Episode 87: Xeno and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

"The transformation of excrement is one of the great secrets at the center of Carl Jung's work on alchemy - the quest to turn base material into gold. It's a universal metaphor of psycho-spiritual development, growth, and maturity. If I can look at the "excrement" of my life--all the places in me that hold the worst things I have ever done, witnessed, or had done to me--unpleasant as that may be, it is also the first step toward turning this "base matter" into "gold." Ironically, it is only by looking clearly at the "excrement" of my life that I can transform it into the "gold" of forgiveness, self-acceptance, and felt-sense of the presence of the Divine. Unless I do this, any seemingly spiritual perspective I embrace will only serve as camouflage for my denial and self-deception, which will betray me in the end."

- Jeremy Taylor, 1996

This is not what Xeno intended when he pissed into the crater where AMON once stood. Rather like the basest cur did Xeno wish to make known his displeasure with the house. But when one has courted chaos as he has, one must be careful where, exactly, one relieves himself. For even though there is a burgeoning tradition of 'urine as transformative vehicle' at DCM Enterprises, no one could have guessed just where this latest expression would take them.

It took them straight up.

Suddenly, rumbling forth from the center of the crater, a giant beanstalks shot up, up, up into the sky. Leaves unfurled and vines uncurled as it did so, until a tall, sinewy ladder stretched up and into the flat gray atmosphere. And as the party stood staring up in slack-jawed amazement, something stirred at the bottom of the stalk. The Lovecraftian Dildo Machine had excavated itself from the rubble of AMON, and it was looking for revenge. But Madmartigan was ready, willing and oddly clearheaded. He waited until the Machine got close enough then WHAM! drove his pike straight into it's steamy heart. Extracted it, even. For as the thing shuddered and died, the opalescent, moving heart of the thing remained on Madmartigan's weapon. The only real negative in the situation was the zipping fragment of metal dildo hitting Xeno full in the groin - but after the red fog of pain cleared, Xeno found his skin had been transformed into liquid steel. Not a bad tradeoff, you'd have to say...

Iryien and Takemiya noticed a cold fog was closing in on them. As they both peered into the depths of the collection of liquid water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the ground using their own particular methods of divination, they both reached the same conclusion: there was nothingness beyond the white curtains of vapor that were inching ever nearer.

"Yeah, why don't we just start climbing now, shall we?"

The climb itself was unremarkable but for two things - one, the perpetually-falling pair of XXXL lime green panties and Xeno's unwise/unfortunate/typical (choose one) decision to lick the turgid, chartreuse skin of the beanstalk itself. And while Xeno collapsed and his eyes rolled back in his head in an ecstatic vision involving lizards and spewing pink foam from his mouth, Takemiya grabbed his falling body and hauled him up behind Iryien, who had discovered the top of the 'stalk.

At the top, a canopy of leaves spread out in all directions. Iryien peeled back one rather large leaf to reveal a red velvet wonderland. A cherub-topped brass pole forest sprung up out of the plush red carpeted floor. A gold-flecked linoleum path took off in two directions, and on the other side of the path, a dressing room suddenly appeared in an alcove in the forest. Two stations, one for Iryien and one for Xoe, were set up complete with flowers, a card, and a graduated set of drawers - each holding a chain maille bikini of diminishing size.

Iryien stepped forward and after investigating (and mentally calculating square centimeters) declared that the two should don the second-smallest size.

The rest of the party suddenly took great interest in investigating the quality and craftsmanship of the linoleum pathway.

Suddenly, the brass forest parted and the eerie sexophonic sounds of Kenny G swelled up from speakers hidden in the forest. The forest parted and a long, dark runway appeared. The high pitched voice of Billy then boomed over a distant sound system:

"Gentlemen aaaand gentlemen! Here tonight, for YOUR enjoyment, I give you the goddess Iryien and her petite love slave... Xoe!"

Since the invention of the colossal drunken roar, there have only been five colossal drunken roars that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. The two women sauntered out, clad more in confidence than in armor, into the center of what appeared to be a spherical coliseum. In all directions there where men - whistling and jeering men - above, below and all around. Billy bade them to dance - but they did not. Billy yelled over the PA for them to dance, but still they denied him. When next Billy screamed for the girls to dance, Iryien raised the hand to the murmuring crowd and saith unto them that she would only dance if they crowd would convert to Geetsieism after the show.

The crowd fell silent.

The crowd wondered exactly what kind of commitment this would entail.

The crowd then weighed that against the benefit of getting to see these two shake their collective thing.

And right then, right there, 80,000 men converted on the spot.

Billy continued his tirade, and even went over to the light technician and tried to shut down the show. But as soon as he reached over the sound tech to turn of the music, a beer bottle whistled through the air and smashed into a million pieces at his feet.

This was construed as "an instructive act" by a number of drunken converts.

As bottles and ashtrays whistled through the air, Billy pulled the sound tech - a matronly woman by the name of Madge - back towards the exit, using her as a human shield. Glass flew everywhere, and as Billy slunk away, cursing Iryien and his horrible luck, Iryien willed the music to resume and she danced...

Meanwhile, as the boys loitered back in the brass pole forest, everything went dark. Madmartigan felt the presence of other creatures, and quickly Kobayashi confirmed that they were being approached by what looked like three bouncers in night vision goggles.

A melee ensued.

Takamiya employed his Supa Gro Powa and readily dispatched two. Xeno lowered his head and charged the third thug, intending to groin him with his helmet.

But for the third time that night, Xeno rolled a 1.

Xeno sprinted towards the thug. He lowered his head. He aimed at his thigh. And he hit him... right in the holster.

There was a big BOOM.

And Xeno knew no more...