Chapter Zero – How it all began
Before time began, Adam and Eve were making babies. After time began, mankind invented war. Some people wished those two things were reversed, but they were not. Who knows why anything happens.
This is a story about two babies who were made for war. Men born, bred and trained to be the ultimate, righteous and radical instruments in the world’s wars against pure, not-awesome evil. Without these two men, born from people like Adam and Eve but not those two in particular, there would be no world.
Only war.
Chapter One – Last Night
Moonchops looked at the TP Addict handbook on the nightstand. He took a swig from his lemon-water and knew that if he even opened the door, he’d never get it back under control. He coughed, rubbed his chin stubble and zipped his pants up. The hard life of being a Double-Zero-Seven led him to it. The addiction.
He recalled all the nights he spent in group therapy, the forty in forty as they called it. The withdrawals, the dreams, the cravings. TP. Handed down through his family. His father was one. Both his father’s fathers. Yes, he had two granddads on that one side, and neither was a step-grandfather either. Don’t ask. Back then they were just ‘roommates’ or ‘close friends who had a friendship strong enough to where they didn’t need women as long as they had their buddy’.
The super-secret phone rang, startling him out of the depressing memory of Jerry and his first TP-related fatality.
“Hello?”
“Moonchops?” Slade asked.
“Yes, this is Moonchops. Who is this?”
“This is Slade.”
Oh, Slade. Moonchops’ long time partner. They had saved the world from total annihilation and obliteration and demolition and some lesser things too. Slade knew some of the TP story; enough to understand that while Moonchops was clean now, at one point he was not. Back when Moonchops was simply a Double-Zero-Six, one away from the big time. Things went horribly wrong one day with an old partner. Damn the TP. It ruined everything.
But Moonchops was cleared, cleaned up once and for all, worked hard, earned back trust and respect, was promoted, paired with the most super-sweet awesome fighter ninja secret agent ever. Slade.
Their country needed them again. Their world needed them again. Slade spelled it out over the super-secret phone. You can do that kind of thing on super-secret phones.
“The country needs us again?” Moonchops asked.
“Yes.” Slade said. “And like I said earlier: so does the world.”
“Well, which one is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does the country need us, or the world?”
“Both.”
“They ask so much of us.” Moonchops said as he gripped his TP handbook tighter than he did the first time he read it.
“That’s why we’re Double-Zero-Sevens instead of Double-Oh-Sevens like that Limey queer who wear the tuxedo and drinks girly martinis with caviar. You see me in a tux? You See me drink anything besides Toilet Bowl Surprise and eating anything- oh, Moonchops. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, Slade. If I didn’t like mustard and we went to a deli, you wouldn’t ask me if it were OK to put mustard on your sandwich. This is the same thing.”
“Can you save the country?”
“Yes.”
“What about the world?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have the plane meet you.”
“No.” Moonchops said. He stood and buttoned his sleeveless jacket up. “I’ll walk.”
“But we need you now. Walking might-”
“I’ll walk fast.”
On the other end of the phone, Slade smiled with a pride few had ever known.
“That’s the Moonchops I know.”
Moonchops started right away. Because somewhere, dark forces were brewing.
Chapter Two – The Brewing of Dark Forces
The evil Death Lord Master tented his fingertips and held them against his chin. It made him look like he was deep in thought although he only had one thought that he ever thought: kill the world.
He felt it was any evil man’s only thought but he wanted to look good and insightful as he thought it. Somewhere in the background the coffee was percolating.
His army of killer robots was finally ready. Lined out before him in a dark cavern somewhere where the sun never shined and the rain never fell and the birds never sang because they never went there in the first place, he had founded his evil lair.
He thought maybe a dragon should be living in his lair, but only the kind of evil dragon that had one thought: kill the world. He had super-secret scientists building his army of killer robots for years now. The army was done. He had forced all the super-secret scientists into a gas chamber he had them build alongside the killer robots.
Unfortunately, the super-secret scientists had built the army of robots better than they had the gas chamber and when Death Lord Master shut the door it wouldn’t look. So he had to hold it closed by jamming his foot at the bottom of the thing and he used a stick to reach over to the controls to turn on the death gas.
