Post a response to this discussion thread
CHAPTER FOUR: THE BIOGRAPHY OF ZARQUON
"Can I make one small request before we get started here?" asks King Junkyard Dog, "Did you think those of us who have just recently arrived wouldn't be curious about why it seems one Miss Shortcake has moved to Bizarro Crankyland?"
"That giant strawberry," Lord Wreck intones, "fell down out of nowhere and killed Mayor Bob. He's presumed to be flattened or worse, nobody's really volunteered to chec…"
And it finally HITS them now.
"Oh!" Chick is the first to start to REALLY cry, "oh, he's DEAD? OHHH, shi-I-I-it!!!"
The Jackal would be crying as hard as anyone now, if he wasn't fixated on something a bit disturbing.
"But I thought… But you said… But aren't you all here to PROTECT US???"
"He HASN'T!!!" Kaminski's shaking like a lab rat (not unironic, given the situation), "Bob's DEAD!!! SHIIIIIT!!!!!"
""Bob's dead," Lord Wreck is absolutely livid by now, "because Bob had become obsolete, hadn't he?"
He turns and glares at the Great Prophet.
Zarquon is very casually picking something out of his teeth.
"Bob," he says, "has done what we poor Dæmon schleps can only have fleeting dreams of. He has gotten off of this ball of dirt. He has also been spared involvement in the terrifying events to come; and, remember this; this is only going to get worse. So I suppose, in an odd way, we should be happy that he's Cranky-Dust.
"Besides," he adds, offhand, as if nobody's head is spinning badly enough, "he's not ENTIRELY dead."
Lord Wreck stares at Zarquon for a minute or so, squeezes his eyes shut tightly as if performing a hard-drive cleanup in his cerebrum, and looks upwards in an expression of the following sort of a prayer.
[Lucky you, Bob. You no longer have to listen to this shit.]
"So, Mendo," he says aloud, "you were going to give us the back story of this little freak?"
"To understand Zarquon," Mendo began, "you must know of the history of the Worlds, and of the Game."
And suddenly, the outside world seems to simply melt away for his audience, as they watch the events unfold before them.
"Our story starts in The Beginning, when God was going about creating the Worlds. He made this world and that world and Lyra's world and then He made our world. And when He was finished with Crankyland, He took a good look at it, inspected it, and thought to Himself. And finally He said unto Crankyland, the following words.
"'Oh… I don't think so.'
"And with that, God drop-kicked our punk asses through Heaven's cosmic window. But somehow Crankyland managed to survive all this and became a nice little world in it's own right. In those days, the only beings living on this world were supernatural. Elves, Trolls, Gremlins, Highlings, Drunken Muppets, and Sidhe; there was an astonishing variety of Dæmons coexisting on this sad little planet.
"But then, all on a sudden, mortals showed up on our world. This seriously shook our society, and we split into three basic schools of thought. One group believed that, since these newcomers were doomed to die, we should be especially kind to them, aiding them whenever possible. Another group argued that, if we befriended mortals, it would be all the more hard on us when they left us, so it'd be better just to ignore them and go along with our business. Of course, humans occasionally stumbled in on our business with more often than not unfortunate results.
"And there was a third philosophy. One proposed initially by our friend, Zarquon, and he's been its most fervent subscriber ever since.
"'Why not,' Zarquon proposed, 'use our unimaginably strange powers to completely mind-f**k those lower creatures?'"
Mendo pauses and lets this information sink in. Zarquon makes no move to deny his alleged behavior. This is very ill advised of him as the "lower creatures" are now glaring at him in the most vicious manner.
As you might have guessed, Lord Wreck is especially incensed.
"Yii…," he's too pissed to even speak at this point, "yi… YOU… GAH!!!"
[One… two… three…], he turns around and counts to ten while breathing deeply and imagining himself on a nice quiet little island where it's sunny and there's a nice beach.
All this time, that Guam Girl's been stuck on something Mendo mentioned, so she asks, "Um… wat iz 'MINE FAQ'?"
"Why not tell her the Conqueror story?" Mendo asks of Zarquon.
"Ah, yes the Conqueror Story!" Ken's managed to channel his anger into sarcasm, "the Event Movie of the summer. The story of one… Emotionally Interesting young man's struggle to kill everybody and take over the universe."
"Ahem, ''minski-wombat' -damn, that IS fun to say- I know stories about Conqueror," Zarquon promises, "that'd turn your remarkable crest verdant."
"Really?"
"Really."
They vanish.
"WHAT???" Mendo is a little put off by Zarquon's rude disappearance and simultaneous Crankydestined abduction. "That nut case. They've probably gone for coffee or something. See if they bring any back to us! Harrumph!"
