believed the shadow of a person lived on after their death-"

"They also thought your heart would !@#$ing narc on you in front of some hungry alligator thing. So !@#$ing what?"

"So this is the shadow of Odin," the martial artist explains: "That is why I felt nothing, for there is nothing to feel. That is why I was ignored when I called, for he is not here to reply."

"So where's the rest of him, then?" the superspy asks, looking around: "Jesus !@#$ing Christ on the dance floor, Chinmoku. This is not a good time for him to be !@#$ing not here with the rest of his damn ghost."

"The same place he has always been," Chinmoku says, noticing that it's night time, now.

And as the night falls, the ravens return.

* * *

They say that, a long time ago, Odin the All-Father made some bargains with the world, in exchange for certain powers and magics. 

He hung for nine days and nights upon the world-tree, Yggdrasil -- self-wounded and ready to die. He tore his eye from his head that he might see all things. 

And he gave his mind up to two sleek, black ravens, so that his thoughts might have no boundaries, and his memories no limit. 

They are Huginn and Muninn -- thought and memory -- and he often sends them out into the world to see all, hear all, and report back to him. 

Without them, he sits immobile and staring into space, as all old men must one day do when their brains fail them. With them, he is all-knowing, all-seeing, and surprised by very little. 

How, then, could he be surprised by a death come too early? Perhaps that is a tale told later, when more of its actors are within the scene. 

But as the ravens return to the mead hall, and perch upon the throne their now-dead master once ruled from, SPYGOD remembers something from an old thing he read -- long, long ago -- and indicates that Chinmoku should try to reunite the ghost with his ravens.

And as soon as that is done, many things change...

* * *

 "You know,  normally when you bring someone back to life, they !@#$ing thank you," SPYGOD grumbles -- his swords extended towards the two large, growling wolves that have forced him into the corner the ghost-shadow of Odin once sat in.

"Normally, when someone stands before the throne of the All-Father, they show respect," Odin's ghost replies, not without some bite: "As this one does."

He indicates Chinmoku, who has fallen to one knee before the majesty of Odin's soul -- the mind of an entire world bound within it -- and remained silent.

"I would have this tale told me again, save that I do not need to hear it to know that it is true," Odin pronounces, putting his hands before his face and steepling them: "My ravens show me your travails, both of you. They show me your hearts, and your deeds. And if they had not, were you base rogues, the doors of my hall would not have allowed you entry."

"So we pass the test?" SPYGOD asks: "Can we call off the !@#$ing dogs?"

"Dogs?" the All-Father chides him: "Boy, have you no wit? A dog was what almost had you for its meal, four days previous. A wolf stands before you, now, but will not aspire to the same goal unless I command it thus. You were best faced by a wolf than a dog. One can be trained, but only the other can be truly taught."

With that, he waves, and the two wolves stop growling, turn, and lope back to the side of their master's throne.

"You have purpose, here," Odin says, putting his hands down at the sides of his throne: "I know it, but I would hear it from your lips. Mayhap some details yet escape my knowledge. Mayhap some consequence yet escapes my mind."

"Alright, then," SPYGOD says, collapsing his swords and walking before the throne: "It's like this. Some !@#$ing assholes in this racist organization, run by a strategic talent who's also got the mind of a Nazi war criminal, are running around on Earth with the souls of your gods inside of them. They joined up with people so they'd have more of a hold on the world, unlike some other !@#$ing gods we got there now, who are mostly just themselves."

"The Olympians," Odin says, nodding: "I had heard of their return to Midgard, many years past. I had also heard of their betrayal, and how you took their powers and changed them. A very foolish thing to play such games with gods."

"You got that !@#$ing right," SPYGOD nods: "And for what it's worth? I tried to tell them-"

"This is also known," the All-Father says: "And I have seen what you did, which was very brave. For that you have my admiration and respect."

"I... what?"

Odin shakes his head: "For one who calls himself a god, you can be so very human at times. But please continue your story."

"Well, okay," SPYGOD goes on, still very confused: "So it's like this. These Aesir, on Earth? Midgard? I guess joining up with these people turned them into !@#$ing bastards. They took over a whole city, turned the dead into soldiers, and they were going to take over the whole damn world if we hadn't stopped them."

"A mighty feat, unto itself."

