Overlord's Orders XVIIb

[a crumb]

a crumb dusted off her shoulders. "I, with my enduring knowledge of so many places and peoples, actually know a very interesting fact about these Errand-tellers or however they pronounce their endonym. Their currency is produced in two kinds, one red and the other blue. I tried explaining this to Jasper, but do you expect that he could hear with all the racket? Jukka was at this point howling in addition to singing, since a decapitated robot head had bounced itself up behind her and bit her ankles. Matthias was having a grand old laugh at that gag. Said it made him feel proud again. Anyway, the blue kind is perfectly reasonable and would have done wonders for our situation. But no one present had the blue currency, in all its shiny papery goodness. They had the red currency, which, it should really be noted, is sourced from the island Vulcangelatinberry from among the scorpion population. Their rhombus-shaped, sparkling red bodies make a wonderful little currency. That is also fatal to most living things, known to aggravate robots, and also banned in most jurisdictions. Imagine what would have happened if we accepted those little things?"

[Fatch of Southsward]

Humph, at least we would have gained something out of this mess. The others have it all wrong, great Overlord. The real servant at fault is obviously Hickory. The protest situation could have been remedied easily, if we simply sold the food to the protesters. However, Hickory took Jukka's boyfriend Tim hostage, and told her that she "Must embarrass Fatch or your boyfriend gets it!" She obeyed by handing out food, forcing me to chase her around in a mad attempt to stop her. She eventually told me the only way I was going to get her to stop, was if I reenacted that scene out of the titanic. Hickory, being behind all of this, was only too eager to help out. So he provided the music.

Jasper claims that he tried to stop the robot from doing damage with a wrench, but as any good mechanic will tell you, the best way to fix a machine, is to hit it with a wrench. I, and some others besides, believe he may have been attempting to repair the damage done by the bananas, in some attempt to ruin your schemes for profit.

I did indeed yell at them to stop throwing food, because at the time, I did not know of it's qualities in concern to robots, and in my eyes they were merely helping the robot to trash the place. Please have mercy upon me Overlord, I am but a simple servant, attempting to help.

[James Gryphon]

The Overlord shook his head. "I'm not impressed, I have to tell you that now. There were a lot of bad decisions made by a lot of you over the course of this business day."

He smiled wanly. "We found out recently that some of the particular models of robots that were used in your store today had manufacturing defects that led to unpredictable and unprofitable behavior. Supposedly one in every ten computer chips had a misplaced thingamajig where they should've had a thingamabob, or some such. I don't have time to worry about those details; that's what I pay people not so unlike you to keep track of. The point is that I can't know that your trouble today wasn't caused in large part due to factory error."

"Your behavior was not very professional. But I have an extensive background in marketing, and I understand that sometimes our workers have ... unconventional means of promoting the business. I'm a fair man and like to give my employees the benefit of the doubt. So I think we will give you another chance before I order more pink paper."

"There's a theatre production one of our company's clients are putting on at Broadway that's in need of help. They need a few extras and stage hands. The owner is apparently in financial trouble and can't take on new contracts. More style than sense, I guess. Fortunately for them, they did have enough sense to have signed a large, very broad agreement with ACME a while back. This gives him an opening to borrow some of you. Their stage staff are supposed to be pretty good. Do what they tell you to do and the show will be a hit, they'll make a profit, we'll get a cut, and you'll make me a much happier man."



"Well, I guess this tells us what we need to know about all of your odds of making it to the spotlight any time soon," the Overlord commented, grinning rather spitefully. "The climax of the play interrupted by an impromptu sword-fight! A laugh track played when there should have been a somber musical score! Lighting that practically blinded both the audience and the actors! And even if your debut had gone smoothly, shouting "Best of luck!" before the curtain rose and chanting "Macbeth" the whole time you were backstage were no way to endear yourselves to the cast. Many of them are so certain the company is bewitched that they quit, some even before the show was done! Our clients would certainly be forced to close their doors if it wasn't for the substantial public contributions that ACME has generously made to "promote the arts".

"Yes, how touching. We in ACME look out for our friends. But they say to keep your enemies closer than your friends, and that certainly seems to be what we're doing here! You employees have cost me quite a lot of money! You all might've gotten off last time, but I can't see how you can justify this disaster..."