"Uh! But," stammers a very confused and distraught Lord Wreck.
"You Sidhe regularly get coffee like that?" asks a slightly jealous Mad-Ness.
"Wat een hack iz a MIME-FOOK?" asks a very sheltered Guam Girl.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Kaminski and the Prophet rematerialize in a bowling alley.
"Is this Hell?" Ken asks.
"Not yet," answers the incomparably helpful Zarquon, enjoying a meal of Filet Mignon. "Sit down, I've got a fun story.
"Everybody makes mistakes," the Prophet begins, "and Conqueror was mine. I was his teacher. I knew he had great potential, and I knew he'd probably do no less than completely change the universe. Well."
Zarquon takes another bite of steak and chews it before adding, "turned out to be right, in a manner of speaking, didn't I?"
Ken just nods.
[Whatever,] he thinks.
"So, anyhow, when Conqueror was about six or twelve or eighty-three, I really can't remember, I assumed a new alias. That of a sage counselor and I named this new persona Buckweaticus. As such I'd eventually become Lord Buckweaticus, but that's another story."
[Woah, LORD Buckweaticus?]
"I tried desperately to teach the boy the ways of Crankyness, a force that resides in every creature that is passionate about something or other. Some Crankyzens are able to use this force to force other beings to obey them, and this force can be used for good or for evil."
[I've heard the name Buckweaticus before…]
"Other civilizations are said to have similar forces, only they tend to call it 'the Spiritual Subtext'."
[Okay, 'Lord Buckweaticus', searching… searching…]
"Conqueror showed all the signs of being the one who'd go on to change the world. Other prophets had spoken of one such kid who'd come out of nowhere and change everything even though nobody expected it'd be he who'd do so."
[Searching… searching… dammit…]
"I sure as hell didn't."
[Lord Buckweatices… Lord Buckweat… Lord… Lord…]
And then somebody sticks Ken's brain in a blender and sets it on "puree".
"Ho-LY SHIT!"
Zarquon looks up at him, "questions?"
Oh, are there ever.
"You weren't… You aren't… You wouldn't happen to have been… You know… THAT Lord Buckweaticus?"
Zarquon frowns, shakes his head, and growls a little.
"You know, you humans really are dense," he responds, "thinking one of your kind could ever survive a hot sweet night with a hydra. Please. Not like you're missing much, I mean except for Melusine, she was… MMM- MMPH! Yow."
Now the blender's on "liquefy".
Zarquon looks at his watch, "Well, I guess we ought to get back. I'm sure this is going to be the part where things get very interesting."
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Prophet and the VERY dazed Holder of the Crest of Disillusionment time-warp back to the former Keanuville just in time to hear the tail end of Mendo's lengthy explanation of the terms "Bran Funk", "Brad Puck", and "Drain Duck Dong" and the differences thereof. Lord Wreck is the first to notice.
[Ah, damn! Now why the hell is Ken staring at me now,] he wonders, [hey, are his roots green?]
CHAPTER FIVE: WREQUIEM
"You do realize, Zarquon," Mendo's quite upset, "that you've cost these poor creatures a good fifteen minutes that they COULD have spent saving the universe."
"Yeah, well."
"You really don't give a rat's ass what happens, do you?" asks Kaoru-Dono, "We're just the muddy little action figures being paraded around your sandbox, and we don't know if it'll be the microwave today or if your more in the mood to flush us all down the john. Isn't that right?"
Everyone watches the Prophet closely for his answer. He just stands there staring at some point on the ground, a few feet away, and thinking. Finally he looks at Kaoru- Dono and answers her.
"Yup," he says casually, "you hit the nail right on the head."
King Junkyard Dog's hackles raise, "I can't f**king believe this. I could seriously rip your lungs out right now. Anyone else wanna help with the mauling?"
Mad-Ness just shakes her head slowly, "you were using us."
And then it hits her with all the subtlety of a cement truck.
She's not quite ready to believe it yet, so she asks, "What… What was the reasoning behind this?"
Zarquon's explanation is chilling.
"When you've been outliving the hell out of everyone you know," says the Prophet, "one of the biggest problems you develop is boredom. So you start to wonder whether you've really got any unfinished business. And I, of course, had Conqueror. Now I, of course, am a sucker for a good cliché, so I figured one of my sons would take care of that little creep for me.
"And, as you probably all already know, one son completely screwed up in that respect. Went and got himself sided with Conqueror. Of course, he tried to side with my cause later but it was too late. I sent a Hrung after him. That's what happened to Liquid Sunshine."
