Fate - monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
you are malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.
~O Fortuna translated
Brain pod 29 rolled around in terror. His black and purple paint job did not flatter his bulky machinery, designed to quiver in terror, not to flee. The scared stiff brain was thinking so hard, that the nutritive juice cushioning his brain started to fizz.
"Ohnohnohnohnohnohnohno…"
Why did he always have to pick the short straw?
All around him grubs, in their tight red spandex uniforms, and other brain pods, silently grateful that it was him rather than them who was sentenced to an abysmal fate, gathered to wish him off.
One of the shiftier grubs smiled, "I'm just glad it wasn't me." As soon as he moved his arms to wipe the beads of sweat off his forehead, many longs straws fell out of his sleeves, clattering on the ground.
"You little cheater…." 29 was ready to murder him, but that particular grub scampered off too quickly.
"It was nice knowing you, as nice as anything on Planet Z can be anyway," a different grub patted 29's shoulder pads. Even though he couldn't feel it through the metal, it was still a nice gesture. Then 29 remembered that grubs seldom bathed, and this one was in charge of the sanitary department…By this point 29 was glad he didn't have a stomach; otherwise he would have vomited all over the little insect, who disturbingly would take it as an early Christmas present, which would have only caused the poor brain to vomit again.
"You worked efficiently while you were here," the more logical number 47 tried to compliment him, "save for all the comments on the side, and when you asked for a raise that one time when our evil eminence used the Uni-mind in an attempt to rule the universe, and the time you..." 47 failed to cheer up 29, droning on and on about 29's lapses in judgment.
"I guess I'll be moved up to number 29. SCORE!" the insensitive pod 28 rejoiced.
"Gee, thanks," 29 stated sarcastically, silently wishing that glares could kill.
"Can I have your stuff?" a chipper grub asked.
"What stu—oh," realization dawned upon the sickened pod, who was covering the front of his jar with his grey claws, "you mean the congealed remnants of the mutant manure from my last project, sure to transform any vegetable or fruit into destructive brutes?"
"If you mean stinky piles of yum, then yes," the grub agreed.
"Little stinkin' bugger," 29 thought to himself, as he sighed, "Go past the hanger, down the hall of rejected machines, past the photos of Zurg making a peace sign next to his dejected prisoners, where you'll come across the locker room. It's painted loganberry. My capsule is the same as my number."
"Which is—" this grub wasn't particularly bright. None of them truly were, but they were good at following the blueprints that the brain pods crafted, and loyally following Zurg's instructions, as crazy as they may be.
"29," he groaned. "The thing is carved onto my front!"
"You didn't have to yell," the grub mumbled, moving his little greenish foot in a saddened circle on the ground.
"I'm sorry," 29 literally felt some of his brain cells snap from this stupidity. "I'm just a little stressed is all. To be expected, after the Evil one commissioned me to his recent…project."
"Yes, to be alone with Zurg, stranded on the bleak Planet X, trapped inside of some tomb no doubt riddled with booby traps; the sole sentient life form for the purple one to take out his anger on…" 28 shivered, "No one to hear your cries."
That comment caused 29 to go into hysterics again. His arms were waving in the air, as he rolled in a jerky patter around the room, "Whymewhymewhymewhyme?"
47 chided 28, pointing an accusing claw at him, "You just had to go and do that, didn't you, setting 29 off into an episode."
"Better to freak out among us than with the Purple blowhard himself," 28 noted.
Zurg's obnoxiously loud voice came echoing down the hall, with sound waves crashing so hard against his employees, that the grubs grabbed their antennae in pain, trying to pull them out of their heads, and some of the brain pods' bulletproof glass cracked.
"NUMBER 29!" Zurg's bellows rang out through the halls. "Get your wrinkled mass of pickled puss over here this instant!"
29's brain froze in terror, as if all his nerves just shriveled upon hearing those dreaded words.
"Run along now, before he thinks of even more devious methods to incinerate you!" 47 pushed 29 through the halls and towards the hangar bay. 29's arms trailed limply besides his body.
"That was awkward," 28 swerved his jar around, his crane-like neck stretched out a little closer to the grub, after making certain that the room wasn't bugged. "In any case, have you heard the rumor going around about our evil emperor's gender?"
"Maybe," the grub's eyes squinted at the pod with scrutiny, unsure if this was a trap. "Maybe not."
"Care to place a wager?" 28 offered to cut the grub into the action.
