Warning: spoilers for the Mask of Arachnus Saga.
Note: read “Going To A Sweater Place” first.
BZZ-BZZ-BZZ-BZZ-BZZ
I wake up in the bedroom of my quarters, looking at the alarm clock and seeing that it’s 7 AM.
Now that I have a new, uh, job, I feel like it’s best not to sleep in.
I get out of bed, pulling my T-shirt and boxers off.
Electra’s probably still asleep in her saferoom, so I’m hoping that she won’t get another look at my damp, naked ass.
I’d better get showered quickly, in case she wakes up soon.
Just as I walk out of the bedroom, I glance at my familiar ugly sweater, hanging over the edge of the bed.
And I look at the patch affixed to it.
An X in an octagon.
Oh, Jeff Robinson, you’re really deep in it now.
What have I gotten myself into?
Yeah, it’s Jeff again. Ugly Sweater Guy. Hi. How ya been?
So, uh, there’s been some interesting developments since me and Electra returned to Korkeaopolis, and we started crashing at Dr. Pierre Faucheuse’s School for Gifted Individuals.
For starters, the day after our return, we were informed that Jaws has somehow escaped from Hell. Cal told us, his contacts told him.
The silver lining is that Jaws isn’t a demon now. He’s a ghost, apparently. He’s only solid in the afterlife.
I guess it’s not just demons that can be summoned.
The ChaotiX thinks that Dehak summoned Jaws to act as his consultant.
Like how Cal wanted me to be his consultant. Funny, that.
Dehak is the most likely culprit, because not only does he have the means to summon Jaws, he has a motive. He hasn’t given up on recruiting me, he wants information on me for his next try, and Jaws has plenty of that.
And Jaws is clearly getting something out of it too: a second chance to kill me. He might want to kill Electra too, to twist the… the knife. He’s dead, he doesn’t need the money he’d make if he turned Electra into a breeding pillow.
You know what they say, you can’t take it with you.
At this point, I’m certain that Jaws agreed to assist Dehak out of pure spite.
But to be honest, I’m not scared of Jaws anymore. Even if he’s a ghost now, he’s small fry compared to a lot of the other beings I’ve learned about.
I’m not just talking about Chaos, or Cal and the ChaotiX. I’ll elaborate in a bit.
I’ve got something else to cover first.
Last week, Cal was dealing with an evil sentient mask called the Mask of Arachnus.
It had latched onto Kirk, who is an Omega like Cal, taking control of him and turning him into a monstrous Man-Spider wannabe.
I remember what Cal told us about Kirk. That his father, Hans, experimented on him.
I also know that Kirk used to be brainwashed to be a Nazi. Apparently, the public doesn’t know that Kirk used to be “Projekt Schatten”.
Jeez. That Kirk guy has seen some shit. I feel kinda bad for him.
I saw the worldwide broadcast a year or two ago, of Cal daring “Schatten” to come out of hiding and fight him. I was missing a lot of context back then, and I happened to be drunk at the time, so I don’t remember Cal’s entire speech very well.
I think a teleporting island was involved…?
Anyway, at the same time that Cal was dealing with the Mask of Arachnus, a bunch of monsters that I later learned are called Darklings invaded Korkeaopolis.
Obviously, that was no coincidence. Arachnus summoned those things to keep the ChaotiX busy, because his ultimate goal was to put that Mask on Cal’s face, and the fewer people getting in the way, the better.
It was actually kinda exciting for me. I’ve never seen Korkeaopolis get invaded before. Electra’s seen it a few times.
I mean, there was that whole thing in San Francisco, buuut…
I know all the facts, but if you want the whole story of what went down last week, go ask Cal, he can do the story justice better than I can.
I didn’t get to see most of it for myself, anyway. Me and Electra were told to stay at the School, and I saw no good reason to disobey that instruction.
The old me would have left the building out of spite, and I’d probably be eaten by a Darkling about five seconds after exiting the School’s grounds.
So we stayed put like a good little boy and a good little fluffy, and I settled for watching the battle from the safety of our guest quarters, through a pair of binoculars.
What caught my interest was that those Darklings looked very familiar to me.