"Yeah, well, thank !@#$ing god for repurposed Warbots, that's all I can !@#$ing say. So they've been walled in up Moscow, turned the damn city into a !@#$ing slaughterhouse. They can't get out, but they can affect the world. And they've turned everyone's luck from bad to !@#$ing worse. I mean like 'stub your toe getting out of bed and falling and breaking your neck and lighting the house on fire and burning down the whole !@#$ing city' bad luck."

"They have worked a Doom upon the world entire," Odin says, leaning forward: "A dark and unwholesome magic! They should know better than to meddle in such things."

"Yeah, well, I think we left 'know better' a million !@#$ing miles ago, Odin. We're deep into the Bad Idea Jeans continent, right now, and the natives are !@#$ing restless."

"I understand not your words, but yet their meaning is clear," the All-Father says, leaning back: "You came here to find the one Aesir who was not upon Midgard, in the hopes that he could come back with you, speak sense into them, and make them release both the Doom and their hold upon the world."

"Yes," SPYGOD says, relieved that he doesn't have to !@#$ing say all of that: "That is what we were hoping. Yes. Please."

"But that is not all, I think," Odin says, leaning forward again: "Tell me truly, (REDACTED) of Neo York City. What else would you have me do, there? What other scheme do you carry within those words?"

And SPYGOD looks at Chinmoku -- who looks back at him with a look best described as "told you so" -- and, with a deep breath, fesses up to the mother of all sneaky plans...

Saturday: 6/25/16

"... I... I don't know how to say this," the Interim President says to the few remaining members of his Cabinet, afraid to meet their eyes as he reads the speech they've cobbled together over the last day.

"If you don't, we're all worse than dead," the white-faced Secretary of Defense hisses: "You saw that... that thing. You saw what it's doing to Russia. What it can do to the world."

"And it says that... dear God, it says we've only got three days before the rest of the 8-Balls get here," the Secretary of State insists: "We've lost half of our interceptors, already, hitting the ones that got through the last of the platforms. What will we do when they arrive."

"If we do not accept its terms, the world will die," the Secretary of the Treasury says: "We can have this... this mark on everyone within days. It's shown us how. It's not hard."

"I have to be the President who surrenders the United States of America to the... to that thing," the former Speaker of the House says: "Me."

"At least there's a chance," the Secretary of Defense insists: "God won't abandon us. You know the Bible. This is the start of Armageddon but it's not the end. Jesus Christ will-"

And then his white face turns red, and then bloody, and then he pitches face-forward onto the desk -- dead for WordCrime.

"Okay," the President sighs -- a little less shocked by it than he should be, given he's seen ten people die for using the C-word in the last two days -- and looks at the notes: "I guess I have to be the one."

"There's no one else who can speak for all of us," the Secretary of the Treasury says: "The NEU surrendered right away. Everyone else is coming around. We just need to go online and tell them, and then this nightmare will... will..."

He doesn't want to say 'be over,' because he knows it's a lie. But as what's left of the Secretary of Defense melts into the chair it was sitting in, no one can see any other alternative.

The Interim President's about to have a laptop handed over to him -- the last one in the whole building that hasn't succumbed to bad luck, yet -- when there's a weird, rainbow light over in the corner.

And then three people enter the room, smoking from their long journey down the World Tree.

"Mister President!" SPYGOD says, striding from the Bifrost with Chinmoku right behind him, followed up by a very ghostly Odin -- winged helmet on his head, spear in hand, and encircled by two ravens and two wolves.

"Oh my... what?" the man says, getting to his feet very, very carefully: "SPYGOD? You're here? What?"

"Hey, I said I'd be !@#$ing back!" the superspy says, looking around the room with something approaching triumph: "I got Odin here. Well, mostly here. And we're gonna go to Moscow and tell those !@#$ing Aesir to back the hell off with this bad luck !@#$, and then get the hell off the planet. How do you like them apples?"

He grins and holds out his hands, but no one grins with him. And then he looks at the President, and the melting lump of meat and bone that used to be a Defense Secretary, and the fact that the skies outside look very dark for this time of day.

"Um... what the !@#$ happened while I was gone...?" SPYGOD asks.

And someone at the table starts to cry...

* * *

WHAT THE !@#$ HAPPENED WHILE SPYGOD WAS GONE.