Ken's blender has shut down.
[S-h-I-t…,] he thinks.
But Lord Wreck says NOTHING.
"Well," he finally says, in a flat voice. "Well. You're not full of shit?"
"No, son," says Zarquon.
"Huh," Wreck just nods slowly. "Well, then, I guess I'm done now too.
"It's been fun," and he drops dead right on the spot.
"Damn," Zarquon's response to his son's passing is unbelievable, "shoulda had three kids. Well, I guess this is over."
"No way," Darker Conqueror realizes this could be his Golden Moment, "for is the son heading off to destroy his OWN father's evil plans not an even better bad cliché?"
"Or evin bettah," Guam Girl encourages, "hiz ex?"
Zarquon gives Darker Conqueror and that Guam Girl a funny sort of look.
"No, not really."
And a flock of butterflies swarm up from a crater in the ground, circle the crowd a few times, and land on Darker Conqueror and Guam Girl. They are completely covered with butterflies for a few minutes. When the insects depart, only the skeletons remain.
Now, Jack-em-up Jackal has withheld his opinion for quite a while now, but this pushes him over the edge.
"You," he says, "are one sick evil freak."
Zarquon sighs and shakes his head and the Jackal is carried skyward by vampire chickadees.
"And then there were six," Zarquon surveys the remainder, "anyone else want to defy me?"
Dead silence.
"There are seven," says Mendo, "counting Lyra. And even though she…"
"Ah, yes, Lyra," Zarquon interrupts, "the Girl from Our Unreality! Damn, that was classic. Have somebody from another world save our sorry asses, give the whole ceremony a 'Neverending Story' vibe. Maybe throw an angel in the mix. Lots of fun. I was going to tell her, if she was here, that the Baron of Bitter needs a New Name. Ha!
"Oh, and that reminds me," he turns to Mad-Ness. "You failed."
"Huh?"
"First of all, when I tell people not to screw up, I'd expect they'd have the common courtesy to not screw up. And second of all, if they're given a second chance; if you're sent to encourage the Girl back to our world, you should at least have made some effort to not screw up AGAIN!"
"But…," Ness is shaking violently, "but I thought Chica was supposed to…"
"The Queen went to Lyra's world?" Mendo is shocked. "Then she went of her own accord. She'll find some way to get Lyra back here."
"Hmph," Zarquon snorts. "Not bloody likely. There's nothing she could do now."
"Because she doesn't believe," Ness knows she's probably got under three minutes left. She'd better make them profound.
"FFT! Where the hell'd you get an idea like that?" Zarquon's as sympathetic as a reality storm. "I only use the cool overworked clichés, not the cheesy ones. You're of no use to me now, bring on the squirrels."
"HUH?" and Nessie turns to meet the glassy stares of over a dozen squirrels bounding towards her. Some of them are carrying scraps of fabric. Others carry bits of magazines. All of them are hungry.
"Not like this…," she's able to say before she's ripped to pieces.
"This leaves five," the Prophet is more interested in something wedged under his thumbnail.
Mendo's eyebrow twitches.
"I outrank you, you know," he says quietly.
Zarquon is apathetic, "Yeah, but what're you going to do. You've now got the three Crankydestined and Conqueror to deal with. You can have this quest, I'm done."
He looks around for one last time, "this isn't a half-bad world you know. And to think I came as close as this to having it all to myself; that was the Game, you know. Who can be the last sentient creature on this planet in the least time. You have to admit, Mendy-Mend, I picked a good one."
"Mmm," Mendo nods, "you had a head start with this one. And then you only had Conqueror to get rid of and you would have won. And now your quitting cause it isn't going your way?"
"It isn't fun anymore."
"Well, then," Mendo sighs, "might as well quit now as you don't exactly even have Conqueror to deal with anymore. The remaining Crankydestined might as well know this too, even though it's not going to help them one iota. Conqueror's soul, or whatever was inside him making him move, has been sucked out and replaced with a vile demonic entity. He now calls himself Apoqueror. And it appears that, after all, HE is going to win the Game."
"Yeah," Zarquon groans a little and turns to the remaining Crankydestined, "you kids were pretty hoopy. You'll be missed. If, indeed, Apoqueror is here, he'll come up with even more evil insane ways to off the lot of you."
"But…," Wulfgar asks even though he already knows the answer, "you two are going to still be here… To protect us… Right?"
The two Sidhe look at each other, then shake their heads. They start to fade away.
"I am afraid," they say coldly in unison, "that you are no longer the concern of the Sidhe.
"Welcome to Hell.">
Post a response to this discussion thread