This is truly a dark time for the Animal kingdom. The Underground Kingdoms are in ruins because of the act of one of our own. Well, we think he’s an animal, maybe.

We, the resistance, took refuge in the swampy area in between all the underground kingdoms. A kinda of no-animal’s land and difficult for the robot army to follow us on foot. Did you guys know they had hovertanks?

We escaped but suffered heavy losses and muddied up a lot of cute boots but a snake in the grass spotted the traitor— it was Peter Platypus, you know the one with the really cool sunglasses. Wait, is a platypus really an animal or just something made from left over parts. Anyways, the snake in the grass said Peter was using his electrolocation to give our position away whenever we stopped. I thought he was walking off all the time because he had bladder issues or whatever a Platypus uses for a bladder but that wasn’t the case.

What is he?

He was hard to capture once the gig was up. He kept sticking everyone with those darn cute ankle spurs. Who knew they were poisoned?

Now with the traitor captured. We can hide, I mean re-group and figure out how to save me… err us from the robot army.

Things have gotten bad.

After that fashion-refugee Le Gros Chapeau arrived, the animal resistance has suffered setback after setback. King Thunder may have driven off the first assault, but the Underground Animal Kingdoms have been falling one-by-one. Leopardia –bloody, tattered, and partially-shaved– continues to hold out, but everyone else is just getting mowed down by SUCKER’s evil robot army. There seem to be millions of them; too many to fight. Even the dogs can only pee so much.

After a string of defeats, the Resistance was forced to fall back to Dogopolis. Dogopolis, you’ll recall, was our first ally in the Resistance, and it has continued to be our staunchest supporter –say what you will about dogs, they’re loyal. It’s kinda their thing. It makes me nervous. I’m always, like, “What? What do you want now?”

Dogopolis became our fortress, a walled city able to withstand anything SUCKER’s evil robot army threw at us, or so we thought.

In fairness, the walls themselves held. The problem was that the robots deployed a horse trojan. That’s a big statue of a trojan warrior, produced by the horses of new Equestria. Normally, we wouldn’t have fallen for such an obvious ploy, but the statue was made of wood, and the Dogopolitans thought it was a big tree, and, well. . .

Okay, there may have been an innate desire to claw it up on some of our parts, but we’re cats. Clawing expensive things is what we do, that shouldn’t surprise anyone.

However it happened, it was the dog’s fault! The end result was that the robots broke through our defenses. They started swarming through the city in numbers that we’d never seen before. The Dogopolitans were ready, though. One thing dogs and cats agree on; we’re territorial, and the Dogopolitans knew their city like. . . Well, their city.

The fighting went street-to-street, doghouse-to-doghouse. Then the robots changed the rules; they started torching the city. It was weird, but RoboStretchLad seemed to know it was coming. I’m wondering if he may be a traitor. You know the old saying about robots of a feather. Or. . . Whatever robots have instead of feathers. Hair? Do robots have hair?

Anyway, as the fighting (and the fire) spread, the Dogopolitans were forced to deploy their secret weapon; the Hamster Wheel of Spikey Spikey Death (the HWoSSD for short, or, in the Ham-Ham language, “Eeeeeeeeeee-thud”).

Dogopolis in ruins

See, the Dogopolitans, being the second most powerful Underground Kingdom, had waged constant warfare against the other Kingdoms. It was a dog-eat-dog-eat… other types of animals world down here. Well, not literally, that’d be disgusting. Though, let’s face it, dogs will eat anything.

During one of their wars with New Ham-Hampshire, the Dogopolitans captured the HWoSSD (which the New Ham-Hampshirites had created to be their ultimate weapon) and brought it home as a trophy of war. It’s been sitting in the Dogopolitan War Museum for generations.

Once the Resistance started forming, the Dogopolitans allowed the Hamsters to start refurbishing the HWoSSD, and now it was finally time to bring it out.

After much fanfare and panicked preparation (the HWoSSD was never intended to be removed from the museum, so we had to knock down a few walls – fun!), the HWoSSD rolled from the blown-open side of the Museum, and lived up to it’s name. Its Ham-Ham name. It rolled a few yards, then fell over on its side.

Turns out Hamsters aren’t very good at warfare.

With no remaining weapons, we, the leaders of the Animal Resistance, were forced to flee Dogopolis. I left first, of course, because I’m the least expendable. Second out, was my stash of mirrors. After that came everybody else.

Now, Dogopolis lies in smoldering rubble, the Resistance is in shambles, and SUCKER’s control seems unstoppable. It seems like we have nothing left to lose, which is exactly when a cornered animal is at its most dangerous. And best looking.

The rebellion has scored its first victory, and it’s all thanks to my sexy leadership. MEOW!