* * *

Monday: 6/20/16

They tried. You have to give them that.

The Union -- the NEU's premier super-team -- flew, drove, and ran right into the wake of the thing, seeking to score some semblance of a victory upon it. Just one hit, just one blow.

Just one lucky, damaging strike to show this 100-story abomination that while America's Flier may have gone down in flames, Europe would not be so easily cowed

They tried. You have to give them that.

Fifty heroes, one for each state in Europe. Fifty men and women, each one of them carrying the hopes and dreams of their countries with them.

Fifty of them raced out to do what jets, planes, tanks, artillery, and nuclear weapons could not do.

They tried. You have to give them that.

They flew into the zone where they giant thing was turning the world into filth, just like had been done to Miami. Its footsteps changing farmland into festering sewers, the very air changing trees to fecal matter, and impregnating buildings with strange, cancerous growths.

They hurled themselves past the grotesque changes and focused only on the thing, afraid to look too long for fear of breaking and running away.

They tried. You have to give them that.

Half of them died before they got within range of the thing -- the warping effect it had on the landscape also changing them. They twisted and changed upon heavy exposure to its wake, and by the time they realized it was killing them it was too late for them to retreat.

Too late to do anything but fall down, dead or dying, and be turdscaped with the rest of the world the beast was striding through.

They tried. You have to give them that.

The other half? That group made up of armor-wearing wonders, energy beings, and creatures not so easily mutated? They survived the wake of the thing, only to find that their best weapons weren't any good against it.

And no matter how hard they fired and fought, they may as well have been impotent flies buzzing about an irritated child.

A child capable of smashing them to pieces with nothing but a glancing blow.

They tried. You have to give them that.

Heroes from Ireland, Italy, and the Czech Republic. Hungary, Serbia, and Montenegro.

Stigande Sol of Sweden, firing the rays of the sun in the thing's eyes until it returned the favor and turned her to red, maggoty slop.

Chryso Kriari of Greece, charging its feet time and again until the golden, horned helmet he wore turned to dust, and it stepped on his body as it squirmed and spread.

Mursten, of Denmark, trying to contain the creature in the same Lego Bricks that kept him alive, only to be knocked clear into Africa by a glancing blow, and splattered across the Great Pyramid like a ripe tomato.

They tried. You have to give them that.

But sometimes trying just isn't enough...

Tuesday: 6/21/16

"Nuclear weapons are useless, sir," Director Straffer says, really tired of going over this point with these exasperating people from what's left of the United Nations on his office viewscreen: "We'd be better off using the arsenal to deal with what's coming at us from up above. And thank God the bad luck seems to be passing or we'd bomb ourselves to kingdom come, instead."

"But, the interceptors..." the new-new UN Director-General says, having just been promoted by simple majority after the last one got cut it half by a falling car in the parking garage on his way to work.

(Some asshole from Cyprus. No one else wanted the damn job, right now.)

"Are going to be gone within the first couple days, if these projections are correct," he says: "And we don't have time to get more up there."

"Well, that's nice," the man sighs: "What have you been doing with your time, Director Straffer?"

"Well, I was using the platforms to get rid of the cloud of 8-Balls that's on its way here, sir," the blonde cyborg spits, seriously tired of this !@#$: "Except that the first thing this beast did was to !@#$ing eat them all. God knows why it left the Interceptors alone. Maybe it wanted a damn laugh."

"I still think nuclear weapons are a bad idea," the President of Russia says: "At best, they will destroy my country, and merely make the thing angry. At worst, they will suffer the same fate as all other things we have thrown against it. They will melt into so much dermo, and be useless."

"Then don't target the thing, itself," the US's Secretary of Defense weighs in: "Have them blow up just outside the range of its effect. We now know it's a three mile radius. Blow them up outside of that and have the heat and force melt it."

"I think that us a good idea," the new-new UN Director says.

"Sir, it's not," Straffer insists: "You're not seeing what it can do-"

"You deal with the cloud of death that's coming towards us, sir," the man says, waving them off with a hand: "I will deal with this matter."

"Sir, I must protest-"

"Straffer, I've never been impressed with you," the man snorts: "Now, go do your job, or else stand aside and let someone else more capable deal with it?"

Straffer has nothing to say to that.

