East of West, Issue #31 – “Watch Us as We Rob Them Blind”

* Part 2 of 16 of the The Apocalypse: Year Three storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #31 – “Watch Us as We Rob Them Blind”! In the previous installment, a mortally wounded Narsimha aims to have a frank discussion with the leader of the crazy religious nutbags who bring the good Word of the Lord to them (and also tear down the Endless Nation’s Machine City.

We see a flashback of Wolf as a wolf fighting the Hellbeast as a Hellbeast. During the midst of the fight, an attached Ezra Orion is fucking screaming about Wolf losing the battle and getting killed. Wolf eats Orion, fulfilling the Prophecy that he who eats the Word becomes the Word.

So Wolf is now the Word. And now he is Narsimha’s enemy! Scandalous!

Oh yeah, the Horsemen are looking forward to Apocalypsing. As usual. They’re all frothing and popping boners about it, which is just very nice I say.

What’s next in this Final Year of the Apocalypse?! Will Archibald hump a dead ox?? Will Xiaolian hump a dead ox?? The possibilities are limitless!

East of West, Issue #31 [February, 2017]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Watch Us as We Rob Them Blind”

We’re at the Black Towers, home of Andrew Archibald Chamberlain and his niece I-Forget-Her-Name. Candice? Camille? JETHRO? Constance, it’s Constance. And she has good news and better news for the President of the Confederacy! Archibald knows what the good news is already: his cabinet is top-notch. Real solid stuff. Couldn’t have asked for better advisors and yes-men. Good work.

Here’s the better news: Union President Antonia LeVay is asking for money. She wants the goods to fund her beekeeping hobby. Archibald clicks on a hologram and sees a very angry, shrieky-looking LeVay. “Now that is not the face of grace under pressure,” Archibald says snootily.

Constance guesses that the Union is getting hella overrun by Endless Nation assholes while a Civil War breaks out in her own nation. Definitely not a cool situation. There were rumors of funding from the rich-ass Kingdom of New Orleans, but they’d rather fund their own beekeeping hobbies. “So… are you going to help her?” Constance asked the fabulously-mustachioed one. Archibald gives a mighty “Hrmpt!” and answers LeVay’s Zoom call.

Sweet as honey, Archibald tells LeVay that he’ll help her with anything she needs. She thanks him profusely and asks for money please. Archibald renegs immediately on his “anything she needs” offer and tells her that there ain’t no coin for the beggars.

“There is something you need to remember,” she tells him. “We are part of a plan larger than ourselves. Larger than even our nations. We were both tasked with maintaining political order. The Horsemen demand order. And while you are succeeding, I am failing… Badly.”

The blue JPEG artifact lady is depserate for wrinkle cream.

Archibald practically jerks off with LeVay’s tears as lube and tells her to try another method of persuasion. She begs for help. He gets to brass tacks: what the fuck does she need the money for? The bees can keep themselves! LeVay needs weapons and soldiers. Archibald can spare weapons, but not soldiers. Hey, you’re Madame President of the Union! Instate a draft! Get some fresh-faced 18-year-olds on enemy lines!

She thanks him for the idea and then Archibald tells her to expect weapons within a day or two. After the call ends, Constance smells something fishy. “What are you up to, uncle?” she asks. “My dear… you wound me,” Archibald responds.

“Bite down until you feel bone.”

“Suffer your sons and daughters, for one day they will replace you.”

This has happened previously, but LeVay is astonished at how young all these rebels against the Union are. The police have isolated four individuals who “seem to be of some importance”, and LeVay begins talking to them.

“Talk all you want, there’s nothing you can say to change our minds… fascist!” yells one of the youngins.

“Do you really think you were freer when you weren’t in chains?” she asks, taking a police officer’s semi-automatic rifle and gunning down three of them. The fourth one, crying, gets hit with the butt of the gun before she runs away. “Let the word spread,” LeVay says.

One day later, the girl wakes up in a cell. Three of her rebellion buddies, free from their own cells, inform her that the police had nearly gunned down their entire lot. How many are left? About seven or eight, give or take. She is asked if they all should run. “They stole our city, wrecked our nation, and killed our friends. You want to run?” the girl asks incredulously. “Hell no. There is no running… we stay and fight. And we win or die.”

Sounds rather promising! Good luck with that! We’ll get back to you some other time, kids. Let’s go to the White Tower where LeVay looks like she aged about seven trillion years. Doma Lux is spread out on the couch seductively; the shipment from the Confederacy is on its way. Should be here within the hour. Lux congratulates LeVay on her “damsel in distress” shtick with Archibald. “Who said I was acting?” LeVay responds.

While LeVay prattles on about needing to win, the remaining members of the rebellion do a thing where they launch a thing into the air. They discuss their fortuitous situation that they have a nameless, faceless benefactor who continually funds their efforts.

The thing they launch in the air looks like a very large drinking straw. The four rebels are in their own shuttle attempting to dock onto the drinking straw. Their attempts are successful. Off they go.

We made it to Dairy Queen, boys! Blizzards for everyone!

“Three objectives: Eliminate the guards in the transport car. Capture the engine. Secure the cargo.” And make it snappy.

They cut through the hull of the drinking straw and enter the drinking straw. Staying alert and trying not to poop their pants too hard, the group looks for the transport car. The group finds the transport car. The girl guns down the entire group and announces through her comm that the transport car is secure, “but heads up. I think one made it out.”

The one that made it out gets shot through his fancy helmet visor and knocked off the drinking straw. It’s a ship, of course, but I like to keep calling it a drinking straw because that’s a really stupid phrase anyway. “Drinking straw.”

Next, the cargo must be secured, which means someone captured the engine! That’s good news! Even better news that this action sequence is decidedly almost over. They separate the cargo hold from the rest of the DRINKING STRAW, and one throws a bomb into the cockpit KILLING THE PILOTS OF THE SHIP. Only one guy is left and he’s a hostage. Now what? Who cares. It’s Doma Lux time.

“Aaannd I just got confirmation from aviation command… the shipment has entered our airspace.” Finally, a congratulations is in order! Here it is! Ahem… congr

“I must say, Doma, for those such as you and I who are heavily invested in the collapse… I am continually shocked by just how perilous the end times are,” LeVay says as she and Doma clink champagne glasses. “Frankly, when it doesn’t make me furious… I find it so very fucking depressing…”

“Are you a romantic?” one of the rebels, a lady with a mohawk, asks the remaining member of the ship. “Because if you’re not, you certainly should be. Romantics leave their marks on the world… And we’re about to write our names in fire across the sky.”

When asked what she means by this, she asks him if he ever cared about something so much that he was willing to suffer and die for it.

He says no.