After Dogopolis joined us, new allies started to roll in. We have delegations here from Beaverton, Papua New Guineapig, New Equestria, Snake Mountain, Ape Mountain, Eagle Mountain, and Mole Mountain. There’s a lot of mountains around here. Walking somewhere can be pretty tiring. There used to be a Cat Mountain, but people said it had the prettiest vewi in all of Leopardia. So I had it torn down. I’m the prettiest view in all of Leopardia. By law.

We’ve even had some help arrive from the surface; RoboStretchLad and Albatraitor just showed up. Apparently Albatraitor is from Nocturnia, which is a tiny little place near Eagle Mountain. At first some of us attacked them because, y’know, RoboStretchLad is a robot, and Albatraitor is. . . Albatraitor. And… all that sqawking isn’t helping matter much either. But after I vouched for RoboStretchLad and he vouched for Albatraitor, we let them join our resistence. RobotStretchLad keeps talking about some chick, but I’ve gotten pretty good at tuning him out. I don’t even pretend to listen, like I do with other people.

Of course, having all these different factions and phylums working together is kinda chaotic. No one is willing to work with anyone else.

He may even get a (small) statue out of it.

Fortunately, I had a brilliant plan: I would cunningly lead my forces into an ambush, forcing them to fight their way out. I knew that when the dust settled, we’d be a finely-honed team, forged in the fires of combat. I’ve seen it happen on TV all the time. I get all my best ideas from TV, unlike Major Faultline who gets all his best ideas from skin flicks.

So, with the bulk of the resistance around me, I led a march toward Cat’an. It felt a little weird to let dogs across the border, but fortunately I knew the access codes to the Invisible Fence. Six. It was six. Stupid dogs. It wasn’t hard to find a good ambush spot, since the robots are everywhere. I knew we’d find them with a direct frontal assault, so it was totally deliberate. Anyone who says otherwise simply didn’t understand my genius. For finding robots. With the front part of my army.

The battle developed quickly into a confusing mass of claws, fangs, and various defensive adaptations. I waited for someone to take command and demonstrate their leadership skills. I may or may not have been crying and/or whimpering as I did.

Eventually General Marmalade took command and sounded the signal to advance toward the nearest high ground, from which we would be able to apprise the whole battlefield. Despite what was clearly a complex plan, he gave his orders clearly and concisely: Run. Run for the hills. At least, that’s what I think that last part was. He was already running away so fast it was hard to make him out.

With General Marmalade leading us at top speed, we bravely regrouped. Bravely and, for my part, sexily. Like this. Oh, you can’t see me, but I’m doing a really sexy regroup thing. Never mind. We regrouped so hard that we were soon back on Dogopolitan soil, and safely concealed in a hidden base under the bed.

After General Marmalade’s brilliant tactical improvisation, it is my proud duty to promote him to General Pudding. That’s two ranks over Marmalade. I wanted to make sure he outranked any dogs. General Pudding will serve as the field commander of our forces, while I turn my own strategic genius to where it is best suited; I’ll be in my tent. Napping.

Oh, and making more “battle plans.” I swear, when this is all over, I’m gonna give TV a medal! And maybe General, too. If he doesn’t bother me during “Once Upon a Time.”

Leopardia has fallen. The once-great Underground Kingdom of the cats has been destroyed, conquered by the advance scouts of the Robot Army. The royal city of Cat’an is destroyed, and most of the people have been enslaved. And they took all our lumber and granite blocks to build those tower things. How am I supposed to get my royal scratching posts now, catdammit!

I’ve been hiding out in the now-abandoned royal palace, trying to reconoi– reccon– reccinoit– To figure out WTF’s going on. The main leader of the robot army may not have arrived yet, but there’s definitely someone calling the shots. I’m just not sure who. With the elite Leopardian Jaguar-Knights (you know, the ones that wore the spandex leopard print armour?) destroyed, Leopardia’s people have accepted their defeat.

And then there’s the looting. Leopardia has always been the strongest nation in the Centre of the Earth, but with Leopardia in ruins, the other Animal Kingdoms have started to turn on each other, vying for power. There are dogs and crows and rats and lizards and – EW! – rabbits wandering the ruins of Leopardia, scavenging for our treasures.

Someone must have tipped off the robot army; they raided the palace. I mean, how else coudl they have found me? It wasn’t becaue I’ve been throwing my litter out a window because I was too lazy to flush it. No, someone ratted me out. I suspect a rat. What? I’m racist now? Get over it, I got real problems here!

Normally I’d stand and fight –you know how territorial cats can be– but my loyal retainer, General Marmalade, convinced me to get the hell out of there.

