I shall begin!

Godbolt began life as an energetic baby with lavender eyes. He grew up tall, steady and strong, though never quite fully inside due to his avid imagination. Everything was just beyond a game, something it never quite was. He lived in a surrealistic reality, subconsciously augmenting everything around him with fantastic plotlines and even more fantastic sub-stories.

One day, as Godbolt was strolling along the beautiful banks of the Rhine (the drainage ditch behind his urban American trailerpark), he happened upon a carp. This was no ordinary carp, though. It spoke to him.

“Godbolt! I am the dragon Keyes of ages long past and ages yet to come. I am the guardian of balance on this fetid planet, and have long been watching you. For you see, I was in need of a holiday, and as the fates would have it I lost my flame bathing in the Rhine. If you would be so kind as to help me rekindle, I will grant to you the secret of flight.”

Godbolt was more than a little confused. If Keyes the ageless dragon knew the secret of flight, why could he not rekindle his own flame? As if reading his mind, Keyes spoke yet again,

“Godbolt, this day has been foretold in the prophecies of the fourth age, spoken by he who shall remain nameless. I have no need for mortals to do my bidding for me, but rather put to you this test of valour, that you might prove yourself worthy of the grave task which shall be bestowed upon you twenty years hence.”

Godbolt wasted no time. He wasn’t certain how to restore flame to a dragon, but he’d been a BoyScout and knew how to start a fire.

As anyone who’s seen their share of dragon movies knows, dragon flame is quite hot. Though it went against all his BoyScout training, Godbolt could only think of one way to create enough fire to generate the heat dragons make: gasoline.

Godbolt rushed back to Keyes as quickly as he could, sloshing a jug of gasoline all the way. Without so much as a “hello” or “how do you do,” he proceeded to dump gallons of gas all over Keyes eternal, glistening body. And then, with a shout, he struck a match and threw it on his ageless friend.

The resulting fireball singed eyebrow and eyelash alike from Godbolt’s determined face, but he remained steadfast, never moving, ever waiting for the secret to be revealed to him.

When the firemen arrived, not much was left of Keyes’ lifeless body. But what a sight it was….

A young Godbolt, his face a shiny cherry-red, tears streaming down and spilling onto the smoldering old fish he cradled in his shaking arms. A rescue worker carefully approached and knelt down next to Godbolt.

Godbolt looked up. Stifling back a sob, he quivered,

“Next week I turn twenty, and all I wanted was to learn to fly.”

He then broke into a desperate, weeping rage.

Godbolt never was the same. Forever broken by the mistake he never realized, he died a bitter man, the saddest hero to never fly.

:)

Thaddeus flinched as he bent over to pick up his dropped books. He caught another kick to the pants as he did this, which caused him to drop his lunch and tumble forward over the books he had been trying to retrieve.

A caterpillar inched slowly past Thaddeus’s left eye. He couldn’t see it with his right eye, because that eye was buried in the dirt of the playground.

“Thaddeus McStupidpants! Thaddeus McStupidpants!” yelled The Three, as they kicked dirt in Thaddeus’s face and stomped on his lunch.

Thaddeus remained on the ground, motionless, until he was sure The Three had gone. Then he sat up, brushed himself off, and attempted to salvage those portions of his lunch that hadn’t become one with the earth. He gathered his books and walked to the library, where he began to read.

It happened again the next day, only this time there was no caterpillar. And again the next. And the next. The name “Thaddeus McStupidpants” echoed perpetually in Thaddeus’s ears, or at least, it did when his ears weren’t being smushed flat against the ground or protected by his arms. But each day Thaddeus would draw himself up from the ground, brush the dirt and leaves off his clothes, and continue on his way to the library, where he would read while the other kids played.

**

June 4th. Summer. The last day of school. Thaddeus sat in his library, unaware or uninterested that the final bell had rung and the other kids had rushed home. Most of them, anyway.

“There he is! Hey, McStupidpants! School’s out! Only dorks go to the liberry when school’s out!”

“Maybe we should call him Thaddeus McBookpants.”

“Thaddeus McBookpants! Thaddeus McBookpants!”

The Three approached the table where Thaddeus was sitting and knocked his books off. Thaddeus stared straight ahead, ignoring them. They jabbed at him, poking with their dirty fingernails and shoving with their grubby hands. One of them kicked Thaddeus’s chair out from under him, and he tumbled painfully to the floor. The Three laughed and kicked at Thaddeus’s books as they began to walk away.