In fact, they looked an awful lot like the symbol on that note the Rider slipped through my mail slot, when he tried to turn me to the Dark Side back in Detroit. I held on to that, I wasn’t going to throw it away. It looked like important evidence.
And that symbol looked like the mark that Seed of Darkness left on the hallway floor after I stomped on it.
Eight eyes… eight tentacles… a mouth full of… t-t-teeth… why didn’t I figure it out sooner?
Needless to say, I had a lot of questions, and I had to wait to get some damn answers.
I wanted to get a closer look at the action, but I didn’t want to leave the safety of the School, so me and Electra found a room where you can watch stuff through drones. Near the meeting room.
It’s kind of unnerving that the ChaotiX uses drones so often. Those things can turn invisible, y’know! You can never tell whether or not they’re watching you! It’s creepy!
And I’ve had enough of that from Chaos!
I didn’t even feel safe rubbing one out when I was playing the game.
But I couldn’t use those gizmos in the drone room, because I didn’t know the password.
Which explains why the door wasn’t locked.
We were lucky enough that Dr. Pierre Faucheuse was willing to help us. He knew the password.
Turns out that the password was “xiphias_gladius”, which, according to Dr. Faucheuse, means… “swordfish”.
“Swordfish” was literally my first guess! Nine times out of ten, the password is “swordfish”!
So I wasn’t entirely wrong.
I just wasn’t being smart enough.
Once all the fighting was over, and the cleanup had begun, I found Cal, sitting on a bench and smoking a spliff with Marley, and I asked him what that symbol means, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. I told him that I knew it was connected to the monsters.
He ultimately agreed to tell me, on two conditions.
That I was absolutely sure that I wanted to know…
And if I accepted his offer to join the ChaotiX as a consultant. The offer he made after the events in San Francisco.
He warned me that I might not want to know the truth, but I insisted.
I was sick of the “classified information” card being played on me and Electra. After everything we’ve been through, don’t we deserve to know the truth?
So yes, I agreed to his conditions, and he talked for a while.
And…
Uh…
Well, let’s just say that…
I now know about everything the ChaotiX hides from the public.
I know how an asteroid impact could create a pocket universe, and the origins of Phenomenon X.
So I know about the Stones of Octavo.
I know who Dehak and his Octovirate serve.
So I also know about the Devourer.
And I know about the Light of Peace, and the puppet of the Light calling itself Father Lucian Pax. I thought that the Peacemakers were just a charity. They’ve got a branch in Detroit.
I even know about the Battle of Gods.
I know about all of that stuff now. I’m through the goddamn looking glass, and there’s no turning back.
Electra knows, too. We’ve both been sworn to secrecy, at least for now.
Cal hates having to hide secrets from the public, but now that I know what he knows, I see why the ChaotiX has to do that.
It’s… it’s a lot to think about. A heavy burden to bear.
And the ChaotiX… they’ve been bearing that burden for a while.
I’m sorry, but I don’t even know how to begin explaining it to you. Again, Cal can probably explain it properly, go bug him.
My mind is still reeling from everything I’ve learned.
Maybe I really was better off not knowing.
It’s good to know that there’s others bearing that burden, though. It’s a relief that me and Electra don’t have to bear it alone.
But this means I’m in. I’m officially a member of the ChaotiX now. Got an ID card and COMP and a blipper and everything.
Well, except a battle suit. Since I won’t be seeing any actual battle for the foreseeable future, it’s not necessary.
Me in a battle suit still kinda feels like a black man wearing a Klan robe.
Definitely want one of those Endo-Klyn Suits, though. Now that I’m a ChaotiX member, I can get one without bankrupting myself and my descendants too, or so I thought.
Sadly, there’s a waiting list. Those things aren’t easy to make, Cal said.
And there’s a lot of team members before me on the waiting list. Like Judy, Konba and… Jack.
It’ll be a while until it’s my turn to get one.
But they’ve got a lot of the old nano suits, and nano armors. They’ve got those Omega Busters, like the one Erwin has.
Even though I don’t have superpowers, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t contribute in more ways than just telling Cal how abusers think.
I’m not sure if I’d be any good at magic, but the ChaotiX seems to have suits of power armor just lying around all over the place. Cal might seriously trust me with one.