"We've got some backup plans for that cloud, sir," the Defense Secretary says, smirking at the UNSS Director's expense: "A couple villains we can use to deal with the ecological fallout, in case golden boy here can't deliver."

"Get them ready, then," the UN Director says, just before his screen goes dark -- along with all the others.

Straffer counts to five, waiting for the rage to abate. And when it does not he punches a hole through the desk.

And then the wall. Then another wall.

And then he really loses it...

Wednesday: 6/22/16

"... can see from these pictures, released from the UN Space Service, just this morning. The black crater you're looking at is what's left of Smolensk, where the thing was standing close to.

"And the roughly circular area that's not blackened? That's where the thing was standing. Three miles away, and it's like nothing happened. We're even getting reports there's no radiation in that area, though it's hard to be sure. The probes melt before too long.

"And now... yes, we're having it confirmed. It's walking towards Moscow, now. There's no stopping it..."

* * *

"Well, I realize my predecessor was not too fond of you," the new-new-new UN Director-General says, wondering what happened to the man's desk, and office: "But I am willing to listen, as you were so clearly right."

(A less foolish man from Cameroon. The previous holder was tossed from the chamber, first thing that morning, and then broke his leg falling down while having a damn heart attack.)

"Alright, then," Straffer says, tired of punching holes in his office and furniture: "All high-yield nuclear weapons need to be aimed and launched straight the hell up at what's coming. We'll have to hope to blow them apart and fry them with that before they get too close. 

"Past that, I have nothing," he admits: "Though if anyone, and I mean anyone, is !@#$ing holding back some really cool spacecraft they haven't been telling us about, and I don't know about it? This would be the !@#$ing time to use them!"

"I'll... see what I can do..." the man says, holding up his hands. 

"Dear God, you had better," Straffer says: "We have nothing else to play, otherwise."

Thursday: 6/23/16

"Will these confounded things never let us through?" Ve screams, burning the street around him in impotent rage as the giant beast silently mocks him.

He's sacrificed everything, now. All his Odal soldiers, and several of the Aesir. All thrown at the wall of steel and fire that still encircles this city, though the Wolf stands just outside its gates.

All as ineffectual as that pathetic, last charge they witnessed Monday...

"I think they have no care for the situation, my lord," Villi says: "I think they desire to keep us here, come what may."

"Intolerable," Ve hisses: "Intolerable!"

"Aye," red-headed Tyr says: "And in more ways than one."

"What mean you, friend Tyr?" Thor asks.

"I mean that we have gambled and lost, dear friend Thor," the god of war insists: "We have risked all, and lost much. And here, at the end, we stand shackled as the Wolf we brought ourselves from Vahalla to fight stands just outside our reach..."

He extends his hand as if to grasp it, and bares his teeth in anger: "Would that my hand could be as large there as it is before my eyes, that I might crush it..."

"I'm crushing your head," Frejya chuckles, doing the same thing: "I'm crushing your head..."

"What?" Ve hisses, his black teeth burning. 

"Nothing, my lord," she says, rather quickly: "In truth, I am not certain from whence that came-"

And then Tyr gasps, and steps back: "It moved!"

"Of course it moved, dear Tyr," Thor chuckles: "It does that quite a bit, you know."

"No!" red-haired Tyr says, pointing to the distended, many-eyed head of the thing: "Observe how its skull opens, all of you! The Wolf is changing before us..."

Indeed it is.

The head opens up, as though the brains were desiring to step outside its skull and greet the world. As it does, something steps from the festering, churning innards and stands forth to be seen.

A tall, imposing man with red and blonde hair, completely naked, and smirking like he'd heard the best joke he could never tell.

Good afternoon, world, he says: Perhaps you remember me from before. Perhaps not. 

What I was is not very important, now. What I am is of maximum importance, especially if you desire to live. 

Call me Armilus. That is the name I was given, ages ago, by those who foresaw my coming with fear and panic. That is the name I was given when I was created, here, not so many decades before now. 

You may ask what I want, but that would be a mistake. I desire nothing, myself. I am merely an instrument of my father, who is in Hell, unhallowed be his name. 

Ask, instead, what my father wants. And the answer is simple -- your submission to him, through me.

From this day forward, you have a simple choice to make. You can kneel before the Devil, and live. Or you can resist him, and die, knowing that those who cast him down will not hear your prayers, or forgive your mistakes. 