[a crumb]

"Really, I think the whole thing started going wrong when Jukka abducted and disappeared the entire existing set of stage hands. She managed to do this within five minutes of us even arriving. Matthias was very angry over that. He said he had the same idea, but hadn't gotten to begin executing it yet. Hickory and I decided we would just get over that horrible incident and go work on the lighting. But the controls were covered in a weird paste, and we asked Matthias to try and clean it up, since he has so much experience dealing with messes. He protested at first, then got to work. He cleared most of it up, and then announced that he had to go and talk to an actor about something very important. I asked why as he walked away. I was very confused as to the abrupt and inconvenient exit. He stopped walking away, and turned around slowly, all solemn like, looked me in the eye, and said I wouldn't want to know. He walked away, shoulders slouched. From then on, I did the best I could cleaning up the paste, but the paste had sunken in, in some places, and it had a tendency to make the controls do odd things every once and awhile. It was after the lighting was reasonably functional, that I went to find the cast and talk to them. I had planned to get right back to lighting work, but needed to get a couple things straight about the play first. When I found the cast, it then became apparent how terrible a situation had developed, and apparently none of the rest of these people were dealing with it. You see, half the cast were incompetent wannabees with no prior experience. The other half were nihilists who had apparently given up on life six months before we got there. Fatch and Jasper decided they would try and and 'complement' the acting work. I saw the two of them practicing with swords."

[Jasper]

"My dear colleague crumb speaks the truth, great Overlord," said Jasper. "Just wait until you hear this woeful tale."

"We had only just arrived when Jukka took the stage hands. My sources tell me that they are in the process of being shipped to Antarctica even now. I cannot say with any certainty what caused her to do this, but her purse did seem much bulkier as of late. Now, we get into the suspicious part. You see, Hickory informed us, (while on one of his many water breaks) that two of the stage hands were going to perform Shakespeare's famous sword fight between MacBeth and MacDuff before they were abducted. With no one to replace them, it was up to us to learn the entire routine in only a week. Fatch and I were more than willing to take up the task, in an effort to save the worsening situation. The sword fight was nearly the greatest success of the play, as you may have guessed. Fatch was a bit of a slow learner, but I made up for it with my own quick wits. It was only after performing the swordfight on stage, that we realized Hickory had been playing us all along. As he very well knew, the play was entitled "The Dance of Summer" and was centered around a young girl attending a ball with a young man. The point of the story was that she became closer to her father as he taught her to dance, and finally grew up. As you can imagine, there is little room for swordplay in such a production. The scoundrel teamed up with Matthias and Groddil to chant "MacBeth" at the beginning to ensure that we wouldn't suspect the ruse. We were backstage most of the time, and didn't realize anything was off except that the music seemed a little flowery for MacBeth. Even after the swordfight, we had been so intent on the display it was only once we saw the three 'servants' laughing at us, that we recognized what had happened.

This is not the worst of the betrayals your servants committed though, great Overlord!" Continued Jasper. "I had to spend the rest of the play backstage, desperately trying to stop Fatch from burning the stage. Perhaps it was anger at his humiliation in the sword fight, but he spent the rest of the play with flint and stone, attempting to set flame to the ornate curtains and wooden props. Several times he was successful, but I managed to stomp out the flames. I was in the middle of putting out one such fire, when Matthias, who was supposed to be backstage acting as a stagehand drove straight off the highway and into the park where the play was being performed, with a big truck full of live alligators in cages. There were a dozen safari vehicles behind him, (belonging to multiple local zoo's) in hot pursuit. Matthias was wearing a straw hat, and was chewing on a strand of barley. He was even wearing a bright colorful vest, not unlike to the one often sported by Crocodile Dundee, and was yelling and whooping like a maniac. I could only watch in astonishment as he drove the truck into the pond, before attempting to engage the entire task force the zoo's had sent after him with nothing but his bare fists. It was all I could do to get him out of there alive without harming the humans too significantly. While we battled, the entire crowd stopped watching the play, and began watching us instead. The actors continued at first, but eventually got fed up and quit, declaring that the company was bewitched.

I cannot explain the actions of the others, but can only assure your lordship that I acted with the best of intentions, and only to serve your wishes." Jasper shook his head at Matthias and Hickory in particular. These others have lots of explaining to do.