"NOOOOO!" the grub yelled; eyes wide with fear. "You can't make me bets my green glop. Is miiiiiiiiiiine!" he scampered away, running down the halls with a blinding speed to reach 29's locker before any other grub got a whiff of the news.
Zurg sat stiffly in his violet chair, situated in a much smaller vessel than usual. Its surface was entirely coated in black glossy paint, with two spikes jutting out of the wings, mirroring the ones on Zurg's armor. The glass screens were tinted black as well, so even if people peered into the strange vessel, they wouldn't be able to recognize the lilac interior and its even more mauve pilot.
His shoulders were hunched slightly, due to the curvature of the ceiling, and the fact that this ship was half the size of Star Command's ships—the green and white eyesores looking more like blimps than spaceships, but that was the LGMs fault. Everything had to be compressed inside this ship to enhance speed and agility, and to store at least one gigantic ion blaster that could pop out at any time.
The Evil Emperor needed to be stealthier. He just knew that Lightyear would defy Nebula's orders and chase after him, and the man with a cleft much too big would be too busy scanning the skies for the Dreadnaught to notice a sleek black vehicle passing him by, as long as Buzz didn't notice the bumper sticker that Zurg just had to paste on this bad boy, Zurgz#1, in bright yellow letters. In his defense, at least it wasn't purple.
"29, get your sorry engine over here before I decide to use your precious brain as my own personal stress ball! I don't have to tell you how easily I get tensed!" Zurg stuck his head out of the side window, shaking his fist angrily into the crimson red docking bay.
"Coming Heinous One," 29 barely put the brakes on in time to avoid colliding into the newly detailed ship. The last thing he wanted to do was to scratch Zurg's precious ship, or, did he dare think it, cause a dent in its polished side.
"Heinous One, I like that," the emperor smiled, showing off his glistening teeth. "I like that a lot." Then he snapped back to his malicious senses. "What took you so long?" Zurg grew irritated. "You know I don't like to be kept waiting."
"I apologize, my Illustrious Overlord," the brain pod struggled to bow within the cramped quarters, "but I was just double checking my data, to be sure that everything was up to date, with the latest in ancient hieroglyphic translation technology." The brain pod took a bright yellow square data pad, with the best code cracking hardware that money could buy, or intimidate into being made anyway.
"Does that mean that you took a chance at leaving the inspection of your information to the last second, knowing that if there was a flaw, we'd be trapped with faulty equipment on Planet X, wasting my short time of being 'untouchable?'" his voice rose well above the level of a jet plane breaking the sonic barrier.
"Nuh-nu-nu-no," 29 stammered, "of c-c-course not, my liege. D-did I say double checking? I meant triple. Nothing is too g-g-"
"Spit it OUT already!" Zurg bellowed.
"—good for my emperor," 29 could have had a seizure right then and there.
"Use my full title!" Zurg stared into 29's eyeballs, allowing the puny weakling to see his corneas start to glow with heat. Some sizzling sparks of energy were building up at the corners of his eyes
"Yes, Evil Emperor Zurg, soon to be ruler of the entire Galactic Alliance!" 29 yelped in less than five seconds.
"That's more like it," Zurg turned around in his seat, staring at the clear path to his new conquest.
After a few moments of awkward silence, as Zurg was checking each of the yellow and red scanners to be sure that this ship was ready to fly, with no maintenance issues along the way (since he didn't trust the grubs' inspection. Not since that last time where they 'checked' his ice blaster, and it only shot out bubbles), 29 dared to speak again.
"If I may ask, Zurg," 29's curious mind forced him to make this thought aloud, even if it would be signing his own death warrant, "what if HE comes along for the ride. You don't have your vast supply of hornets, or Warp, or a large getaway ship; just you, me, and this craft built for speed, not war." To his surprise, Zurg did not sound vexed in the slightest. Rather, he seemed giddy.
"Oh, don't worry about Lightyear," he chuckled good-naturedly for once. "I took care of him."
Now 29's eyes went wide with awe.
"Do you mean you terminated him?"
"Of course NOT," Zurg would have hit the fool, but he was too busy staring at the Milky Way. "That wouldn't have been fun at all; not when I can't watch."
Zurg continued flipping multiple switches, pressing purple buttons that were slightly different shades of lavender. The engine hummed in apprehension. Zurg gripped tightly onto the coal black steering wheel, a little too tightly, with a sinister smile sprawled across his face.
