LEXX

"I am the Time Prophet. I have been gifted to more or less to see into the cycles of time. I know that in the Future Past, the Brunnen G civilisation led humanity to victory in the Great Insect War. I know that Centuries later the descendants of the Brunnen G were exterminated by His Divine Shadows Divine Order. The last of his people to die had his life take by His Divine Shadow himself. Kai’s memory was stolen and his mindless corpse was re-animated from time to time by proto-blood to become an assassin for His Divine Shadow and the line of Divine Shadows that followed.

But after two thousand years, Kai regained his memory, and along with Stanley Tweedle and Zev Bellringer of B3K, escaped into the Dark Zone. His Divine Shadow pursued them and Kai killed the body that contained his former master. His Divine Shadow's evil essence returned to the Cluster, the Divine Order's seat of power and there, contained inside a still living brain, the essence awaited the time of the Divine Rebirth. A birth I fear, beyond the insect wars.

But before the rebirth, there first came the cleansing, the feeding of all human life from thousands of planets into the hungry depths of the Cluster. It was an unparalleled orgy of death. The old, the young, the weak, the strong, the willing and the unwilling. All were stripped of their flesh, to feed the re-birth. Upon the death of the last human on the Cluster, the Cleansing was complete. The meat from countless millions of slaughtered souls was fed into the greedy belly of the Cluster.

The time of the GigaShadow was at hand. Clerics, loyal to His Divine Shadow, had long prayed for the re-birth. For them, there could be no higher calling that to be one of the eight chosen to oversee the ritual. And now, after thousands of years, eight were finally called forth. But fear of the Divine Order had chilled the blood of much of humankind and seeds of doubt had taken root in the most unlikely soil."

Eight Clerics head for the pedestal that holds the last surviving brian containing the essence of His Divine Shadow. As they reach it, however, one turns. The look on his face is not one of devotion...

"For thousands of years each Divine Shadow cast his evil essence onto a human host that in turn, became the next His Divine Shadow. The re-birth marked the final passage of His Divine Shadows essence. His Divine Shadows brain was to ascend into an orifice that waited above its pillar. Its essence would pass to the Giga Shadow, and the re-birth would begin."

As the Clerics begin the ceremony intended to raise the pedestal into the orifice, one suddenly takes his ceremonial dagger and plunges it into one of the keyholes that operates the tower, halting it's rise. The other clerics fall upon him, but there are other dissenters who also help him. One by one, they kill each other, but one cleric finally makes it onto the pillar, grabbing the brain, and jumping to his death. The brain smashes in two on the floor.

"None of the eight, loyal or disloyal, survived. But the re-birth was stopped..... for now."

Feppo and Smoor, the sub-nebulae mercenaries, are relaxing while looking through their holographic catalogue of previous conquests. The muscle-bound brutes strut their stuff while Feppo & Smoor debate the relative merits of each. But, when Smoor asks, "who is your ultimate favourite?", Feppo has to answer by changing the hologram projection to one of a Security Guard/Assistant Deputy Back-up Courier that they met almost 9 years ago. It still brings a tear to his eye to think of Stanley Tweedle...

The very same Stanley Tweedle is now captain of the Lexx, but this doesn't guarantee him any respect from his fellow crew members. Zev is badgering him in the galley about going back to the cluster to get Kai more Protoblood. And she is very insistent. Stan thinks it is insanity, especially since Kai has been around long enough anyway, and refuses. Zev storms off to the cryochamber, where she finds Kai's pod opening, and hears his soft voice singing the ancient battle chant of the Brunnen-G. "Kai! You're awake!" she exclaims. "Not for much longer" he intones, "this unit is no longer functioning". The damage it sustained from Gigerotta means Kai's pod cannot keep him cold any more, and neither can the others as they are all on the same system. Kai's protoblood will soon be gone. "How long?" she asks. "Hours, perhaps days" he replies. "You will know when I stop singing". Zev is understandably upset, and promises to get Stan to go back to the cluster, which Kai advises against, as it would be too much risk. Zev refuses to listen however, insisting on getting more protoblood. She wants Kai to live. "I suggest you modify your wants" he replies, then, relenting a little, suggests that he stay in here, where it is cooler, and then his blood will last longer. Zev goes back to the bridge to find Stanley and work on him a little more.