[Jukka the Sling]

"Oh great Overlord," a girl began, "allow me to explain my actions.  Although they may seem highly questionable at first glance, you will soon see that I was only acting in the best interests of the mission you assigned us.

"As Crumb said, half the cast were nihilists who had given up on life.  What she didn't know was that all the stagehands were nihilists too, only more far gone.  As soon as I walked into the theater, I overheard all twenty of the stagehands whispering about how they didn't want to live anymore and were planning to blow up the theater in a few days.  I had seen cases like this before since my uncle was a well-respected psychiatrist, and I knew I had to do something.  However, I didn't want to cause panic among my colleagues, so I decided to take care of it all myself.

"I immediately ran outside and backed a high-tech box truck I owned up to the back of the theater.  I then went up to all the stagehands and said, "Hey, guys, there's a really heavy piano out back.  Could all twenty of you help me carry it in?"  They all followed me outside, and I lured them into the back of the truck, then slammed the overhead door, locking them in.  I then set the box truck on autopilot, entering in coordinates for a top-secret Antarctic base where my uncle now studies experimental psychiatry techniques with the Russians.  I knew he could help the nihilists.

"After this, I went back inside.  I helped out everywhere for the next few days, doing my best to remove more paste from the controls after Crumb had done her "utmost" to clean them, painting backdrops beautifully, helping some cast members practice their lines, and generally behaving like a model servant, Your Overlordship.  However, I once caught Fatch and @Hickory defacing one of my backdrops by spraypainting "THIS THEATER IS FLIPPING AWFUL AND NEEDS TO BE BURNT TO THE GROUND" in black and hot pink across the scenery.  There was no reason for this, and it happened just five minutes before the show started, so we were forced to use it nonetheless, bringing disgrace to your good name.

"Also, I heard Crumb giggling crazily halfway through the play about how she had switched the somber musical score with a laugh track.  I immediately ran to the sound booth, hoping to warn the sound guys, but it was too late - the laugh track started playing just as I reached the booth.

"By the way, Jasper's suggestion that I received monetary compensation for shipping the stagehands to Antarctica is entirely false.  My purse was full lately because I was carrying around lots of granola bars and trail mix so I wouldn't have to take time out from my work for meals, Overlord."

[James Gryphon]

After the last servant had finished speaking, the room fell silent. It remained that way for several minutes, during which the Overlord shifted in his chair and stared at his minions, waiting for more details that seemed never to come.

This awkward interlude was interrupted when suddenly, without warning, a large horned mammal came running into the room! Bellowing a challenge it charged towards Groddil, butted him into the bottomless pit that conveniently happened to be lying nearby, and trotted off onto a dumbwaiter, exiting the room with no further sound.

The Overlord lifted an eyebrow. "That was unexpected." Whether it actually was or not, his otherwise impassive face did not reveal.

"Six of you's a reasonable number for your next assignment, though. One of our nationwide clients needs a placeholder radio show to fill in a time slot while they look for a new permanent resident. We want to keep this production low budget, and that being the case I figured that you are the perfect people for this job. You'll be on every evening from 9 PM to 1 AM until further notice. Who knows, maybe if you do a good job you'll boost ratings and bring in some advertising revenue. After some training on the first day you'll have full run of the studio, so don't feel constrained in your show's format."



The Overlord welcomed his servants back two days later with a rather sour expression on his face, and big bags over his eyes. He had been up all night, and his mood was not improved for it.

"That could have gone better."

He picked a receipt listing off the damages up off of an armrest. The printer had apparently saved time and money by printing the list very fine, requiring a magnifying glass to read it properly. After attempting and failing to make out what was written on the paper, the Overlord growled, tossed the sheet to the side, and stood up, towering over his servants. "In one night you managed to get the station's broadcasting license revoked, get rid of ten thousand dollars' worth of sound equipment, and get slapped with about a million copyright lawsuits. Also, the "Hour of Static" did nothing to improve listener interest. Our clients are furious, the world at large is perplexed, and the FBI and local police have both opened investigations related to the goings-on last night. Perhaps most importantly, though, I'm not happy. Tell me what could have possibly compelled you to do this, and maybe if it's good you'll stick around long enough here to worry about how you'll deal with the rest of your problems..."

