Saga Of The European King

Look at this, Roxy is riding Gappy as fast as she possibly can. Colonel Glowfist and Carolyn are really far away. Their fight only lasted a few minutes, but it landed them miles and miles away. Even with the gravity being set so low, Roxy knew that it would take a while to reach the archmage. She could see the site of the battle, far off in the distance. She knew that Colonel Glowfist would be back to normal and that he would be having a heart attack. She knew that she was the only person on the Moon who could help him. She knew that she wouldn’t make it. It was too far. Gappy could ride fast, but not that fast. Roxy was crying and the tears were turning into ice as they zipped off her face. She was leaving behind her little spheres of ice. Each sphere contained a thousand units of sadness.

Roxy dipped her head for a while, overcome with the idea that she had failed and that Colonel Glowfist had died, alone and obese on the Moon, and when she raised her head and blinked her tears away, she saw that she was about to run in to a herd of goats. She slammed on Gappy’s brakes and screamed a gypsy curse on goats that caused a thousand birth defects on goats all across the Earth. It didn’t hurt these goats one bit, though. They just stood there, in the way, chewing on dust. Roxy looked around in confusion. She didn’t know where the goats had come from. Why would there be goats on the Moon? When she looked back, she saw an old man standing among the goats. He was sad, but she reckoned she was sadder and besides, she was in no mood to deal with old men.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY!” she screamed at the old man. “MOVE YOUR GOATS! HE’S DYING!” The old man did nothing for a while. Roxy muttered some bad words under her breath and moved to turn Gappy around. She was going to go around the goats, if the goats would not move.
“This is my last chance.” Said the old man. He said it slowly, which angered Roxy Tripfoot even further. Before she could scream at him again, he said, “If you go to him, many people will die. The traitor will gorge himself in blood. Europe will be shaken to its very foundations.” Roxy had had enough. She drew her sharp hula-hoop out of its scabbard. She was angry enough to cut through the goats and behead the old man for standing in her way. The old man held up his hand.
“Your mind is set. I will take you to him.”

Before Roxy could respond, she was at Colonel Glowfist’s side. His eyes were bulging. He was red all over. He looked even fatter than normal. Roxy almost changed her mind to let him die, such was the sight of him. But then she remembered what he had looked like only minutes before – all thin and kicking ass. She pulled some surgical rabbits from her sleeves and began to steady his heart. She sang an old gypsy healing babble. It was old, back from the days when the gypsies were a force for good, being friends of Europe. Colonel Glowfist’s breathing grew steady. He came out of shock. His heart returned to normal. He was sleeping peacefully now. Roxy Tripfoot kissed him, even though he was fat.

The kiss was interrupted by Carolyn clapping really slowly. It was a sarcastic clap. It was intended to make people feel stupid and clumsy about something they’d just done. As she clapped, her hands glowed red with evil magic. She was walking towards Roxy and the Colonel. She was not defeated.

Back at the ruins of Leonard Cohen’s flying house, the King awoke from his week-long slumber. He woke up the instant Ric set a foot inside the house. As the King sat up, hurried and full of purpose, Ric walked slowly into the King’s room. Ric was still wearing his space suit. He was moving slowly. His breathing was mechanical and loud. The King didn’t even have to look at Michael, who was sitting cross-legged in the corner, having just come out from the Astral Plane himself. He didn’t even have to look at the two Jerusalem girls, who were very hot. He knew exactly what to do. Ric knew it, too. That’s why he had come inside.

The King jumped right out of bed and grabbed Ric around the chest. He was hugging him, but also tackling him to the ground. Ric didn’t resist. He just fell. When they were both on the ground, Ric hugged back. They stayed that way for a just a few seconds, but those few seconds were like a lifetime of happiness to Ric. He whispered in the King’s ear. Michael heard it, and he agreed. He had whispered, “Thank you. Thank you.”

Then the King tore off Ric’s spacesuit from his body, and all the sadness that was stored in the spacesuit scattered across the room and froze into tiny, perfect spheres. Ric was crying perfect spheres too, but he wasn’t making any noise. The King wasted no time. He bit down on Ric’s leg and tore out a chunk of flesh. He chewed it in his powerful jaws, swallowed, and ate another chunk. He ate another, then another, and kept on eating chunks of Ric until both he and Ric were one. Ric could feel the pain, but it was nothing compared with the feeling of being all alone on the Moon. He kept telling the King that it was cool, that it was okay.

Ric wasn’t strong enough to handle the loneliness, even though he was better qualified for it than anyone else in the world. All he could do was keep being sad and whistling and talking in opposites, making no sense at all. NASA wouldn’t help him, Burzum wouldn’t help him and Carolyn certainly wouldn’t help him. She liked him being lonely. Carolyn thought that nothing could compete with her emotions. She was wrong, of course. She didn’t know what would happen if the King and Ric teamed up. Ric’s sadness had built and powered a whole city. Now the King was using it, but unlike Ric, the King could control it.

The instant Ric and the King teamed up, Carolyn felt it. She was far away, slow clapping at Roxy Tripfoot, but she knew what had happened. She felt like such a fool for not figuring it out before it had happened. She should never have allowed the King to even know about Ric. Now her power source was under the control of another, who could use it far better than she ever had. She stopped slow clapping at Roxy and started slow clapping at herself. Tears ran down her face. Her mouth was open just a little bit.
“Bravo,” she said. “Well done, chugger.”

Roxy, still leaning over Colonel Glowfist, stood up then. She saw what had happened to Carolyn. She saw that she was slow clapping for herself. Carolyn was telling her that she had failed. Roxy pointed a finger at her and said, with all the truth in the world, “You’re fat, Carolyn. You don’t even try. You use people for their emotions just because you don’t like yourself and are ashamed to even get out of the apartment.”

Carolyn looked at Roxy and nodded. She turned around and walked away. Roxy kept on saying truth at her the whole time. She just disappeared. No one ever saw her again.

End Of Chapter 42