Die, knowing that only Hell awaits. 

Know this. The thousand years begins this day. For a millennium, darkness shall reign. Evil shall be the only good. Suffering the only peace. The Devil the only God.

That is provided you wish to live. That is provided all nations bend at the knee. That is provided there are no further shows of insolence or disobedience.

For should you not wish to live? Should you wish to disobey? Well, my father would be the last to condemn you for that, considering his own history. 

But have a care, oh mortal man. For the Devil has sent the beast with wrath, and he has not come alone.

Above, in the sky, there are more of my brothers and sisters coming. Where they touch they shall bring change, and rot, and darkness. Where they stop they shall destroy.

And there are so many, many of them coming.

Submit, and they shall stop. They will simply stay in orbit, as a reminder of your bargain with my father. They will look down upon you, and you shall know fear, and obedience.

Do not submit, and they shall not stop. They shall crash through your sorry defenses, most of which I have destroyed. And they will turn this world into a black field of roiling filth. 

The choice is yours. But make it swiftly, oh mortal man. For the time is growing short.

And just in case there is any doubt that I mean what I say? Feel now the power of my father. From this moment forth, the title of the son of Yahweh shall be a killing word, and any who utters it, even to say my correct title, shall die.

I await your submission.

And with that, the being once known as Tempete Bleu smiles, and turns to return into the groaning, offal-filled cave of bone, flesh, and filth it came from. The head closes up once more.

And the world pauses to consider its response.

Friday: 6/24/16

"Here it comes," Shining Guardsman says, looking at the 100-story thing as they get word from the Interim President over their communicators.

"Have we got a plan?" New Man says, glowing a little less brightly -- maybe in fear, maybe not.

"Stand far enough away that it can't hit us, and hit it with everything we have," Hanami says.

"Sounds !@#$ing good to me," Red Wrecker says, her voice strangely amplified in the American Steel suit that Randolph let her borrow for the occasion.

"Has there been any word from the White City, yet?" Myron asks over their communicator -- sitting well back from the firing line in his drill tank, with Gosheven, Swiftfoot, The Sound, and any other hero without ranged attacks or armor.

"You mean from Mister Chicken!@#$?" Gosheven snorts.

"I mean from Mister Freedom," Mr. USA says, standing there with the others on the front line: "And Shift, for that matter. And no, not a word."

"Hopefully he is getting them to help," National Man sighs, not liking the look of this.

"Chicken!@#$," Gosheven mutters, again. No one cares to correct him, this time.

So they stand there, waiting for the signal to run into battle. Hoping they can learn from the Union's mistake, and last longer. Do more.

Do better.

And then, as soon as the President gives the words, the signal is given. As one, they launch themselves at the foe -- never prouder or more brave than today.

As brave warriors, they shout. As avenging angels, they fly. As defenders of the world, they fight.

And then, as heroes, they fall...

* * *

WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO... RIGHT !@#$ING NOW

* * *

 Saturday: 6/25/16

 "... so let me get this !@#$ing straight," SPYGOD says, looking around the room: "The Flier is gone?"

"Yes," the President sighs.

"The Freedom Force is...."

"Dead, we think," someone else says: "No word since yesterday."

"And everyone else is useless."

"Yes," someone else sighs. Maybe the Treasury Secretary, maybe not.

"And nukes have no effect."

"Yes," the President says: "And the rest of the 8-Balls are about to hit us, and... yeah."

"And if the world doesn't !@#$ing surrender to this thing that says it's the goddamn Anti-"

"Don't say the c-word!" the President shouts: "They'll hear and kill you."

"Okay," SPYGOD says, holding up a hand: "The Anti-C-Word? If we don't let it have its !@#$ing thousand years of darkness, it'll let the 8-Balls fall and eat us up."

The President just nods, weakly. 

"It would seem we have arrived at exactly the right moment," Chinmoku says, looking at SPYGOD.

"It would indeed," Odin says, nodding: "But we must move quickly, or else we will lose all advantage."

"Damn skippy," SPYGOD says, looking at the Interim President: "Sir, do not respond to that !@#$ing ultimatum. Give us 24 hours, first."

"What in the hell can you do in a day?" the Secretary of State whimpers.