"Uh, Evil Emperor?" 29 questioned. "I've never actually seen you pilot a ship before, save for that Tangean one driven by thoughts. Usually it's one of the lackey's job."
Zurg's smile grew wider.
"Please tell me you have a license," 29 wailed.
The mouth expanded so far, that there was more yellow than purple on his face.
"Cosmos no," he grew more alarmed. "Don't tell me that it's your first time behind the wheel!"
"Fine, I won't say anything," Zurg laughed as they zoomed through the red sky at startling speeds, zigzagging around and over his buildings; the twisting spires that made things more difficult. The jerky movements thrust even the heavy Zurg back into his seat, as poor 29 crashed against the wall, arms floundering uselessly in the air.
"I'm going to die," 29 cried, "in a crash site no less. All the experiments I've left undone, the wires I've never plugged in, the…okay, does my life suck that much?"
"Oh pipe down back there," Zurg sadistically grinned. "You wouldn't want to distract me from my driving now would you?" That caused 29 to shut up in a hurry.
Zurg gripped the wheel even tighter, with a childish glee. The result? It snapped in half, in a clean break. "That can't be good," Zurg said, eyeing one broken piece to the other.
"Does that mean we'll turn around?" 29 prayed to the Programmer in the stars.
"Not in the least," Zurg enlightened 29, while slamming his fist onto a large shiny red button. "Light speed and away!"
"And death is sure to follow," 29 considered these fitting final words.
The imperial ship descended onto the desert surface in a spiraling pattern, causing waves of sand to spin all around them, disturbed for the first time in thousands of years. Purple flaps extended out of the sides of the ship, slowing the descent, as the landing gear took care of the rest, creating so much friction that they managed to form glass skid marks on the dusty dunes. Zurg was the first one to hop out of the transport vehicle. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" he cheerfully spun around, certain that he was the best pilot who ever existed.
29 stumbled out of the ship, gripping his torso in distress. His eyes bulged as big as bowling balls, his once healthy pink cortex turned gray with fright, and his mechanical body was moving spastically, as some of his wires got damaged in his skirmish with death itself. A couple electric blue sparks shot out of his neck. "No comment," he moaned.
"Don't be such a baby," Zurg mocked his pain, as he danced across the surface. "Oh goodie! I'm here, Lightyear's humiliated, and I have proven once again my superiority to anyone and everyone in all things evil. MWAHHaHAhAaHAHhah RuhAHhAaahhaaa hahahaha ha…" He paused to wipe a happy clear blue tear from his eye, "I should have taken time off eons ago."
"I think I'd rather be clocking in extra hours," 29 wished that his frontal lobes weren't throbbing so much. During the venture into the vast void of space, his brain was jostled so hard, bumping from side to side within the jar, that purplish bruises formed on his cerebral cortex. "There goes ten years of intense studying at Zale Academy."
"Oh hush up," Zurg quieted the woozy brain pod. "You'll have plenty of chances to work overtime without any pay later, as long as you don't get on my nerves, but for now, it's time for our descent into the tombs of Anubis: the guardian of lost souls, the dead, orphans, and other such blithering matters. If you ask me, he should have been investing his time in Chaos. Much more profitable."
29's eyes narrowed in suspicion, "How did you know that? Last time I checked, you didn't understand half as much when you sent Warp down here to get Natron. You thought it would be a gun that turns people into pillars of salt."
"Maybe my ignorance is all a façade. Did you ever think of that?" the emperor twirled around, with his colossal ion blaster aimed at 29's pain lobe, just inches from his protective jar. "Now, do you have any more idiotic questions?" Zurg hissed.
"No sir, none at all!" 29 backed away as quickly as his dented wheels would take him.
"That's Sir with a CAPITAL letter," a deep growl rose from his throat. "Say my name like you MEAN it, with all the fear vibrating from the depths of your scrawny hull!"
"No, SIR!" he quivered in dread, with his arms covering his fragile head. 29 shut his eyes expecting the worse. Broiled brains galore.
Zurg saw him twitch, normally an amusement for him, but his heart just wasn't into torturing helpless cronies today. "We'd best head over towards the temple."
"Oh, yes of course, master," 29 was confused as to why he was spared, but didn't dwell on the issue. "So, as long as you followed those coordinates I downloaded into the mainframe—"
"What coordinates?" Zurg's horns both tilted downwards. "I thought we were free styling."