But there was a leak in the coupling from the death gas cylinder going into the chamber so the gas leaked into the air and caused death to no super-secret scientist. So he finally opened the door and swore them to secrecy about the killer robot army, which they had no problem with because they were already super-secret scientists to begin with.
They then boarded a train and went to Holland where they would vacation until another mad man hired them to build something. It’s what they did.
Death Lord Master tented his fingertips again and said out loud: “World, your time has come.”
He then laughed manically for a few minutes until a commercial he wanted to watch came on TV. When it was over he said: “And if Moonchops and his new partner think they can stop me, I will show the world just how weak Moonchops is right before I kill it.”
The evil Death Lord Master then opened a drawer and took out a TP handbook, opened it to the chapter entitled: Don’t Do This Or You Will Fail In Your Quest To Never Again Succumb to TP, and he made preparations for Moonchops to do it.
He was so evil.
Chapter Three – The end of a long walk, and the beginning of another one
Moonchops arrived in time to meet Slade.
“I’ve never seen walking like that before, brother. I have a lot to learn from you.” Slade said.
“Give it time, brother friend. You’ll be out-walking me one day soon.” Moonchops said.
Slade handed Moonchops his fucking-sweet-ass-sweet laser death gun. Moonchops cocked the bolt back and before releasing it to load the first laser death bullet, he looked over the open chamber and said: “You know, this day has been coming for a long, long time.”
The snap of the bolt slamming shut told Slade that this day had been coming for a long, long time.
“I believe you, brother friend hero. I believe you.” Slade said and loaded his own assassin blaster cannon. “We found him in a cavern someplace where not even birds will go. You know the place?”
“I’ve known it for years. It is my own heart.” Moonchops said.
“No. We’re thinking of two totally different places. The one I’m talking about is where we can get to by train from Holland. You feel like sniffing the tulips before we do this?”
Moonchops looked at his partner and said: “No tulips for me. I like my women all-natural.”
“Of course.” Slade said. “I’m sorry to bring it up.”
“No worries, brother friend hero soul mate.”
“You know he’s built robots, right?”
“I heard the super-secret scientists did that.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ve heard it.”
“Ready to whack robots?”
“I don’t mind killing anything, Slade.” Moonchops said and lit a cigarette. “Especially anything that requires batteries but doesn’t vibrate.”
“Let’s go!” The both shouted in unison and high-fived while jumping.
And so they did. The train left that night.
Chapter Four – TP and the final countdown to all of Earth’s demise unless Slade and Moonchops can prevent it from happening like they always have in the past
They arrived, guns blazing. Robots fell everywhere. More robots returned fire from their super-evil wrist guns.
Dead robot bodies littered the battlefield as Slade and Moonchops used their super-awesome guns to cut them down like grass that had grown too tall or wheat that was ready for the harvest or hair that needed a trim before a really important job interview. Sprockets rolled here, wires sparked and fizzled out there. Occasionally a startled woman would scream off in the distance.
Finally Slade and Moonchops had pulverized the robot scum into oblivion and destroyed them all from the face of the Earth by pulverizing them into oblivion. Lord Death Master would need more if he were to stop our heroes now. The next time he thought: kill the world he’d need more robots to do it with if he wanted to kill the world.
And then, like a horrible nightmare going on inside someone’s mind while they slept, Death Lord Master stepped out from the shadows, looked Moonchops in the eyes and said: “Hello, old partner.”
Moonchops looked at Jerry, now the evil Lord Death Master and said: “Hello, Jerry.”
“Hello Moony. I see you’re a Double-Zero-Seven now. Glad to see that by turning me evil with your stupid addiction to TP you were promoted.”
“It’s not like that and you know it. After I accidentally turned you evil I studied abroad for a year and wrote a killer thesis on the theoretical applications of dragon scales to up-armor vehicles like tanks and predator drones. Imagine a B-2 stealth bomber being stealth and fireproof. It was super fucking sweet. It made your thesis on the 18th century agrarian hardships and triumphs suck worse than RoboCop 3.”
Unfazed, the evil would-be world killer said: “I thought I’d never hear from you again after that fateful night.”