[a crumb]

"There was a short bungalow outside the studio. We arrived there first on our first night in full control. Matthias stood there completely filthy, covered head to toe. After a short rest observing the unique architecture of the bungalow, we moved on to the studio for our first night in control. Jasper immediately began playing some blues, but Jukka complained that wasn't good enough caliber. She sent Jasper off on some wild good chase. Apparently a wild goose had stolen the studio's doughnuts. Jukka declared to the audience that an hour of experimental music was about to begin, something of her own creation. This was of course the Hour of Static. I decided that I should tacitly dissuade her, but Hickory had another idea. He brandished a giant inflatable doughnut and was preparing to try and trap Jukka in it. As he swung it downwards over her unsuspecting head, a giant wild goose charged through the wall and crushed him to the ground, before the goose turned and sped off. At that, Jukka accused me of trying to assassinate her with an old-school, famous joint doughtnut-goose assassination attempt, as first demonstrated by the great duo Lawrence of Strattonhampton-upon-Vale of Clywd and his short, singing brother Swatton Switters in the great failed assassination of the Grand Cloned Emperors in 1989. After she declared that, Fatch said he had been there in 1989, and this was just pathetic.
"The radio controls had become stuck at this point, so we just had to let the hour of static finish itself out, and were powerless once very expensively copywritten music continued to play afterwards for the rest of the evening. You see, that goose was covered in goo and had cemented the whole operating apparatus beyond repair. I couldn't figure out where the goo came from. Jasper and Fatch suggested the goose produced it naturally, Hickory thought it was from a bad prank played earlier on the goose, Jukka thought it might be a result of a bad re-hatching of the famous ill-attempted Great Lathered Whale assassination attempt devised by the Mugged Maverick in 1776 when he tried to kill the Golem barons. Matthias just stood there being completely filthy and sticky."

[Hickory]

((After a lengthy absence, I return...))

Overlord, I hope you aren't listening to the ramblings of this worthless crumb. You'll find that my actual intention by putting the inflatable doughnut over Jukka was actually a safety mechanism, designed to keep her safe should a catastrophic event happen. I'd like to point out that I had stopped said catastrophic event from happening. Matthias's tattered and dirty appearance was a result of his climbing down into the lowers levels of a nearby fault line (which was full of clay, mud, and other unwanted materials) to plant a large bomb, which was SUPPOSED to trigger a massive earthquake upon detonation. I managed to deactivate the bomb myself after he left it down there, averting another bit of chaos.

When the rumble of the giant goose's footsteps were felt, I had assumed that my sabotage of the bomb had failed and that it was the earthquake (when in reality it was the goose running) upon which I employed my safety mechanism (the inflatable doughnut) and saved Jukka's life.

I make no comment on the actions of the others, although I'm sure they have their reasons.

[Jasper]

Jasper stepped forward, brushing the sand from his recent vacation to the beach off of his shoulder.

"Great Overlord, as usual this trip turned out to be yet another rendition of your other servants going mad while I desperately attempted to salvage the situation. As the humble crumb mentioned, I played some classic blues at the beginning. The songs were all well within copyright jurisdiction, and one such piece was recorded by myself back in my younger days when I was known as 'The Blues-berry'. Naturally, while things were in my hands the ratings reached the highest ever recorded by the station. In the space of a single night,  I was contacted by OverMart, Pitch-Forks-R-Us and 'dhwdjkdasjdkajsd' incorporated, all of whom were willing to make advertising arrangements worth millions."

"Naturally, good things cannot last. Or at least, they cannot last when Jukka is around. She criticized my music choice, and when I attempted to show her the charts showing record gains, she simply laughed them off, mentioning that Rebecca Black's 'Friday' was the sort of thing audiences wanted to hear. I was in the middle of explaining music tastes and classics to her, when the goose stole the studio donuts. The Studio owners had provided them free of charge, but no one had eaten any except Jukka. No one was worried at first, but Jukka began wailing in despair at the loss of her precious donuts. This would have been no big deal, but Fatch turned the broadcast microphone on, so the wails began to be sent to every corner of the world. After Hickory and I tried to quiet her and to get Fatch to turn the microphone off (without any success) I finally bit the bullet, and consoled her by taking off after the goose in a valiant quest to retrieve the stolen donuts. "