Fortunately, I was able to escape with the help of General Marmalade, some escaped slaves, and a pair of loveable scoundrel street kittens, Scamper and Boots. The kittens aren’t that useful, but they’re cute and kinda annoying, so I’ll let them stay. Let’s face it, I know how these things go, and those little scamps will probably prove critical to defeating the evil robot army. Plus, nothing sells a true life story for six figures like having lovable comic relief. You hear that, Pixar?

After fleeing Leopardia, we had no choice but to take shelter in the neighbouring kingdom of Dogopolis. The second-largest of the Underground Kingdoms (well, first-largest, now). The Dogopolitans have always been our rivals, fighting us at every turn for the water dishes and the sunny napping spots. They’re larger and stronger than catkind, but they’re less civilized (not a litter box in the whole kingdom), and their society is just an anarchic mess. Their leaders are chosen by popular vote, and –get this– they can get removed when they stop being popular. The Dogopolitan Council of Alphas spends so much time trying to suck up to each other and sniff each other’s butts that they can’t get anything done. That’s not a figure of speech, by the way. The butt-sniffing is their traditional greeting. I mean, when do you want to smell a bum? That’s all backwards.

On the other paw, the Dogopolitans are a lot more patriotic and pro-active than catkind, so I guess there’s something to be said for trying to please people.

I really didn’t want to do it, but with Leopardia in ruins and its people scattered, I really had no choice but to enlist Dogopolis in my resistance movement. I mean, I’d still be in charge, but it’s always best to have some disposable and not-terribly-bright soldiers to throw into the fray.

Unsurprisingly, my time with Ronin Force has taught me a few things about leading dumb, stinky animals; let them pretend it’s about them. Once I told them that the robot army was preparing to invade Dogopolis, they were willing to help. Trouble is that, with the main force of the robot army still coming, I don’t think the big drool-factories will be enough to turn the tide.

Without Leopardia, the only way for the Underground Kingdoms to stand against the robot army is united. SUCKER is a threat to all of us, and none of us is strong enough to take them on alone.

Unfortunately, it’s not going to be easy. Getting dozens of different animal kingdoms to work together is like herding cats – which is even harder when you’re an actual cat! What we need is a symbol we can rally around, something that can inspire the inhabitants of the Underground Animal Kingdoms to set aside their differences and work together. Something that symbolizes strength, and power, and courage.

Trouble is that everything I could think of was cat-centric. A slit-pupilled eye, glaring balefully at our enemies? Cats (dogs don’t have slit-pupils). An extended claw? Cats (dogs can’t retract or extend their claws. It’s why they’re so clumsy and destructive). An angry tails-down? Cats (dogs’ tail-signs are reversed; down means happy, up means mad. Again, backwards). A pawprint? The Dogopolitans won’t follow a cat’s-paw, and Leopardians would never follow the leader of the pack.

It ended up turning into this big to-do. I haven’t had an argument like that since. . . well, since hubby disappeared. Great, now I miss him.

Fortunately, I was eventually able to settle things with a swipe of my claws.

No, no, not like that.

We figured that the one thing every animal in the Centre of the Earth can agree on is that claws are bad. So, being the born artist I am, I took the job of abstracting this design.

Yes, abstracting is totally a word. I’m a Queen, I can do that.

Animal warriors of the Red Zig Zaggy Liney Thing… UNITE!

So, hi, everybody, I’m back, finally. I know you’ve all been really missing me, (how couldn’t you, considering how cute I am?) but honestly, I’ve been kinda busy. Why too busy to talk to my followers, you might ask, if you were feeling kinda snippy? I mean, screw you, that’s why! I’ve been busy, okay?

The litter has officially hit the fan here in Leopardia. Worse, it’s really stinky and full of poo, as no one has bothered to scoop it out in, like, years. Yeah, it’s that bad.

These poor cats, caged and waiting for the Shave Master

As you might have seen with my awesome video blog thing, a small, advanced element of the Evil Robot Army of SUCKER has invaded Leopardia, and my once-beautiful nation has been enslaved. All of the Sacred Chew Toys have been plundered, and the entire Leopardian Cabinet seems to have vanished off the centre of the Earth. You know, that really expensive wooden cabinet with the varnish, the one I like to claw to pieces because I’m too chi-chi for cardboard? That one. Also, the Royal Dry Food Dishes have been stolen, and I think the robots are using them for field repairs! So yeah, I’m not in a happy mood right now. Leopardia has never suffered such a disaster, not even when the Dogopolisians invaded when I was just a kitten, or the failed catnip harvest a few years later that sent everyone into withdrawal. Seriously, that sucked majorly. I get the shakes just thinking about it.