"Build Rome," Chinmoku says.

And then there's a burst of rainbow light, and they're gone...

* * *

... to inside the White City, where -- just outside the meeting hall of the Olympians -- Shift is waiting. 

"Hello," he says, stepping forward and nodding to all of the three -- especially Odin's ghost, who he nods to with a very strange deference.

"Walker," the All-Father says, extending a hand: "It has been some time since I have seen you, old friend."

"And it will be some time, again," Shift says, his silver mask strangely failing to reflect Odin within it: "Though not, perhaps, for you."

"Yeah, yeah, can the !@#$ing small talk," SPYGOD says, waving towards the room: "Did Tombo do what like I asked her to, last time I talked to her?"

"She did indeed," Shift says, gesturing that they should go inside: "All are assembled."

"Then let's get this !@#$ing show in the goddamn road," he says, all but kicking down the door to the room, and striding into the center of it, where all the Olympians sit on their thrones, or stand around them. 

There's two obvious anomalies. One is Satanoth, who's little more than a head on a chair. The other is Tombo, herself, who floats beside him with her arms crossed, and something of a smug look on her face.

"Hey you," he says to her: "Thanks for this."

"You're !@#$ing welcome," she grumble, her cloud of dragonflies buzzing about her: "You know how long I had to carry this moron's head with me in the Deadlands?"

"Have a care how you speak to me, woman," Satanoth growls, but looks very comical doing so, all things considered. 

"I wasn't talking to you, asshole," she says, and looks to Odin: "I see it worked?"

"More or less," SPYGOD shrugs: "It's... a long !@#$ing story-"

"Which I don't have !@#$ing time for, right now," Tombo interrupts, extending a hand for Chinmoku to take: "If you come with me, I can walk us back to where you're supposed to be, more or less."

"And my fate, awaiting," the Japanese man says, nodding.

"Chinmoku," SPYGOD says, bowing as best he can: "It's been an honor, sir. Thank you for all the good work you did for me."

"You are most welcome," the only living master of Hungry Ghost Kung Fu says, bowing in return: "Thank you for a... unique opportunity."

And with that, he's moving towards Tombo, who wraps him in her purple cloak. And then they've faded from view. 

"So," Seranu says, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward on his throne: "The deathwalker told us we must listen to what you have to say, if we wished to have our brother, Satanoth, returned to us."

"Well, I'm as good as my !@#$ing word," SPYGOD says, gesturing to the head on the throne: "Gentlemen, behold!"

No one laughs at his joke, and he curses inside: "Alright, never mind that-"

"This is a dangerous game you play, friend," Pontus threatens: "I pray for your soul that you have more to offer from this conversation that just annoyances-"

"Oh I have something, alright," SPYGOD says, looking at all the Olympians in turn, and then, finally, at Mister Freedom -- looking more like his older aspect, here in the throne room: "I have the goddamn truth, and the power to tell the world what it is."

There's a gasp at that, and then anger. 

"What, you didn't !@#$ing think we knew?" SPYGOD goes on, looking around: "Restriit? God of endings? Lord of black holes and entropy? Patron goddamn saint of the giant !@#$ing sinkhole at the end of time and space?

"You think I didn't know who made the !@#$ing Decreator in the first place?"

There's silence, then -- pure as crystal, hard as stone. 

"You think I didn't realize that the reason you !@#$ers didn't all jump the hell up out of your seats and defend this planet from a threat is because you couldn't destroy your own handiwork? You think I didn't know why you sat on your hands after Miami? You think I couldn't figure out that the reason you gave my fiance those weapons platforms is because you couldn't pull the !@#$ing triggers yourself?"

"So you know," Hoosk grumps: "What good does it do you, now? Can you really threaten us, now that this world stands on the brink of a thousand years of prophesied darkness? Who will listen? Who will care?"

"Oh, they will," SPYGOD says, raising up to his full height and pointing at Seranu: "Because let me !@#$ing explain something to you all. 

"I loved you, once. I went to the mat for all of you. I defended you. I protected you. And now, thanks to my new friend, here-"

"That remains to be seen," Odin corrects him: "You have my spear at your side. My hand in friendship? That is another matter indeed."