"The donuts retrieval quest was, as all of my endeavors are, a great success. I captured the goose within the hour, as I had much previous experience with chasing wild geese. (Back in the '70s I was known as 'The Goose Stomper'). I had the beast on a leash, and the donuts in hand when suddenly Matthias showed up. He zapped the goose with a weapon stolen from your own personal armory: The Goose Grower 2050. Immediately the goose expanded to twelve times its former size. Unfortunately, as we all know, when the Goose Grower is used on a Goose, it naturally develops a gooey paste on its skin. I tried to explain this to crumb later, but he seemed more interested in some Whale assassination Jukka was talking about with admiration. "

"Anyway, back to the story. After Matthias grew the goose, he pushed me to the ground, and said he had planted a bomb to take down the whole operation. Nothing could stop him, and the goose would take out my 'meddlesome accomplices.' I asked him why he would betray our Overlord, and he replied, saying: 'It's all part of the plan. Crumb was secretly placed in charge of this mission, and he's telling me to do these things. It's for the greater good, you just don't see the big picture.' Naturally, I hope Crumb has a good explanation for this. Goodness knows Matthias gets into enough trouble on his own without encouragement."

"Shortly after, Matthias rode off on the goose in the direction of the studio. By the time I got back, the damage was done (and far beyond a thought of repair.) I only hope the great overlord recognizes the one truly responsible for this catastrophe." Finished Jasper solemnly.

[Fatch of Southsward]

As the other servants have so correctly described, it is quite clear that I had little to do with what transpired.

The one mistake I did make was mentioned by Jasper, and I turned on the microphone so that Jukka's wails of despair would be broadcasted throughout the world. It was a simple mistake overlord, I merely believed that the microphone was on, so I meant to turn it off and mistakenly did just the opposite. Oddly enough, the lever was incorrectly labeled, so that when it was in the "off" position, it was on, and when it was in the "on" position it was off, so it's fairly understandable to make such an error. I have made several inquiries with my fellow servants, and the broadcasting company, and the only lead I could find was that someone spotted Matthias playing with the "on" and "off" labels. I thought he must have been trying to fix them at first, but now that I am hearing the full testimony of my companions, it seems quite clear this was not the case.

To conclude my testimony, I would like to state that Jukka has a very bad taste in static. She chose the high frequency buzzy kind. I myself, much prefer the low frequency droll that helps one sleep at night. Her static played a big part in the downfall of this honorable company.

[James Gryphon]

"I've heard enough."

The Overlord glanced over his employees again and did a double take on seeing Matthias. "Why, you're filthy now! I might have been inclined to forgive ruining my carpet if it was for a good cause, but to hear all of these claims against you and not so much as a word in your defense leaves me to conclude that you're just incompetent. That and a ghastly mess. So, I find my decision very clear."

Suddenly the capsule the servant in began to shake violently! Metal straps clamped onto his body, and a set of hoses appeared and blasted him with high-pressure water, while the capsule tossed and turned, spinning its occupant around like a dervish. Copious amounts of soap and something that looked suspiciously like bleach inundated the inside turning it a brilliant blue. After several intense seconds, a giant vacuum sucked all of the water, cleaning agents and debris into a container, leaving Matthias both sterile and shaky.

"Now that that necessary task is done, I have a perfect new special assignment for someone with your expertise. You cost me a lot of money, two million dollars. But I'm pretty sure I have a few pennies stashed in my vault somewhere that will take care of that. Dig them out, count them up and stack them on the delivery platform, and ring the buzzer at the vault door when you're done. Oh, and you'll have access to a coin collector guide. Check each coin to make sure that none of them are more valuable than a penny and that they can't be sold for a greater profit to collectors. Don't worry about going home. You'll have a bathroom, meals and a cot set up for you on the room at the top of the ladder. Have fun!" The new assignment made, the Overlord pulled a lever, and the hapless employee dropped through the floor to begin his new career.

"We should see him or his kids in about fifty years. Maybe by then you'll have achieved something to make up for the damages that have been done, by you and your coworker. No, you're not off the hook! I have high expectations and I take it personally when they're not met."

"That's why you'll be visiting our quality control site. I think that giving you a chance to learn to identify problems and fix them prior to release could be just the thing to remedying your own lack of success so far. Anyway, everyone who is regularly employed there is going on holiday, so it's either you or nobody. Do a satisfactory job making up for the otherwise lost business day and we'll see about getting you into more interesting work."