Stanley, meanwhile, is engaged in dialogue with the brains, or rather not. Fed up with them keep interfering, he tries to establish communication between them and him. The brains are not, however, willing to talk. Instead, they remind him of that time he spent, a few years ago, in the company of a certain two Sub-Nebula mercenaries. In fact, they even sing him a little song to remind him...just in case it had slipped his mind...

Stanley Tweedle defiled by fate, a martyr to his generation.
Sweaty probes were forced into him, such pain such humiliation.
But now he’s captain of the Lexx on an intergalactic tour.
Still he dreams at night, of the time of his life, in the play pen of Feppo and Smoor.
Stanley is not pleased, and leaves to try to fix Kai's cryochamber. Unfortunately, these things are never easy when you are technically inept, and you have a robot head insulting your every move, and Stanley manages to instead of fixing it, close the lid on himself. His thumps are heard by Kai, who peers curiously into the pod before releasing Stan. "I nearly had it!" whines Stan. "I didn't know you cared" quips Kai (who says the dead have no sense of humour?). Stan gets embarassed for the second time today and heads for the bridge, leaving Kai alone in the cryoroom. Or maybe not, as in the corner he notices a pulsating fleshy mass (and I don't mean Tweedle). As he bends over it, the top begins to split, and a little face, or rather mouth, emerges...

Zev is trying again with Stan, well she's trying to eat him into going to back to the cluster. This time he's in the shower, but for some reason this does not affect her ability to think straight, unlike vice versa. She stops trying to take a chunk out of his chest when Kai enters, holding a baby Cluster Lizard in his arms. Zev hisses. "Don't you like it?" Kai asks, surprised. Stan is, as ever, scared, and Zev takes an instant dislike to it, despite being part cluster lizard herself. The little lizard nuzzles into Kai's neck. "It thinks you're it's mother!" exclaims Stan in disgust. "I was hoping you would help me think of a name for it" Kai suggests. "If it comes near me, I'll name it!" exclaims Zev. "What?" Kai asks, holding the little lizard out towards her. "Squish! Coz that's exactly what I'll do to it!". Zev storms out. "No, you can't eat my brain yet" scolds Kai, pulling the little lizard down, "I still need it for a little while longer". But Stanley, getting dressed, suddenly has another little plan for Kai's brain-eating pet.

"Once more" Stan commands, and the Divine Predecessors groan. Stan, arms up like a conductor, indicates the first note and the DP's sing...:

Stanley Tweedle is a God, a warrior and a gent.
We are not fit to suck his feet, or dine on his excrement.
At night we croon by the light of the moon, of his courage and his creed.
Hay ho there he goes oh woe for his foes, long live the Tweedle seed.

Stanley, Stanley, top of the hero class,
Stanley, Stanley, We live to kiss his ass.

At the last word, the DP's stumble and refuse to sing any further. Until, that is, Stanley offers them the choice between singing and, well, the bag that contains Squish...

"Gentlemen" observes Stanley, "I think we are now establishing a dialogue..."

Kai has a plan. It is possible to use his remaining protoblood to project the memories stored within him onto a screen. Hopefully they will be able to find out about Protoblood, and where it comes from, and more importantly, how to get it. Zev attaches his tubes to the screen, and a bloom of protoblood shoots into the corner, slowly spreading across the screen. As the layer becomes thicker, images begin to appear. "Lay your hands on me" Kai struggles, so Zev puts her hands on his shoulders. He takes them and raises them to his temples, where her fingers help him to concentrate on the images flooding the screen before them...
...running after a man...the man hits a wire fence...he stops, pleads..."I have been ordered to kill you"...the man falls...
...A woman, dancing, erotically...
...images, fleeting...fire...an old man...the Time Prophet...

His Shadow stands before the Time Prophet, asking what is to become of his order. She replies that she cannot see beyond the gigashadow...only a fleeting image of the insect wars, but they were thousands of years ago...and she feels the destruction of all humanity...

...His Shadow...
"Are you His Shadow?" ventures Zev. "Yes" replies Kai, with His Shadow's voice. "I am the Divine Shadow who killed Kai 2,000 years ago". "What is Protoblood?" she demands. "Protoblood comes from the Gigashadow" Kai replies. "What is the gigashadow?" she asks. "The gigashadow is the end, and it is the beginning!" Kai answers, "first will come the cleansing, which will feed the rebirth!" "Tell me what I want to know!" demands Zev. "The gigashadow is the end, and it is the beginning! The gigashadow is the end, and it is the beginning! The gigashadow is the end, and it is the beginning!" he shouts over and over, the Divine Shadow taking over...
"Kai!" shrieks Zev, and tries to disconnect him from the image screen. Kai lashes out and sends Zev flying across the room, straight into the screen, smashing it and spilling precious protoblood all over the floor. Kai stays in the chair, looking petulant.

