The moon was peeking out from behind the grey clouds in the black sky, grinning at him. Tempest looked up as it winked knowingly, waiting.
“When I look out my window, many sights to see.”
The moon smiled down at him, answering in a lighthearted British accent.
“And when I look in my window, so many different people to be.”
Tempest grinned childishly.
“That is strange.”
“So strange.”
Tempest frowned.
“Are we moving too quickly, Moon?”
“We’re moving the same speed we’ve always moved, Tempy. Two thousand two hundred eighty-eight miles per hour.”
“No, not you. I mean, us. The Astro Creeps.”
“Are you reflecting? You know, the funny thing about reflecting… You may think I’m full and bright, but this light is not my own. I am the result of a million light reflections passing over me.”
Tempest blinked.
Am I becoming crazier?
He glanced at the Cross-Hemisphere championship sitting innocently on its display pedestal near the corner of the room.
Is it you that’s doing this to me?
The championship shook its faceplate apologetically. Tempest looked back up at the Moon pleadingly.
“Don’t be blue, sonny. That’s my job.. You be you. The king freak that everyone wants to dethrone but no one wants to acknowledge. You’re the bus driver of fear. Montague and Jaclyn enable you to be what you’ve always wanted to be, and what the High Society has always denied you to be.”
“Instead of a bus driver, can I be an ice cream truck driver?”
“Sure.”
“Bitchin’.”
Centered on the screen was the Coalition’s Cross-Hemisphere championship. It was sitting on a white display pedestal you might see in a museum. The video was blurry at first, but after some clumsy adjusting from the cameraman, the championship belt sharpened into focus. Despite the dusty, gloomy atmosphere, the metal plates glimmered cheerfully. It seemed as out of place as one might imagine it would in the Spider King’s possession.
The camera jolted at an angle as Tempest sat on the floor of the farmhouse. He panted, a bizarre chuckle escaping him.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he nearly whispered. He answered by moving the camera up and down in a nodding motion. He cackled, standing suddenly and snatching the belt from the pedestal. He replaced it with the handheld camera and backed away, centering himself. He smiled behind the mask and grease paint, holding the Cross-Hemisphere championship at his side.
“I want acknowledgement. I want it to be said that this era of the Coalition was my prophecy. I want it to be known that fear grows in the belly of those who stand to oppose us. You can’t deny it. The whole world knows that your stomach gets heavy when you see that you’ll be standing across from an Astro Creep. Whether it’s the deceptive Showman, Montague Cervantes. Or the erratic Ragdoll grinning as she plans her mutilation of you. Or, even when you stand across and gaze into the dead eyes of the devil himself… me. The feeling of dread is real. We feel it. You feel it. And until you can overcome it, treasures like this…”
He rapped his knuckles on the center plate of the belt.
“. . . will remain in our hands.”
Tempest sat on the couch. He watched with increasing anger as the television people tried to make Jaclyn look like a fool.
“Go make the popcorn, Pisces, this is about to get good.”
“Fuck you, I don’t want to miss this!”
Tempest tilted his head back and screamed at the ceiling.
“Don’t fuck with me, today!”
Pisces glared at him and rolled her eyes, turning to the door.
“Really starting to relate to that Eden bitch here lately.”
She disappeared, and a furry body swung up onto the back of the couch at Tempest’s shoulder. It was Bunny. Tempest focused his attention back to Good Morning America.
“I used to have a pet kind of like you,” he said without taking his attention off the television. “His name was Squash. But… he got lost in the rubble. Gone and lost forever.”
He said it with finality, sighing as he turned and looked at the dead thing on his shoulder. Bunny only stared at him. He turned back to the show and watched the co-host pieface his lover. He felt his jaw tighten, watching her stand in humiliation. It’s what all the High Societies wanted, to humiliate his kind. His eyes narrowed, and he heard Pisces giggling behind him.
“That act never gets old. Now that’s entertainment!”
He ignored her until she held out a red and white striped bowl of popcorn. He took it without a word and tossed a handful in his mouth, smacking his lips loudly. When he saw her eyes change, Tempest began to grin. The Ragdoll rose up, and Tempest chuckled, still smacking his lips as some of the popcorn flailed out of his mouth and onto the old, beat up couch. He could hear Montague downstairs howl with laughter as Jacky showed them just who the fuck she was.
“Might as well get ready for a trip to New York City. You know she’s going to want to go back.”
Daedalus said it from the doorway. Bunny’s head turned all the way around to look at him, defying its physiology. Pisces scoffed in disgust, watching the feed cut on the morning show. Tempest only nodded in silence.
He stroked the championship, now back to a sitting position, legs crossed over each other. The belt was stretched across his lap in all its glory. The Moon sang to him from beyond the clouds.
When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see?
Some other cat lookin’ over his shoulder at me.
And he’s strange.
Sure is strange.