29 smacked his glass covering with his clawed hands, suddenly wishing that the emperor already wasted him.
Buzz Lightyear finished testing out the functions of his baggy orange suit. "Note to self: everything seems to be functioning at 89%, with a few buttons not serving any purpose other than decoration, but the main tasks including air filtration, helmet, oxygen tank supply, fuel storage, are adequate. Unfortunately, there's no jet pack, as it was ripped off during the last run-in I had with the Chlorm, in that dissecting room with Darkmatter, but a ranger is more than the sum of their tools." Buzz added, "Hopefully that still applies to ex-rangers..."
He stepped outside of his less than friendly abode, across the artificial grass, quickly walking towards his personal space ship. It was also the same shade of putrid orange, with leather seats, some fuzzy blue dice hanging inside the convertible, and patches of paint flaking off its surface, revealing the chrome underneath. "Has it really been that long?" Buzz wondered to himself. The design was probably more antique than the monuments on Planet X itself, with a tan interior not complementing the horrendous paint job, but as Buzz was away for work most of the time, he never got the chance to purchase a new hovercraft, or even notice the bad condition of his old one for that matter; not when he could use old 42, but that was the real ancient history.
The man humbly thought, "At least it's better than nothing."
One of his neighbors, who always seemed to be trimming his hedges, waved over to Buzz. He was wearing a dark green shirt and matching hat, smiling that the hero he lived next to (which raised the property value of his estate) finally made a quick appearance.
"Hey there chief! Didn't know you were taking the day off. I thought you were too attached to your job to get away."
"I wouldn't necessarily call it 'time off,'" Buzz didn't feel like elaborating.
"Oh, I get it," the neighbor turned back to his hedges.
"You do?" Buzz questioned.
"Sure," the neighbor turned back to Buzz. "You're Star Command's ace in the hole, only dressed up in that blindingly awful attire so no one will recognize you, as you head off on a secret mission, tailing a super villain."
"It wasn't such so ugly when I bought it," Buzz kept that thought to himself. His fashion sense had never been reliable, which is why the Star Command uniforms were so appealing to him.
"So, was I right, or was I right?" the neighbor looked as cocky as ever.
"That's classified information," the words popped right out of Lightyear's mouth.
"Sure thing chief," the neighbor went back to his war against weeds. "Whatever you say."
As Buzz prepared himself to board his 'unsightly' ship, yet another interruption plagued him. "Sweet Mother of Venus," Buzz shook his head. "When will this end?"
Unfortunately, the postal office doesn't take into consideration the mental health of their recipients. Just hand over the package, get the signature, and get out.
The plain white hover-truck parked by the end of Buzz's driveway, allowing the postal worker with wavy brown hair, a cheerful attitude, and a smile permanently burned onto his face to step out of his automotive and descend down the steps until he reached the famed intergalactic hero.
"Greetings Buzz," he grinned from ear to ear. "Somehow I just knew that you'd be in today."
"Hello there, fellow worker for the public's wellbeing," Buzz forced a smile back. "How do you know when I drop by? Even my ranger sense isn't that accurate."
"Coughtrackingdeviceimplantedintoyourneckcough," the mailman not so subtly hid the information.
"What?" Buzz didn't quite catch that.
"Oh nothing," the mailman sighed while he handed Buzz the forms on a mahogany clipboard. "Just a lucky guess."
Buzz eyed him skeptically.
"Besides, I always go by this street on my rounds, and when I see you out here, I deliver."
"That makes more sense," Buzz gave his signature grin so shiny, that you half-expect the teeth to sparkle with a tinkling sound. He neatly printed his name onto the blank lines below. "So who's this from?" Buzz inquired.
"Just some secret admirer." The mailman whistled, "Must have been your fiftieth one this month!"
"Actually, fifty-first," Buzz was dismayed. "Can't they pick someone ielse/i to swoon over?"
"Not since you were named the universe's Hottest Hunk from Galactic Guy Magazine, and the most desired eligible bachelor as well."
"I thought Warp still held that title," Buzz mused over to himself.
"Yeah, but he was disqualified after the staff found out about his one night stand with the chief editor."
"Wow," Buzz blushed. That was something he did NOT want to know.
"Yeah, I feel bad for the woman's husband. Poor chap didn't see the signs."
Buzz handed over the completed papers to the civic worker. "Best wishes to him," Buzz said, as he grabbed the package, and nearly dropped it. The thing was heavy!