Zev is on her knees, trying to scrape the remnants of the protoblood off the floor. She looks at Kai. "We've lost about half" she says. "Then my time is reduced by half" he replies. "I'm sorry Kai!" she cries "we've lost half your protoblood and we've learnt nothing". "We have learned much!" counters Kai, "that the prophecy may not be certain...and that the Gigashadow is something to be feared..."

Zev storms onto the bridge, grabbing an insect off the wall on the way and biting it's head off in front of Stanley's face. "How does it taste?" he winces. "Meaty!" she replies, with relish, "but not as meaty as you will Stanley!" Zev lunges for him again. "We have to go back to the cluster!" she screams "We have to get Kai more protoblood!" Stanley still refuses, and Zev weakens, leaning against the control pedestal. She puts her fingers to her eyes..."I'm making eye water again!" she comments. "They're called tears..didn't you even know that?" asks Stan, incredulously. "I grew up in a box" she spits, "there's a lot I don't know". "Yeah, well there's something else", replies Stan. "Tears are what happens when you're in love". Zev cries...

"We have to go back to the cluster! We have to get more protoblood!" Zev's voice is ringing through his memory as Stan tries to sleep on the bridge. He finally realises what everyone else has known all along, that he is a coward. Stan commands Lexx to set a course for the fractal core. "As you command, Stan" replies the bug. "And from now on," Stan continues, "I want to be known as Stanley the brave who risked his skin for his friends!"

The fractal core looms, and before they know it, they are safe on the other side. Kai, however, has collapsed. Zev runs over to him as he regains consciousness. "Protoblood failure" he stammers.

"Look after Squish until I return" Kai tells Stan as they load up the moth, "and if I don't..." "...kill him before he gets big enough to eat you!" finishes Zev. Telling Stan not to send any communications in case someone tracks them and finds the Lexx, Kai, Zev and 790 leave for the cluster, and Squish, not wanting to leave his mummy, hitches a ride too...

Stan asks if, when he eats, he can separate out the tasty bits from the nasty indigestible bits. Lexx says "Yes, Stanley, the perfect, the mighty and terrible champion of the oppressed.", "And unjustly maligned majestical being," adds Stan. "And unjustly maligned majestical being" Lexx repeats. Stan giggles like a schoolboy, "coooool!".

As the moth approaches the cluster, a customs post officer appears on the screen, telling them that this customs post has been 'cleansed'. Zev looks at Kai, then at the Cobalt stadium, where the judiciary holograms are running wild..."you are hereby cleansed of your crime..." Zev realises what this means...all humans on the cluster have been exterminated. As they head for the ground, Kai falls forwards. Zev grabs him and tries to wake him. It takes longer this time, but he comes round. "Proto-blood failure" he explains again. The moth heads for the surface

Stan, never being one to follow orders, asks Lexx if he can broadcast on a specific frequency, if requested. which Lexx also is capable of. Stan chooses the upper 5 frequencies, and begins to broadcast...because now he's the captain of the Lexx, and can do anything he likes...

The moth lands on the platform where the dead priests lay, untouched since they stopped the rebirth. The ground is covered in a sticky substance and in amongst the carnage lies the brain of the last Divine Shadow, smashed in half. "Welcome, friends!" it calls. "Kill it Kai!" commands Zev. Kai aims his brace, but the brain tells how it is happy to die, it deserves it, as now that the bad half of it's brain has been destroyed, it's poet half is free! Zev and Kai look less than convinced, Kai again aims. Squish, however, has other ideas. He rolls on in, and goes for the 'good' half of the brain. Kai shoots the brain and pulls it towards him. "No Squish! Bad Lizard!" Squish satisfies himself with the 'bad' part of the brain, and rolls off to enjoy his meal. The brain, now in Kai's hands, pleads to be destroyed. With Zev urging him to fulfill the prophecy, Kai obliges, and crushes the brain with his fingers, the memories flooding into him as they did before when he regained his own. He drops the brain, "He knew nothing of the Gigashadow either". "It's over!" exclaims Zev "you have fulfilled the prophecy! How does it feel?" Kai stops "It feels...it feels....I have no feeling for it!". They head for the mortuary to find protoblood.