“A long time ago, I tried to be your friend. But you denied me. I imagine you’ll do the same to me this week. Dr. Baal is far too above me to truly consider me on the same level that he is. Have you ever considered anyone to be on the same level as you?”
Staples and stitches protruded from the half mask on his face, and the middle of his face. His nose, his chin, his forehead, and the top of his head all had stitches or staples that joined his mask to his identity. Dried blood could be seen in some spots, and milky yellow pus in others.
“I’ve seen the way you treat your friends, though, so it worked out for the best that you never stepped past your own narcissism to return our favors. I’ll be blunt. You used us. You used me. And then you threw me away when you didn’t need me anymore. Just like you, and your wife, do to everyone you’ve ever associated with. You’re not a Chimera, Dr. Baal, and you certainly don’t strike fear inside me when you refer to yourself as such Because I know the truth. There isn’t anything mythical about you. You and your wife are parasites. It’s very much the pot calling the kettle black. But, I know I’m a parasite. I know what I am. And I also know that I don’t need validation from you, or anyone else, in order for me to be satisfied with who I am. Listen closely, Dr. Baal.”
He grinned behind the mask. His grease paint looked smeared in the brief light that peeked in from the window. His grin faded, and for a long time, he stared blankly into the camera. Then he finally spoke, low and threatening.
“I will crucify your ego on Monday.”
They stopped at a Taco Bell drive-thru near Winchester. Daedalus leaned out the driver’s side window and began listing his order. He turned to Tempest in the passenger seat, who shouted his order with excitement. He hadn’t been to a Taco Bell in years.
“And three meximelts!”
“Sorry sir, we don’t have those anymore.”
His excitement vanished. He stared at the speaker, dumbfounded. Then, an idea came to him and he smiled confidently.
“Okay, then, three soft tacos, no lettuce, add pico!”
He made finger guns and pew-pewed them at the speaker. In the back, Jacky giggled and Monty nodded with approval.
“Yeah… we don’t carry pico de gallo anymore, either. Sorry.”
Silence filled the vehicle. Everyone slowly turned their attention to Tempest, whose rage was growing with each passing second. Teeth clenched, he quietly responded to the voice in the speaker.
“A taco place with no pico, is like an international house of pancakes having no pancake syrup. What I suggest is you find some goddamn pico de gallo… and make my fucking meximelts!”
Jacky and Monty both unbuckled. Sighing, Pisces followed suit, then Kosnar.
“Nah, I don’t think so. Have a nice night, psycho.”
The Creeps grinned as Daedalus drove them up to the pickup window. Tempest stepped out and walked around the car, waiting for the window to open. When it did, he reached in and grabbed the man by his throat, pulling him out and dropping him onto the ground. The headset hung from the window, swinging side to side.
“Now… what’s it gonna take to get you to make my fucking meximelts!?”
The employee coughed and winced before replying.
“About… tree fiddy.”
Behind him, the clown giggled.
“Lights out!”
After Tempest’s boot connected with the employee, he made some involuntary movements in his unconscious state. This made the Creeps look at each other and laugh.
“I should have known it was you… ga’damned loch ness monstah.”
When they left, they left him in a pool of his own blood, still crawling aimlessly in confusion.
“I can’t sink so low into bringing the insults you may be expecting, Dr. Baal. The cracks about Eden being in charge of the relationship, and all of the bore that comes with that. I can’t sink that low because I don’t believe it. What I do believe is that you’ve become domesticated through your relationship with her. That’s different. The difference is, I know that you’ve got a primal side of you that’s just aching to come out and play. And I know that you think that Eden enables that side of you, but the truth is she suppresses it.“
Jacky could be heard cackling somewhere in the house, before a loud crash resonated throughout.
“Calling yourself organized chaos isn’t a clever play on your history, though. You have this illusion that you control chaos, that you actually organize it and use it as your own personal weapon. But, unlike yourself, chaos… cannot be domesticated. Chaos serves no man, no woman, no god. And if you try to control it, chaos will bare its teeth and bite you. Like me. You must respect chaos. You must let it control you, and embrace its nature. When you begin to think you’re greater than chaos, you become a victim of your own delusions.”
He stood, finally centering himself in the handheld. The battery beeped, but he ignored it.
“And that’s what’s become of you, isn’t it? You and your wife have become so self-righteous, so narcissistic, that when defeat is nipping at your heels, you never see it coming, so the fall is so much harder than if you faced reality to begin with. And the reality is, when you step into that ring and I’m in it… you’ve stepped into my world. Whether you want to believe it, or whether you’d rather continue to live within the walls of your closed mind, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re at a disadvantage. Not because I’ve controlled chaos like you’d like to think you do, but because I’ve embraced it.”
He looked down at his championship once more in admiration.
“This Monday, you’ll experience Astro Creeps 350. This is our show. This is our season. It’s the spooky season. And you can all start praying hard on your bloody knees… not that it will save you.”
The camera beeped once more, then died.