"Is there a whole city inside this or what!" Buzz groaned, as he carried the wooden crate back inside his house.
"I don't know, but tell me when you do find out!" the mailman reentered his vehicle and sped off to the next stop on his list.
Buzz stumbled inside his doorway, dropping the thing onto the coffee table in front of him. The white legs snapped under the weight of the hefty parcel, dropping the top of white slab and the box to the ground. "Craters," Buzz cursed. "Just what I need."
He fished a crowbar out from behind the front door just for this purpose, and pried the top of the lid off. "Let's see, what do we hav—" a green mist rose from the opened package, covering Lightyear in a puff of vile green smoke devoured him. "Nerve gas," he choked, holding his hands around his throat. "No, even worse," his eyes widened with horror, "it's Zurg's overpowering cologne, concentrated even! The fiend!" Buzz lost consciousness, falling to the floor with a loud crash.
Zurg looked at his violet Zolex, with yellow canary diamonds covering the whole wristband. "I'm guessing that Lightyear got his package," he chortled. "Take that Buzz, you predictable buffoon. Your mind is no match for my own. MWAHA HA ha ha—enough of that."
Zurg continued taking long strides to the east, where there were only hills of sand as far as the eye can see. He didn't seem perturbed by the fact that they had been walking for hours, without the aid of a map, as 29's schematics were only useful if they knew exactly what coordinates they started from to begin with.
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" 29 was having trouble keeping up with his pace. The sand kept clogging his cogs, grating against his wheels, so that whenever he moved, it sounded like he was sawing his metal rods into dust.
"Are you questioning you're master?" Zurg asked into the biting air.
"You forgot Evil master," 29 mumbled.
"ONLY I CAN correct others, you TWIT!" Zurg roared. His expression became the embodiment of ire.
"Alright, alright," 29 whimpered. "Just don't hurt me! I still have clones to feed."
"I feed all of you brains, you bawling sac of stem cells," Zurg sneered. "It's antics like that just sizzle my sausages."
"The kind you eat with scrambled eggs for breakfast, right?" 29 felt like strangling Warp for talking about the gossip he heard from Star Command. It gave 29 too many disturbing ideas.
"Naturally, you blithering idiot. What did you think I was talking about?" the evil emperor was clueless about how bad that particular phrase sounded.
"Nothing, nothing in the slightest," 29 cowered. "I just had a malfunction in my auditory cortex is all. The bruises you know."
"Oh, right," the emperor's temper died down. "Just go to the Zick bay when you get back. Some nurse grubs will take care of you."
"Like I want one of THOSE things tampering around the inner sanctums of my mind," 29 kept this thought to himself.
Zurg started to sprint, just to spite the little brain pod. "Little wheels will have to work hard to catch up to meeeeeeee!" Zurg tripped over a brown rock jutting out of the ground, taking a spill over the edge of the sand dune. His large frame rolled down the mound of dirt, causing the grains to go everywhere; in his socks, down his shirt, into his eyes, and across his mouth. "Grrmppfflllrhhmmmph!" the esteemed emperor managed to utter the cries until he landed onto a flat mound of concrete below.
Miraculously, he didn't look much worse for the wear. It took a lot to damage Zurg's body, but not nearly so much effort to hurt his pride. He stood up with great haste, brushing off the dirt from his clothes.
"Evil Emperor Zurg!" 29 shouted with alarm. "Are you okay?"
"Do I LOOK ok to you?" Zurg bellowed in reply. He had a whole list of choice words (fake food-related swears) that he was going to use, but he broke off from his rant as his eyes beheld his prize.
"It looks like you were right all along, Zurg," 29 was drowning in amazement as the two stared at Anubis's temple, partially buried under the sand. The stone slabs that made up the temple were covered in intricate carvings of the half-dog half-man god of ancient lore, put together in a breathtaking pattern that must have used up eons of time, with the ancient tools available at the Xyz's disposal.
"Just as I planned," Zurg smiled to himself.
"But how did you know?" 29 questioned. "I myself would have never been able to spot it from space. The thing sank into the ground, for Hubble Telescope's sake!"
"That's what I'd like to find out," Zurg wondered aloud, as he slid into the ancient tomb, swallowed by darkness.
Somewhere in deep space, where not even the light dared to venture, a silent alarm was tripped by Zurg's shenanigans, sending radio frequencies out in all directions in an endless loop; "The hallowed grounds have been breached."