The former owner and outgoing president of the ACME Corporation paced back and forth in front of his minions, possessed with a manic energy. "The greatest corporate empire on the face of the earth has been brought to ruin. Stock prices have plummeted and the brand is America's biggest laughingstock. We're being bought out, for crying out loud." He stopped to glare at his servants. "I hold you personally responsible for this."

"Your services contract ensures that you will remain my responsibility even after I cease to be involved with the company. So, you will answer to me for your criminal negligence. No thanks to your oversight, our biggest client in the Four Corners region received over a hundred defective products. Our time-traveling delivery service is worthless if we don't deliver quality merchandise! Far from helping him, your standards of craftsmanship resulted in Mr. Coyote being repeatedly injured and set further back in his line of work. That's about to not be my problem anymore, but your inability to do your job correctly certainly is."

"I don't have a full tape of what you did in the factory, thanks to somebody playing with the building disintegrator. But there's enough recorded footage from the last few decades of Wile attempting to use our goods to give me a pretty good idea of how things malfunctioned, even if I don't know why. If you can explain even part of that it'll go a long way towards convincing me that you're not completely useless."

[Jasper]

OOC : Best. Punishment. Ever.

BIC :

Jasper stepped forward, shaking in terror at the wrath of the almighty Overlord.

"Oh great Overlord, I.... I tried... It is simply impossible to work alongside these degenerate excuses for servitude."

"It all started when we first arrived. The quality control center had been left in a clean, orderly manner. So much of the system is automated that honestly all that was required of us was to press a few buttons. We were at 98% efficiency when we arrived, and after some adjustments, I had the plant running at a stunning 99%. (Wile had left his notes on his desk, and I took several pointers.) Everything was running smoothly and we were about to relax when we heard ear-bursting squeals and thumps. We hurried into the interior of the plant, to discover that Jukka had somehow managed to get herself stuck inside the  Durabilo-Matic 6320, which as we all know, is a machine designed to test the strength of our Tank-Phones. It swings around wildly, throwing the phones around, and varies the temperature inside from 28 to 130 degrees. The squeals were her yelling for help, while the thumps were her being thrown around the machine."

"The rescue operation began as you might expect. Crumb and I began to remove the cover to the maintenance entrance to let her out, while Fatch played with the temperature control, alternating Jukka between climates fit for Alaska, and climates fit for Venus. When we finally got her out, we realized that Hickory had been missing the entire time. It was with a heavy heart that I returned to the control room, to see the surprisingly high numbers of 22% efficiency. The controls looked as though someone had covered them with peanut butter and jelly, before trying to chew them off. We set off into the interior to see what other mischief he was up to."

"We found him, waving to our delivery saucers, as they departed with thousands of flying cars. These cars were meant to await my approval before being sent off, but Hickory always seems to find a way to get past even the most well thought out deterrents. It was only later that we learned that he had hired a goat to reprogram the machines manufacturing these cars. Thus the reason they were defective."

"It was about this time that I realized there was no hope of succeeding without at least one person in their right mind. I tied Hickory, Fatch and Jukka to a post, and gave them generous portions of food and water to last a few days, and called up Wile to help get things back on track. He was reluctant to leave his vacation, but when he heard what had happened he came quickly enough. When he arrived he immediately set about repairing the controls. After some time, he told crumb and I that there was an alert on the butchery floor. We departed together immediately for the butchery floor, and the problem was fairly clear. The assembly line of cows being turned into steaks was nearly buried in potatoes, and the cows were cheerfully grazing in the waiting area. Wile recognized several problems caused by one of the three hooligans I had tied to a post, but as he set about correcting them, crumb, who had been reasonable thus far, decided to push him into the butchery machines. No one is quite sure how he made it out alive, but legend has it that Wile fought his way through the entire machine with a spatula he found in the first level. He will never be quite the same, and we can only hope for a speedy recovery."

With that, Jasper bowed, and fell silent.

[a crumb]

"Greatest Overlord, I can fill in a lot of details as to our recent excursion. Much of the real story was sadly neglected by my dear colleague here. It begins when Jukka and I first arrived and stood outside the factory, surveying its exterior while the other three played around in a playground located down the road. The factory, however, wasn't the interesting feature to Jukka. Nearby stood a warning poster. It was a big, beautiful sign that said 'Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again. Those yet still surviving will be shot thrice. If you're still alive after that, you will be presumed immortal. We'll find you a nice, big inhabited planet where you can be their deity for however long you want.' I looked at Jukka and I knew right then that she wanted to become a god.