Thaddeus stood up.

One of The Three noticed this and paused. The others stopped too, and turned to look. Their laughter faded away. Thaddeus never stood up.

Something strange began to happen to Thaddeus’s hair. It began to ripple and move, as if wind was blowing through it. But there was no wind in the library. Thaddeus was looking at his feet, or perhaps at something under his feet. No, something totally beyond his feet, something The Three couldn’t see. He began to move his arms out from his body. His hair was really going now, and his clothes were rippling as well, like he was standing in the middle of his own personal tornado. A tiny puff of blue smoke appeared near Thaddeus’s right hand. Then another appeared near his left hand. Tendrils reached out from each puff and met in the middle above Thaddeus’s head, where they swirled together and grew larger. And darker.

Thaddeus looked up slowly, focusing on The Three. His eyes were completely void of light, two black holes in his head. He whispered something then, and suddenly the blue smoke was all around The Three. They tried to run, but it held them there. They were stuck. They looked at each other, frightened. But something was different. There weren’t three of them anymore. There was one extra.

“My name,” said Thaddeus in a booming voice, “is Thaddeus Beelzebub Godbolt!” And The Four became The Five.

The smoke began to clear. The Five looked at each other and again their number increased. They were now The Six. For the first time, though, The Original Three noticed something particularly odd. The New Three were big, like normal people. But they themselves had become small, the size of garden gnomes. Fear.

The New Three laughed and began to shove The Original Three toward the library door, poking and kicking and pushing. One of The Original Three fell down. The others thought that was a good idea, so they did the same. The New Three picked them up and carried them.

Thaddeus Beelzebub Godbolt picked up his books, sat at his table, and read. The Three wouldn’t be bothering him anymore. They had their own problems to deal with now.

Dick Pacific knew better than to pack heat breaking into Arsenal. Metal detectors everywhere, to keep the factory schmoes from bringing home the merchandise. He wore an empty holster under his trenchcoat, and slipped on a black felt fedora.

He shouldn’t be doing this, he knew, and he thought about it as he picked the lock on the cafeteria entrance. He was a PI, not a thief. But the girl had gams, and money too, and no man can resist both gams and greenbacks. She said Arsenal had stolen the design from her late father’s company. She was lying. But she had assets of all types, and Dick Pacific would do the job.

The factory was quiet, except for the dull buzz of a fading lightbulb. In the dim gloom, he could make out the door he wanted. “Research and Development, Arsenal Industries.” If they don’t know they’re in Arsenal by now, Dick thought, they’re in trouble.

R&D was a pale green room, made for men with fixed hair and curly smiles. Dick had curly black hair and didn’t use pomade—and he only smiled when he was going to shoot a man. He walked between the counters to the firing range, his footsteps keeping him company.

There it was, resting in excelsior, ready for shipment to the main office. The prototype. It was blue-black, like the hair on the dancer at Mary’s, with a grip in abalone, not mother-of-pearl. The barrel was as square as Dick’s jaw, and even harder. It was a cannon. It would pour hot lead like whiskey from a flask. Dick reached out—it felt right in his hand. The world’s only Godbolt.

“Freeze!” a man squeeked, and Dick looked over his shoulder, and into the barrel of an Arsenal Freedom 45. The guard was young, but his finger didn’t tremble on the trigger. Dick began to smile, but the smile faded like the light before a movie. Did prototypes ship with bullets?

She tried to resist, but it really didn’t matter anymore. As she gave in and looked at the wrist manometer, a shiver ran down her spine. 8 hours and 23 minutes before she would be breathing too much carbon dioxide to stay alive. Amazing how light this heavy space suit felt out here, in the middle of nothingness. Excellent view, though. If you had to die young, then perhaps this was a good way to go? A knot formed in her stomach, and she felt the blood rushing to her face. How in the universe did it come to this?

- – -

As spaceliners come, The Godbolt was one of the most luxurious – and expensive – in existence. No other tour offered the range of adventures you could experience here. Who would have thought that people would ever walk around on rocks in the rings of Saturn? If you had sufficient credits, you could now. And very safely, indeed. Safety was a top priority on Godbolt, and every measure was taken to prevent mishaps. After all, spacewalks take place in a pretty unforgiving environment.