And there’s a few other team members who don’t have any innate powers, they can make themselves useful on the battlefield.
I don’t think I’m ready for that yet, however. Like I told Electra, fighting a regular person is one thing, but a supervillain like Dehak would paste me.
A knife to the gut almost killed me. I am definitely not ready to join in on the superpowered punchfests.
Right now, I need to get used to the idea of me, Jeff Robinson, being a ChaotiX member.
I never thought that I would ever actually say that.
After showering and getting dressed, and putting my new COMP on my wrist, I walk into the main area of the living quarters, opening the saferoom door.
“Electra? Are you up?”
I peek inside, seeing Electra waddle away from the litterbox, a fresh turd in it.
“Ewectwa am up, Jeff. Wuz wait-in fow yu tu fin-ish in da show-wuh, su Ewectwa nu gutta see yu poopie pwace again. Wut am fow bwek-fuss?”
I duck into the bedroom and pull my sweater on, rolling the left sleeve up so it doesn’t cover my COMP.
“I was thinking we could do breakfast at Sugarbean’s. They make a killer breakfast burrito.”
“Dat soun gud tu Ewectwa.”
We both enter the main living space of the quarters, and I grab my new blipper from the couch armrest, putting it in my pocket.
“And we can be there and back in a flash.”
“Wut am da pwan dis bwite time, Jeff?”
I kneel down, stroking Electra.
“Well, we’re still decorating my new office, for starters.”
Yeah, I get an office. I’ve never had an office before.
“And I need to check the real estate listings again…”
Staying at the School would make the commute easy, or nonexistent, but I don’t think we should live here forever.
I can’t say that Cal would be okay with us freeloading indefinitely.
The saferoom is big enough for Electra, but once I get my own place, I’m thinking about adopting a second fluffy.
I’m gonna be busy doing ChaotiX stuff now. Electra will need the company when I’m out of the house.
“Oh, and Cal’s probably gonna pick my brain at some point today. As for you, well, your schedule’s wide open. I could see if Konba can bring Bulma over.”
Electra smiles.
“Ewectwa wike Buwma.”
“It’s good to see you making friends of your own species. Alright, hold on.”
As Electra places a hoof on my sneaker, I pull my blipper out.
Cal’s walked me through it. He told me to blip from a blue hula hoop, to an orange one on the other side of the training room. I just have to concentrate on my destination and push the button.
Those training rooms have some seriously advanced tech at their disposal, so don’t ask me why they use hula hoops. Maybe it’s just a private joke I’m not in on yet.
I’ve only been a team member for a week. Cut me some slack.
On my first try, instead of blipping into the orange hoop, I wound up accidentally blipping to Detroit instead, arriving in my old house’s front garden. Scared the crap out of the family that bought the place.
I guess I must have been subconsciously thinking about the old stomping grounds.
After Cal retrieved me, I got the hang of it pretty fast.
I focus on Sugarbean’s, and push the button.
blip
Meanwhile, on the magical side of the universe, in the Octovirate of Darkness’ headquarters somewhere in Drakonia, Dehak sits on his throne, in his throne room.
Where else would you expect a throne to be?
Varney and Darksyde Duis are sitting in their armchairs, and the Many and Jaws are floating above the armchairs, but the Rider’s armchair is empty.
Varney is holding the anchor now. Jaws is bound to that old photograph by a silvery thread, and cannot go far from it.
Grand Torturer Lipou is busy elsewhere in the underground complex, interrogating an adventurer who was caught snooping around near the headquarters’ hidden entrance.
Okay, he’s torturing the adventurer. It’s in his job title. And if the adventurer happens to have any useful information, hey, that’s just a bonus.
Claude, Varney’s favorite thrall, is running another errand on Earth. Dehak has made a few duplicates of the Key to Infinity now, and Claude was one of the first minions to be trusted with one.
As members of the Octovirate, Varney, Darksyde Duis and the Rider all have a Key too.
Shadow Calvin is still locked deep within the headquarters, waiting patiently for Dehak’s orders.
It’s not really safe to give that thing free run of the HQ. Shadow Calvin has a hunger for souls, and only one soul can satisfy that hunger.