“Jerry, in recovery I learned I have to apologize to everyone I have hurt because of my TP. I never had a chance with my mother, but you, Jerry…”
“I know your purpose. That’s why I never answered your calls.” Evil gleamed in his death master-y eyes. “That’s also why I moved, changed my email, started driving a hybrid even though those clown cars are for bitches and dyed my hair. So you could never find me and therefore never apologize and therefore never recover from…”
Lord Death Master yanked a cloth that was covering a table full of delicious foods. Moonchops gasped like a little girl losing her virginity. “No!” He screamed and tried to cover his eyes.
Lord Death Master was so evil.
Death Lord Master squealed in delight and exclaimed: “You’ll never recover from being a Taste Pussy!”
“ALL THESE YEARS!” Moonchops exclaimed, hurling the statement forth into the universe from his mouth like booze vomit at a frat party.
He stared down the food. Being a Taste Pussy had cramped and ruined his life until he learned to control it. Hours and weeks and more, learning that he didn’t like some foods but loving others, afraid to try new things, preferring bland and unimaginative recipes to exotic, delicious ones. It was all flooding back.
The memory when his mother offered her young son a fresh, picked-from-the-vine-only-moments-ago peapod and saying: “Here, honey. I picked this fresh from the vine only moments ago. Eat it. It’s a sugar-snap pea. The difference between garden-fresh and store-bought is unbeleiveable!”
But Moonchops liked store-bought. He liked it so much and now… the challenge was both unfair and daunting and total horse crap and whatever. Young Moonchops realized he was a Taste Pussy then, in front of his mother. What if he didn’t like the pod itself? Was that part of eating garden-fresh? If she came in with corn would he have to eat the husks? Where was the store now, in his most urgent hour of need? It was ludicrous. And thusly, his addiction to Pussy-ness began.
Tears streaming down his face, jaw chattering, a small, dark and warm wet spot appearing on the groin of his pants, Moonchops screamed to God: “What do you want from me?! Why give me this burden you son-of-a-bitch!?”
Slade knew what he must do. He looked to his brother friend hero soul mate warrior princess and said firmly but with utter devotion and love: “Don’t eat the food. Eat what you love, and only what you love.”
And like that Moonchops stopped screaming and crying. He got a firefight-y gleam in his eyes and said: “Jerry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry being a Taste Pussy hurt you the way that it did. The way that I did.”
Death Master Lord said: “I do not forgive you, Moonchops.”
And Moonchops replied: “I never said I needed your forgiveness, Jerry. I just have to apologize.” And then he shot him in his face.
As Lord Jerry Master Death was wiggling on the robot blood-stained ground, screaming from his face-bullet, Moonchops walked up and said: “I’m sober now, Jerry. I’m sober.” And then he shot him in his asshole, a wound no one survives.
Jerry Death Master Lord died eight days later.
Slade walked up and patted Moonchops on the back. “You did it brother friend hero soul mate warrior princess sugar pie honey bun. You did it.”
Moonchops stared off into the sunset, casting a red and orange glow over them. “I realize now that for all those years Jerry was my enabler, letting me hide away behind the dark, veiled curtains that Taste Pussy-ism will draw over your eyes and all that. But you, Slade. You showed me that I didn’t need to hide. I just didn’t need to eat. Or really, that I just needed to eat what I wanted to eat. Which it says right in the TP Handbook, but I never must have read that part or something.”
Slade smiled, squeezed his partner’s shoulder. He thought about kissing his neck, but decided not to. It might be weird. And besides, it was probably just a passing thing anyways.
Moonchops wiped away a happy tear with the hand that held his gun that just shot Death Lord Jerry Master in his face and asshole and said: “One day at a time, Slade. One day at a time.”
They pranced off into the sunset, world disaster averted.
Epilogue – Sobriety
Moonchops picked up his phone and called his Taste Pussy sponsor. He prattled on and on like a twelve year-old girl with a new cell phone.
“It was like the group was there with me, sensei, chanting and whispering the steps into my ears. All I had to do was… not eat. Not try the foods I don’t want to try. My fears melted away. My heart returned. My old sins forgiven, my new sins yet to be sinned. Killing Jerry was so freeing and so wonderful, I wish my mom could be alive to see it. But, on the other hand they’re both probably burning in Hell together so she must know. And she must be proud of me. I know she is. I love you mom. I love you.”
His sponsor said something. But who cares.
THE END
That was super fucking sweet. I was crying at the beauty, then I realized i was slicing onions. Still fucking sweet, though.
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