East of West, Issue #34 – “Lessons at the Knee”

* Part 5 of 16 of the The Apocalypse: Year Three storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #34 – “Lessons at the Knee”! In the previous installment, the Endless Nation hangs back from infiltrating the Union as a siege of the White Tower by a rebel group ends badly for Madame LeVay, who gets captured and burned at the stake. Spoiler alert!

Doma Lux gets rescued by her Widowmaker lover.

That’s about it! More to come.

East of West, Issue #34 [August, 2017]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Lessons at the Knee”

“Silence…“

“You have a choice,” says a bloody, nude, positively fucking jacked Xiaolian. This might be a flashback to when assassins hired by Chamberlain tried to kill her in her pool. “Die here on your feet, or die running.”

The assassins would rather die running. Xiaolian orders her own men to follow. “I want them taken alive,” she says. A robot thing presents to her a hologram of the pursuit. Like watching the OJ Simpson white Bronco chase in real time! They appear to be retreating to a container in the harbor.

“Damn,” Xiaolian responds. “I want the First Widow recalled from the Crucible. Immediately.”

Whatever that means! Since Archibald set up this little assassination attempt, maybe Xiaolian had something going on behind the scenes for the last 12 issues?

“And then thunder.”

In the present, First Dragon (who I assume is, like, Xiaolian’s Chief of Staff) reports to her that all the families of those who were killed by the assassins have been relocated to a remote village and provided with stipends and housing. They will be protected from future ghastlies and ghoulies. “They died for me, First Dragon,” Xiaolian says. “See that they are provided with all that they are due.”

Send in the supply drops of Salisbury steak TV dinners!

Crabs are an annoying problem, huh?

Meanwhile, Xiaolian looks upon the rows and rows of tents that are set up inside and outside of her palace grounds. Refugees from all over. Endless Nation, the Republic of Texas. Even those afraid of the Prophet, they’re all coming to the People’s Republic to escape the TYRANNIES and OPPRESSIONS. “Our doctors and engineers have done good work keeping disease and waste from choking the city. For now, we keep them fed, but soon, Empress… you will have hard choices to make.”

Yeah, right, like switching to the spaghetti and meatballs TV dinners? Give me a break.

Xiaolian has much, much empathy for these refugees. Empty the stores, grow more crops, do what you can. Feed these fuckers. The First Dragon hangs his head, like “okkkaaaaayyyy….” and walks away. Then Xiaolian pulls out that locket that Death gave her, the one where she can speak into it but she’ll never know if he’ll actually hear it or not. That one. “My love… I would give anything to hear your voice. If you have found our son, kiss him for me… Keep him safe, and far from here.”

Oh, Death is keeping him safe all right. They’re having the best of times. Skipping stones in the lake. Literally. It’s adorable.

Let’s cut to Japan, apparently, where Doma Lux’s Widowmaker lover is talking to a gibbering businessman. He insists she has the wrong guy. She insists he is full of beans and can help her anyway. You see, she is willing to not kill him to death in exchange for something she wants! It’s left very vague so far.

He wants to cut a deal, this craggy, wrinkly-faced old businessman. “We buy and sell information,” he sweats. “Excellent,” she responds. “For it is information that I wish to acquire. Shall we talk terms?”

She whips out a sword and threatens him with it. The office is littered with diembodied heads. “I am the First Widow of the House of Mao… and I’m in the business of collecting the heads of men who lie.”

Okay! Okay! I stole the cookie from the cookie jar! It was meeeee!!! WAAAHHHH!!!

Back at the Mouse of Hao, with the information known, First Widow returns with several boxes of heads. This is the part where she and Archibald have their conversation. And when he asks the “what are you going to do about it” question, she hangs up and has confidence that she can end this coming war before it begins. And Death can safely take their son home. Joy!

At the Black Towers, Archibald has successfully dragged Bel Solomon’s tired old ass back from the desert by his handcuffed wrists. Archibald talks a lot! I’m not going to repeat what he says to Solomon because it’s well over 500,000 words. Basically, Archibald’s father used to whip him with a switch until he either cried or bled. He would make Archibald choose the switch, which he would spend much time deliberating upon. Eventually, his father admitted that the beating wasn’t the point of the punishment. The point was to choose a switch instead of running from the punishment.

Anyway, Bel’s gonna get his little rump beaten ruddy.

“Death would have been better than what’s coming,” the Ghost of Cheveyo says to Bel with a look of sinister urgency. “Better by far.”

Moral of the story? Don’t get donked.

Archibald tells Bel to pick a switch, but then there are footsteps approaching. It’s Constance, who is Constancely interrupting! Then there are the sounds of “DONK!”s hitting the floor. One after another, severed heads are tossed in Archibald’s direction from an unknown thrower.

“You tried to kill Mao,” says the unknown assailant. “Know this, old man: Running will never be an option here. Time to pick a blade.”

Archibald doesn’t like his own bastardized words thrown back at him. With a mighty “Hrmpt!”, he requests the assailant to show herself and tell him her name before he kills her with, uh… mean looks. There are other similarly-helmeted assassins. Roughly four others.

“I am the First Widow of the Crucible,” says the First Widow of the Crucible! “The knife of Xiaolian… would you like to know what I do with heads of men who lie?”

Face fuck them? Barring that, uhm… is decapitation tangentially involved here?”

Guns start going off, and Archibald deftly avoids each bullet. Next, he whips out his own gun and fires some well-aimed rounds. Each one pierces the visor of each assassin, killing them dead as shit.

Archibald celebrates his triumph… until he hears the pathetic mewing of his niece on the floor. “Uncle… it… it hurts,” she whimpers as he looks down in shock.

Later, Xiaolian’s weird robot-armor dude has a message from the President of the Confederacy.

It’s a blimp with “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” on the marquee!

Then the bombs drop… and Xiaolian runs as fast as she can to safety. “ALERT THE GUARD! RAISE THE SHIELDS! DO IT! DO IT NOW!”

Not fast enough. The bombs hit the Imperial Palace, leaving it in tatters and ruins! “Their strikes were surgical, Premier. They wanted us defanged. To that end, the Imperial Palace was actually their secondary target. The real objective was the garrisons of the Dragons and Widowmakers.”

Well shut my mouth. Also, the Confederacy attacked the Crucible and the Testing Grounds. Fatalities and damages are insurmountable. “Your army is broken and all that remains here is a city overrun with commoners and refugees.”

Xiaolian kisses her locket and address the few remaining people on her palace grounds. Rallies them up! MAGA! “Many of you came to me with nothing. Nationless, and cast out. A people without a land. A people without a home. But I welcomed you. I took you in. I gave you a home. And for as long as you live, this home will be yours. I swear it. But you must also swear something to me…”

Yadda yadda yadda, will they carry on the legacy of the House of Mao when she’s gone? Will they swear loyalty? Will they fight for her? And it’s a resounding “yes”. Happiness all around. Break out the Kid Cuisines.

“They call me mother,” she thinks. “But that is my second name. My first, is the Bride of Death. So fucking be it.”

“THEN IT IS WAR! AND LET THE BLACK FLAGS FLY!”