KRAKK
A portal of spiralling black and white appears, and the Rider walks out of it.
“Okay, he’s here. Gotta say, I’m starting to question some of your recruitment choices, Dehak.”
Someone else follows the Rider out of the portal, and it closes behind them.
The newcomer is a man in an expensive black suit and matching gloves, with a boyishly handsome face, curly blond hair, and a magical glass eye glowing in many colors.
He’s looking around, seeming very impressed.
“Swanky place, bonehead.”
Jaws folds his arms, leaning back in midair.
“Okay, who is this guy? Is he gonna be joining your Octo-thingy, Dehak?”
Dehak shakes his head.
“No, he won’t join the Octovirate, but he will join the New Order if he knows what’s good for him.”
He turns to the newcomer with a grin.
“Welcome to Magicca, Marc Coffeebreak. You stand in the headquarters of the New Order of Darkness, in the Kingdom of Drakonia. My name is Lord Dehak the Almighty, and I am the leader of the New Order. These are my associates: Varney, Darksyde Duis, the Many, and our consultant, Bruce Humphries, also known as Jaws. You’ve already met the Rider, and you don’t want to meet Shadow Calvin. He’s still… waiting for his moment. You’re probably wondering why you are here, Mr. Coffeebreak. You see, we have need for someone with your talents, and you will be generously rewarded if you do not fail us.”
Dehak snaps his fingers and mutters a word.
pop
Another black armchair appears, next to Varney’s.
“Do take a seat before we commence the shop talk.”
The Rider sits down in his armchair.
“I already told him the basics. I said that we have a business proposition for him.”
Mr. Coffeebreak grins boyishly as he too sits down.
“And I can guess what that proposition is: you wanna take out a contract on someone. Someone who you really want to be inhumed, and has already survived several attempts to inhume them. Or perhaps I’m wrong, and you’d like me to inhume Santa? I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t given a lot of thought to how I’d do that job.”
Jaws huffs.
“What does this guy have to do with my unfinished business with Jeffy and his shitrat? Is he gonna assassinate them? Because I have dibs on them, damnit! If anyone’s gonna kill them, it’s gonna be me!”
Dehak shrugs.
“You’ll see, Humphries. Anyway, Mr. Coffeebreak, I understand that you were once contracted to… inhume the disrespectful guttersnipe known as Sir Calvin Korkea. By the late Vanessa Valentine, who, by sheer coincidence, happened to be my ex-niece-in-law. Is that true?”
Mr. Coffeebreak nods gleefully.
“I’m still working on completing the contract, actually. Sure, Valentine is too dead to pay up, but I’m doing it for the exposure. I’ve been in hiding since my first go. I didn’t wanna end up in prison, like the Nose. Never was fond of that blind asshole.”
“Yes, it was challenging to find you, but I relish a challenge, and I believe that you are the same.”
“Damn right. I’m the best assassin there ever was and ever will be, and I’ll kill as many people as I have to in order to prove it. That’s why I took the contract on Korkea’s life. So you’re another of Korkea’s enemies, are you? He’s got a knack for making enemies.”
Dehak gestures proudly at himself.
“I am his greatest enemy, Mr. Coffeebreak. You’ve seen the powers at my disposal.”
Mr. Coffeebreak holds up a gloved hand.
“Okay, hold on just one second. Let me make something clear: it’s pronounced Kaffaybrakee.”
Dehak shrugs again.
“If you insist. Rider, why don’t you help our new friend get settled in?”
He turns to Jaws.
“I think it’s time for another chat with you, Mr. Humphries.”
blip
Me and Electra appear back on the School’s lawn, and I’m now holding a Sugarbean’s takeout bag.
We’re gonna go eat these in the rec room, and I got a few extra burritos, in case any of my new, ah, coworkers want one.
I’m trying to make a good impression.
As we walk towards the front doors, I hear a cheerful, flamboyant voice behind us.
“Ooh, are those Sugarbean’s famous breakfast burritos I smell? I do hope you got one for me, Jeff.”
We stop and turn around, seeing Chaos standing there.
He’s in jester form, but for some reason, he’s wearing a furry purple pimp coat over the jester outfit, there’s a matching pimp hat with a big feather over the cap and bells, and he’s holding a diamond-studded pimp cane.