Back on the platform they have just left, the sticky goo that is dripping from the ceiling is landing the bodies of the dead priests and collecting in pools. The priest who first doubted receives a mouthfull of the substance, and his eyes flick open. Feeling his neck, he realises that there is a knife still in it, and he removes it. He does not bleed. Standing, he surveys the carnage around him, together with the crushed and broken brain at the base of the pedestal. He reaches out his hand and picks it up. As he does so, a black cloud engulfs him, swimming across his eyes. "I gave Kai my memories, but you are weak cleric! You I give my essence!" the voice of His Shadow rings in his ears. "No!" the cleric defies, "I am Yottskry! Yottskry!". He stumbles forward, grabbing a sword from one of the dead clerics, and plunges it into his own stomach. The sword goes right through. "You are already dead!" laughs His Shadow, through him. Yottskry turns...

Kai opens the drawer in the mortuary that used to be his home. There are thousands of them, each one empty; the assassins that were kept there 'cleansed'. Kai looks inside, finding the tubes that supplied protoblood to him for 2,000 years. They are dry.

Zev contacts Stan on the radio, to tell him that they are going to be later than expected. Unfortunately, this signal never reaches Stan, for it is intercepted by two certain Sub-Nebulae mercenaries who have been monitoring Stan's boastful message. They take the message and use it to copy Xev's voice, then beam it back to Stan: "Stan! His Shadow is dead and there's a big party on the cluster! Look out for returning refugees who may need help..."

Kai and Zev head towards the source of the protoblood - using the tubes themselves as ropes, they climb down until they reach the floor, many feet below. The floor is in fact a lake of gooey ectoplasmic liquid. "Protoblood?" hopes Zev. "No" replies Kai, "something far more dangerous. For unlike me, everything you see here is alive!"

Yottskry, by the pedestal far above them, attempts once more to take his own life and plummets off the edge...

...landing in the goo, only yards from Zev and Kai. Yottskry stands up. "Kill me!" he pleads to Kai, explaining that he has been taken over by His Shadow, but before Kai has a chance to dispatch him, Yottskry is whisked backwards by His Shadow's essence, decapitated, and his head sucked through miles of biological looking tubing into the centre of an enormous brain.

"He was dead!" exclaims Zev, realising that the sticky stuff they saw on the floor above must be a form of protoblood. "Come on!" she grabs Kai. "Yes...must...find...protoblood" Kai collapses. "Kai!" Zev screams, and cradles his head in her arms. "Zev," he whispers, "go back to Stan, take the Lexx and use it to blow up the cluster!" But Zev will not leave him. Kai struggles "Zev, I...." and then his head lolls. Zev lets out a cluster lizard cry that would terrify the small furry creature in anyone. Then she heads for the roof, where the protoblood is...

"Oh! oh!" sighs the particularly attractive female form on Stanley's viewscreen. "Low on air! Need help!" Stanley takes the poor distressed woman's plight to heart, as he would for any human being in distress, but particularly an attractive female one. Stan also knows that running out of air is not a nice way to die...as he so nearly did it himself all those years ago! As the signal fades, Stan asks Lexx if he got a fix on it. "Yes, Stanley the stunner, makes love like no other..."

Zev shrieks her best cluster lizard shriek, bringing Squish rolling towards her. She takes a tube and sucks it full of the gloop that's lying on the floor, tieing off each end. Then she gives it to Squish with the instruction "Go find your mother!" and lobs the unfortunate lizard through the ever-decreasing hole she came in through, as a giant door closes across it. Zev runs towards the moth, to be greeted by an ecstatic 790. "It may be hopeless," she explains, rummaging for two containers in the back of the Moth, "but there's something I have to do".

Stan heads for the source of the signal. Finding a ship floating in space, he takes a moth and boards it. He is quite surprised that in the last few minutes in between sending the signal and him finding her, the woman seems to have put on a bit of weight, got rather hairy, and have turned into a man. Smoor, in fact. Smoor, in a wig and lipstick, and a clever video device that impersonated and broadcast the 'distress' signal... Stan's face drops.