Unfortunately, the thing was that Norah didn’t have sufficient credits. By law, spaceliner safety procedures have to be published, however, and she knew that they only performed headcounts right before leaving the airlock tunnel and right before reentering it. A plan grew to fruition in her mind. When the timing was right, she succesfully snatched a suit from a storage room and more or less gracefully slipped into the airlock before the door closed behind the last spacewalker as the previous group came back from outside. She removed a panel diligently and stowed herself away in a very awkward position. Four hours went by until until the next group arrived in the airlock. The safety officer counted the attendees and ordered the airlock open for the duration of the spacewalk, just as safety protocol prescribed it. This was her chance to get herself a free spacewalk. She was a genius! An extra safety line would probably give her away, though. She aimed carefully for a big rock below and set off with a good force – she needed to get there quickly, before the officer would have time to spot her. Her jump wasn’t quite symmetric, though, as evidenced by the way she now tumbled through space. She twisted her sore body like a cat and finally managed to stabilize her roll rate somewhat, just before she hit the rock fairly hard. It was too late to grab onto anything, so she bounced off and continued backwards among a group of smaller rocks, like a bowling ball hitting a full strike. Glittering dust rose as the rocks crashed into each other around her, but after a while she finally came to rest, dirty and, she realized to her great dismay, with a smashed-up radio transmitter. Maybe that safety line would have been a good idea, after all. She tried groping with her arms and swim through the dust to reach the nearest rock, so she would have something to set off from to get back to the airlock, but there wasn’t enough resistance – she just flailed around to no avail. Two long hours went by, trying this and that without result. Her desperation grew to new heights as she watched the group assemble at the airlock. Head count checked out, so everyone reentered and as the officer closed the hatch, Norah screamed into the curved plexiglass in front of her face, leaving a brief, frosty spot of condensation. As it evaporated, so did her hopes.

- – -

Seven hours and 52 minutes. It was so unreal. How could a small mistake like that lead to the end of everything – of her? The knot in her stomach made it hard for her to breathe. This wasn’t fair. A rush of apathy engulfed her body, and she grew limp.

- – -

She woke suddenly from a dream in which she was suffocating. Panting, she opened her eyes and couldn’t quite remember where she was and why. Then it all came back. She could see the spaceliner with the enormous letters along its hull. The Godbolt. So near and yet so far away. The Air! Thirty-six minutes. Was the lightheadedness from the shock of this realization or the lack of oxygen? Nothing mattered much, now. She gulped down air like a stranded fish, her blood rushing audibly in her ears every heartbeat. She didn’t want to die – she really, really didn’t want to die. But it was no use struggling. The End was inevitable. Thirty-two minutes.

Suddenly the spaceliner shook. Without a sound it came apart, as if a giant axe had cleaved it down the middle. Clouds of fire erupted from within and spewed debris – bits of structure, furniture and people – out into space. Soon there were more impacts. An uncharted meteor swarm entered the solar system from deep space, right here, where The Godbolt was orbiting Saturn. The spaceliner was literally ripped to shreds by the meteors and the dying ship sent shockwaves through the grinding rocks of Saturn’s ring. And it was headed her way. It spun her out of control, and she lost every sense of direction. Her body smashed against rocks and rocks smashed against her body in total chaos. Her left boot got caught between colliding rocks and punctured. The suit sealed itself around her ancle, but the pain was excruciating. She finally crashed down on the big rock she had initially aimed for, and this time managed to get her hands into a crevice and stay attached. She regained her orientation and turned herself to watch the horrific scene unfold. There couldn’t be many survivors. Something was floating toward her from what was once one of the largest and proudest spaceliners of all time. It was a spacesuit. An empty spacesuit. She caught it. Air. She had more air. She detached the hose from the new spacesuit and connected it to her own suit. The manometer on the empty suit read 16 hours and 31 minutes. Maybe that would be time enough for a rescue mission to reach her. She unclamped her broken transmitter and inserted the one from the new suit. “Select guard channel”, she commanded. ”...vehicle The Intrepid – we aknolwledge your distress call – ETA 12 hours – do you read me?” Norah took a deep breath, concentrating on steadying her voice. “This is passenger Norah Anderson of the spaceliner The Godbolt – I read you! Over…” The static went on for a very long time, she thought. Then: “This is Marc Bolton, commander of the commercial freight vehicle The Intrepid – we read you, Norah Anderson. What’s your status? Are there any other survivors?”
Norah started to cry.

pat pat That’s right, Hiro. They’ll never bother you again.