He twirls the cane with a completely unnecessary flourish.
“Do you like the threads?”
I look him over, feeling baffled. Not an uncommon feeling when you’re dealing with Chaos, frankly.
“Don’t tell us you’ve started pimping.”
“Jeff, wut am pim-ping?”
“I’ll, uh, explain later, Electra. Seriously, Chaos, what’s with the pimp clothes?”
Chaos chuckles.
“I simply like the look, Jeff. Of course I haven’t started pimping. It goes against so many of my principles. I, ah, acquired these clothes from a now-incarcerated fluffy pimp by the name of Tyrone Beck, while I was helping Cal apprehend him. Call it the spoils of victory. I was in the mood to dig these out of the closet today. Just felt like it, y’know?”
I imagine that Chaos’ closet looks something like that scene from The Matrix with the absurdly long gun racks.
“Well, it doesn’t look bad on you. So are you just here for me, Chaos?”
“No, I’m also here to talk with Cal. Have you seen him today?”
“Not yet. We just got back from Sugarbean’s.”
Chaos turns towards the training facility.
“He’s probably in there. Or in the Cave of Spirit of Time.”
Yeah, I know about that too. It’s on Slak, a planet on the universe’s magical side. All ChaotiX members have permission to train in there. One day outside is one year inside.
Golly, how convenient. No wonder Cal unlocked a new level of Luminary Form in there.
I gave it a try a couple of days ago. Couldn’t last five minutes in that Cave. Which wasn’t even a full second in real time.
Baby steps, Jeff, baby steps.
“You don’t mind if I hang out with you two until Cal’s done with his morning workout, do you?”
I shrug.
“Sure, why not? We were gonna go do breakfast in the rec room.”
The three of us head inside, through the front doors.
My new COMP has a map of the school, so we make our way to the rec room easily.
When we walk in, we find it almost empty, save Victor watching TV on the big screen, sitting in his La-Z-Boy, Scarface curled up on the couch.
“Uh! Uhn! Oh yeah! Pull my hair! Harder, Daddy! Oh, oohh, don’t stop, fuck fuck fuck, I’m so clo–”
click
Victor quickly turns the TV off with the remote, but we saw what he was watching.
“Sup, guys. Sorry about that.”
I stare incredulously at his scarred face.
“Watching porn, Victor? Here? Really? You are a cad.”
“Shut up Jeff, I know it!”
Scarface grins at me.
“Wai yu fink Scawface nu am sittin in Victow wap?”
I disregard that remark.
“Seriously, does Cal know that you’re sitting here, watching porn on that big TV? This is supposed to be a school.”
Victor shrugs.
“No one else was here until you three walked in. It’s still kinda early, the rec room doesn’t start to fill up until noon.”
Chaos chuckles again.
“At least you’ve learned to keep your pants on while you’re doing that.”
“I’d rather not spend another week wearing booty shorts that won’t come off, Chaos.”
…
…
…
Nope, not asking for more details.
I look at Electra, who is staring at the blank TV screen.
“Wuz dey duin speciaw huggies? Dey wuz duin speciaw huggies… wike fwuffies du it.”
Scarface grins at Electra next.
“Hoomins caww it doggie stiwe. Su wut bwings yu fwee hewe?”
I hold up the takeout bag.
“Breakfast. You guys want a burrito? We’ve got extra.”
Electra points a hoof at the bag.
“Dey am fwom Sugaw-beens.”
Victor laughs.
“You son of a bitch, Jeff! Why didn’t you say that sooner?”
I sit down on the couch with Chaos, placing Electra on it next to Scarface, before I start handing out burritos.
“I hope your hands are clean, Victor.”
Victor laughs again as he takes a burrito.
“I was just watching it, Jeff. Relax. But speaking of Sugarbean’s, did you know that I’m buddies with the founder?”
“Really? So you’re not just buddies with the founder of FauCorp.”
“I’ve met the founders of a lot of companies, Jeff. I once had a drunken fistfight with Gerard Adriaan Heineken. Ironically, I was drunk on Heineken. But yeah, I met Glen at the Eternal Gentlemen’s Club, and I’m glad I did. He wouldn’t have a highly successful chain of restaurants without me.”