"She spun around and declared that she must try and incite a "counter-criminal procedure" so we could all come under fire. I figured she had decided to just become preemptively mad with power, because who calls police coming to a crime scene a "counter-criminal procedure"? Nevertheless, she shortly made the place a crime scene. She started setting fires to the factory, stuffing expensive and dangerous gadgets into her many pockets, and even jaywalked across a prominent road in the complex. The Durabilo-Matic 6320 was the real problem for her. Or, more precisely, falling into the Durabilo-Matic 6320 while chasing a time-traveling bunny was the real problem for her. I figured we ought to get the newly godhood-oriented Jukka out, so me and Jasper got to that. I told Jasper about her criminal procedures at this point. After Jukka was rescued, I advised Jasper to tie her up. Jasper later added Fatch and Hickory to the pole. This was a fairly decent partnership. Unfortunately it would not last.

"Jasper didn't know what a time-traveling bunny is, so I explained that they are a type of bunny that can transport a human through time if caught. He became distracted at this point in his work. Meanwhile, Wile arrived just as the factory had literally started crumbling. The butchery machines were a priority, so we focused on solving that. What Jasper neglected to mention is that at this point Wile was wearing Fatch's make-every-explosion-causing-button-look-like-the-one-you-actually-most-want-to-push goggles. I managed to prevent the button pushing just in time. I did throw a spatula in after him as I knew that would help. Meanwhile, Jukka had abandoned her earlier notions, and I untied her. We managed to make progress repairing a few key functions, while Jasper started chasing bunnies that were running around. Things were going very well. Of course, it was at this point that Fatch escaped the pole and reclaimed his goggles. Those would rather unfortunately end up in the possession of Jasper, who decided to steal them. He then decided to use the computer systems to try and locate bunnies. I think the consequences of that are clear."

[Jukka the Sling]

"Great Overlord, I can explain my actions.

"Three hours before arriving at the factory, I was met by my future self, clutching a time-traveling bunny in her arms.  My future self was wearing a glistening tiara and dressed in a Wonder Woman-esque outfit.  She told me that the future had become a nuclear wasteland because of what Hickory was going to do at the factory later that day, but that she had attained some godlike abilities and was currently the ruler of a Norse-inspired planet.  My future self had managed to catch a time-traveling bunny and go back in time to prevent Hickory's catastrophe from occurring, but in order to do this, she had been forced to leave the throne to her evil and conniving stepbrother.  I was very moved by her bravery and sacrifice.

"She informed me that she would be doing her best to prevent the nuclear wasteland.  In the meantime, she said, she would replace me for several hours as she fixed things.  My job was to achieve godlike status so my future self could actually do all these things.  She told me how to do it, and I, trusting my godlike future self completely, agreed.

"Three hours later, at the appointed time, I showed up at the factory gates.  I read the sign and knew from what my future self had told me that I had to do assorted criminal things to activate a latent spell on the factory that would give a person godlike powers.  As crumb said, I proceeded to do this, in the process ending up in the Durabilo-Matic 6320 while chasing my future self's time-traveling bunny, which had escaped her.  However, I wouldn't have fallen in if it weren't for the malicious actions of crumb.  For reasons unknown to me, as I climbed on top of the machine in pursuit of the bunny, she shoved me into it, cackling in an evil manner.  What followed was a terrible experience that I do not wish to think about.

"Finally, I was dragged only half-conscious from the machine and tied to a pole.  I revived and finally convinced crumb that I no longer wished to commit criminal acts.  By this time I knew that what I'd done was not in vain, as I could feel a new power coursing through me.  Thankfully, crumb let me go and, with nuclear disaster hopefully averted, I immediately proceeded to help clean off the peanut butter and jelly Hickory had put all over the controls.  With my new godlike powers, this was done quickly.

"My future self then came to tell me that she had succeeded in thwarting Hickory's evil plans to overload the nuclear reactor at the plant.  With disaster averted, she traveled back to her own time with the bunny.  I then proceeded to help here and there in every way I could.  I was the one who found Mr. Coyote and drove him to the hospital after he got caught in the butchery machine, and he expressed his undying gratitude to me."