"Fair enough," SPYGOD goes on: "My ally, here, tells me I actually walked into the !@#$ing lions den and reprogrammed reality to save you from the !@#$ing bull!@#$ Heaven was going to force on you all. And I didn't remember it all, afterwards, any more than I remembered all of you. 

"But you remember. Because you were there. All of you. 

"And this..." he shouts, pointing to the sky: "This is how you !@#$ing repay me?"

"We are bound by rules..." Seranu says, weakly, and without making eye contact: "Things you cannot understand."

"Oh, I understand just !@#$ing fine, Seranu," SPYGOD goes on: "I do. I got rules, too. A whole !@#$ing ton of them. And when I need to break them? Well, that's that.

"But yeah, your rules are different. You break them? You stop existing. Something goes all curse-like. Some !@#$ing horse!@#$ happens and you're screwing your mom and pulling your own damn eyes out. I read the plays. I got the picture.

"I am rather lost," Odin admits.

"You may not want to be informed," Mister Freedom admits: "But he is right. We have stayed our hands too often."

"What would you have us do, then, Brother Restriit?" Seranu asks: "Break our bonds? Cease to exist?"

"No, you !@#$ing dumbass!" SPYGOD shouts, getting in Seranu's face: "I want you to do the same damn thing Hoosk did when he gave the platforms over! I want you to give mankind a gift!"

"One gift per occasion," Hoosk pouts, crossing his arms: "And one fix per gift. No more, no less."

"Yeah," SPYGOD says, grinning: "From one of you. 

"But here we are in a room full of Gods," he goes on, spinning and pointing to each one in turn: "And the way I see it? The rest of you have a chance to ante the !@#$ up..."

And there is suddenly a great deal of understanding in the room, followed by frenzied discussion, and promises.

And then, at long last, a sense of something finally going right for a change.

Sunday: 6/26/16

One minute past Midnight, son. Moscow time. 

I see the Moon from up above the damn clouds, here in this office, and the Moon... well, she sees a load of !@#$ that learned to grow like a tree and walk like a man, turning the world behind and below it into !@#$town. 

All the way down there, standing in front of Moscow like it was going to rain gold down on it. 

They tell me the thing's being piloted by Tempete Bleu. I thought the Colonel and I disposed of that piece of !@#$ the last time we saw it. I guess you just can't keep a bad penny down, after all. 

No matter, though. Not really. Not today.

Today? We take back the world. 

Today? We fix what was broken, and who.

Today? We show the Decreator that when we !@#$ing kill something, it better have the !@#$ing decency to !@#$ing stay dead.

Today, it's expecting some kind of capitulation. All the other countries are doing it, but it needs America to fall down on her knees, especially. World leader pretend and all that happy horse!@#$.

So today, it's going to have the mother of all goddamn disappointments shoved up it's !@#$ty asshole, along with its head and about 20 to 30 fists. 

Maybe even more, if this goes well...

Yeah, son. I got a plan. I got a dozen plans. I got people working every !@#$ing angle I can get my damn hands around. I got the tools, the technology, and the !@#$ing money to burn. 

I got your surrender right here, Mister Anti-C-word. And the word is... Nuts.

As in "going to kick yours into !@#$ing orbit."

Josie comes to the Director's office -- my office, once again -- tell me the Aesir have just radioed in. Which means Odin's had his Come To Asgard talk with them, down in Valhallopolis, or whatever we're !@#$ing calling Moscow, now. 

Which means that I can tell the Olympians we're ready to go with Second Xmas. Which means I can also tell what precious little is left of the Freedom Force that we're ready to party. 

Which means I can call my fiancee up, at long last, and tell him to get ready to unleash... well, not Hell, obviously. 

Unleash Heaven. I like the sound of that, under these circumstances. And I like the thought of seeing him with angel wings and a halo.

(At least until I !@#$ing rip them off with my teeth and pound his tight ass through a wall...)

Yeah, you just stand there, mister Anti-C-Word. Stand there and turn the landscape to !@#$. Stand there and turn good people's hearts afraid. Stand there and mock life and love and all the things that make this world as good as it is. 

Stand there and take what's coming to you, at long !@#$ing last. 

Right.... about... now.

* * *

SPYGOD Will Return in August

In

APOTHEOCLYPSE NOW

(SPYGOD is listening to DJ Shadow (Nobody Speak) and having an Asgard IPA)