“Wait, isn’t Glen the guy who used to have a fluffy head?”
“No, you’re thinking of Glenn with two Ns. Glen Sugarbean only has one.”
Electra looks up from her burrito.
“Wut am da Ee-tew-naw Gen-tuw-mens Cwub?”
Victor takes a bite of his burrito before he replies.
“First of all, it’s was, not is, or am. Now that Jeff is a member, I can tell you two the whole story.”
I roll my eyes.
“Let me guess, it’s classified information to the public.”
Victor nods.
“Kinda. You’re looking at the reason that the Club isn’t a thing anymore.”
Chaos has taken his pimp hat off as he eats, ignoring the logistics of eating with a mask on entirely.
“I was watching that whole affair from my domain. I think my favorite part was the fight against the homunculus.”
I pause, my burrito inches away from my mouth.
“The fight against the what?”
“Otay, Ewectwa gutta heaw da whowe stowy.”
Scarface grins harder.
“It am a gud wun. Twust Scawface, cuz Scawface wuz dewe fow it.”
Victor takes another bite, chews and swallows.
“Let us tell you the story…”
With his free hand, he gestures dramatically.
“…of how me, Scarface, and the Faucheuse brothers found the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“Wait, you mean the one that…”
“Grants eternal life and turns lead to gold? The very same, jeff.”
Electra swallows a mouthful of burrito.
gulp
“Wut du dat haf tu du wif dat Cwub?”
Victor stares at the burrito in his hand.
“Everything. Okay, so it started when me and Scarface were invited to the Club…”
In the New Order’s headquarters, Dehak sits down at his desk in his private office, Jaws floating on the other side of the desk.
It’s a rather beautiful desk, made of sapient pearwood, the same kind of wood that Reiner Swan’s Luggage is made of.
Sapient pear trees grow best in places with large amounts of magical energy, so, while they’re extremely rare on Earth, they’re much more common on Magicca.
Chopping sapient pear trees down is a crime in Drakonia, because they’re sapient, so that would technically be murder, but Dehak has never really seen the law as an obstacle to getting what he wants.
Yes, the desk is still sapient. And if a druid was in the room, they would hear the desk screaming endlessly.
Dehak chopped the tree down and carved it into the desk himself, knowing that the wood felt every step of the process, and basking in it, wishing he could hear that sweet screaming.
He has a tendency to find the most horrifying and sadistic way to carry out even the simplest of tasks.
If Dehak still needed to urinate, his… urine receptacle of choice would be an anthill. Or a woolly’s face. Or Calvin’s face.
It just feels like he’s wasting his time if someone isn’t hurt.
He likes to have victims.
There’s bookcases filled with all sorts of tomes, and wooden file cabinets. On the wall behind the desk, there’s a large painting of Dehak himself.
On the desk, next to a quill and inkwell, there’s a long roll of parchment, along with Jaws’ anchor.
Dehak flicks his finger, and the parchment unrolls itself, the quill floating up and dipping itself in the inkwell.
“Let us continue transcribing your knowledge, Mr. Humphries. I need to know every last detail of your… for lack of a better word, friendship with Robinson. I believe that we had reached the point when the two of you parted ways, after Chaos began his meddling in Robinson’s life.”
As the quill touches the parchment, Jaws scoffs an echoing scoff.
“Why are you still bothering with that medieval crap? You’ve got those Keys to Infinity, get yourself a computer already.”
Dehak chuckles, clearly amused.
“And where, exactly, would I plug it in? Do you see any of those… power sock-its around here? Electricity is not as common here as it is in your world, Mr. Humphries.”
“Get a laptop, then! That Rider guy taught you all a spell for recharging batteries, didn’t he? Even a typewriter would be an upgrade. Or a goddamn ballpoint pen and a notepad. If you wanna make any progress on Earth, Dehak, you’ve gotta modernize.”
“The Rider has already told me as much. But thank you, Mr. Humphries, I shall take your suggestions into account. For now, why don’t you tell me how you learned that Robinson was in the boy’s city?”
Jaws grins.
“Well, it was when I saw a YouTube video of Jeffy giving toys to shitrats…”