I like it. It has…emotional range.

At some point in the recent past, the stein which found itself between Konig Steadler and the barkeep had been filled with alcohol. This was now a very empty stein, which in the near future would be the cause of a major head injury. Mr. Steadler had no idea as to the future impacts of his only drinking buddy, he only knew he had to convince the tender of the bar to fill up his friend again.

“Now loook,” he said with only a slight slurring. “If I wanted to goh home I’dave done that insttead of asking for another drink, now woulldn’t I have or woulldn’t I not have?”

The barkeep replied only with a sigh and then with a sudden glance over the bar, past Konig’s stooped shoulders, and into the midsection of a very large man. This man was tall in three dimensions, however Konig neither knew nor cared.

“Dammitt man fill the glass!”

Konig’s counter to the bartender’s response was quickly met by an absent minded filling of the glass. By the time his eyes finished their sixty degree arc to meet the newcomers gaze Konig’s cup had runneth over. Before more precious liquid could be wasted the stein was in the hands of its owner and was reaching an angle reciprichal to that of the barkeep’s gaze

Konig only bit back a tippsy retort by glancing to his right and up. Way up. A large mound of living tissue, most of it bristling with sinew, was occupying the two barstools next to him. This was the kind of legendary size that paid reality a visit only when its owner was looking for his blue ox.

This was exactly the kind of person that Konig had been looking for all night.

“Achhhhoy there! How’s the wheather like at such a high place as your head? Whhich is to say you’re a taall muther focker!”

The newcomer didn’t seem that impressed and paid Mr. Steadler no more heed then a cursory grunt as he indicated to the barkeep the proportions of the drink he was looking for.

Konig wasn’t a scientist, but the new guy seemed to be indicating that he wanted a full-metric assload of beverage. That thought, however, was way at the bottom of the gutter Konig’smind happened to be in. His faculties were desposed of at the moment in coming up with something clever and witty to gain the commarodary of this new mountain.

“FUCK YOOU MAN! Comin’ in here and actting all big and fat with your gruntts and your being all… big and fat!! And another thing-”

When his consious self heard what was falling out of his mouth it started to pack its bags and planned a trip for a gutter in some place like Miami. The plans were all set and the cab was to arrive very shortly for Konig’s Ego when it noticed something very peculiar. Etched into the shoulder of the beast-man’s wife-beater clad torso was a single word in flowery text: Godbolt. This was enough to ensure a cancellation of the trip and to have a single word inserted into Konig’s next drunken ranting.

“You god damn fucking stupid fat asss hole guy! Why don’t you want to take this outside and be beaten down by the guy who’s saying all the stuff to piss you- Godbolt? What the fuc-”

The explicative was cut off in mid-sentance as the earth shook and Asshole Guy shifted to look directly through Konig.

“I’m warning you little man, Knock it off.” The voice that eminated from that mountain echoed through the bar and measured on the Richter scale at the geologic survey station just outside of town.

The bags were immediately repacked and Ego was half way to the Keys when Id put things into motion.

“Knock what off you fat basstard? Your god damn head? I was going to do that anyway, for fun and- Jesus that’s a stupid tattoo, did you lose a bet or -“

Things started to slow down around Mr. Steadler as the mountain mobilized his troops. The bartender was already on the floor calling the paramedics and the police, in that order. Konig had the sense to close his eyes as the spinning blades of justice cut through the excriment of intoxicated knavery.

Mrs. Minerva Godbolt’s son had one fist in Konig’s stomache and an ordinary looking beer stein in the other when Id left by train to meet Ego down South.

Konig wasn’t a scientist, but the new guy seemed to be indicating that he wanted a full-metric assload of beverage.

Teehehe!

Thank you. Well, reading it again, it seems it would have benefited from being longer. The level of detail is uneven and in some places, stuff is outright missing. Maybe I’ll rewrite it sometime. Then again, maybe I’ll successfully refrain from being obsessively perfectionistic and just let it go. :o)

I never doubted you were on topic :)

hey you must really know my brother because this is just how he acts. anyone who meets him for the first time says the same. the crazy part about it your reply is that it is true. if you were to meet the whole godbolt clan, you would surely know that we are all related.

i am thaddeus i would like to know who posted this im not mad but i think its kind of funny i have a fan out there please let me know who this is my e mail address is [email protected]