Here’s what keeps me awake during all seven of my nap times: this is only the beginining. The truth is, there aren’t too many robots here. These are only the very first robots from the evil army – the other ones, I’m told, are on their way. So basically, my cat people, brave warriors all, got punked by the robot arm equivilant of the swim team. You know, in high school, there’s the jocks, and at the top there’s the football or hockey or basketball team, and if they beat you up (you, not me, no one in high school would have ever beaten me up. I’m trying to use terms that you under stand) you’d be like, oh okay I’m getting beat up by the cool kids but if you get beat up by the swim team? That’s embarrassing.

Anyways, I’ve been trying to free my subjects whenever I can, and from what they’ve told me, maybe I should have budgeted more towards the kingdom’s defense and less towards having really kick-ass parties. I totally disagree, of course. They tell me, the robots attacked during the Festival of St. Pouncealot, and no one was prepared to fight them because everyone was stoned off their asses on catnip. Seriously, the first thing most of my subjects did when being invaded by an evil robot army was to ask if they had any treats. Unbelievable.

Even worse, according to one of the slaves I’ve rescued, there’s giant drilling machine thing with the main robot force on the way, and that is where their leader is to. What a jerk! He doesn’t even have the dignity to be in the first wave of the omnicidal robots conquering my homeland; he’s instead coming very, very, very slowly under the Earth with more robots, like he’s taking the TTC or something. What a douchebag. I wonder who it is?

Still, that might give me some time to help launch a counterattack, before we’re all swimming in a sea of robots, what with their oily gears and hidden lasers and whatnot. After all, the robots are conquering all the animal kingdoms, not just Leopardia, so maybe I can get some help from them. They’d have to support me and my epic cuteness, even those smelly, good-for-nothing Dogopolisians, right?

So, how was your Thursday? Mine was really crazy.

So, I was trying to get back in contact with Santa Corpse, the supervillain informant who showed up at my house a little while ago, told me some ominous yet nonsensical stuff, stunk up the place and left. After using three bottles of Febreze and two cans of air freshener to get my living room back in liveable condition (P.S. Remind Lungfish to demand more from that Felicity Gal person in the lawsuit. P.P.S. Remind Lungfish to shut up about using the money to buy a rescue spaceship to get him off the Ronin Force orbital satellite, I’m both the Chairwoman and Treasurer, I think the ball’s in my court on that one), I kept an ear to the ground for news from him. So, when I got word to come and meet him in a dank and dark alley with no potential witnesses around, I leapt at the chance! After all, we cats love dank alleys!

Of course, it all turned out to be a trap, and a whole whack of supervillains were there, waiting to attack. At first I thought they were waiting for my autograph, but nope. Attack. I think it was like eleven of them or something, and even worse, that smelly fool Robert Strovesco had decided to pick that moment to blunder in. I think I would have beaten them all if I wasn’t distracted by his stench. As it was, I think I definitely got some good hits in before I was taken prisoner; I think the Hanging Chad is going to have trouble when he wants to have kids. I mean, contributing to reproduction, not actually giving birth, ew! He’s gross enough already, imagine if he was preggers?

Anyways, so there I was, tied up alongside the Plumber, when the leader of the supervillains showed up to do his whole “evil gloating” shtick. You’ll never guess who it was; Le Gros Chapeau! Honestly, it was a shock to me too. I know I had fired him and everything from Ronin Force, but of all the recruits I ended up giving the boot, he was definitely the best. He was dedicated, competent, had that cute little hat…Except for the whole not-showing-up-most-of-the-time thing, he was okay. Not good enough to avoid getting fired, but still okay. So it was weird seeing him there, talking to the other supervillains about how they were fulfilling the plans of SUCKER, whoever or whatever that is, by getting rid of me! Me! Can you imagine it? Some person or evil organization or what have you decided to hire all these villains just to get rid of little old me? It was supposedly in order to keep me from going back home to my underground cat kingdom of Leopardia too, which is just a whole ‘nother bag of litter that I’ll get into later.

Of course, I wasn’t about to go down without a fight! So while the Plumber cowered in the corner, I broke out of the ropes and single-handed trounced everyone in the room!

…Okay, so Albatraitor was the one who broke the ropes, and helpful civilians like @777damm and the very handsome @LoneBrownCoat helped, and then Santa Corpse swooped in on his Death Sleigh or Sleigh of Terror or BurtonMobile or whatever to fly us all to safety, but I still kicked some ass!

So, after sending out a Ronin Force General Alert for all the supervillains, including Le Gros Chapeau and the ninjas (apparently, Felonious Gal was hiring supervillains; I’d better sue her for even more!), I finally got around to talking to Santa Corpse…for about five minutes. Apparently, he was in a rush to get back to his place and type up some more Super Gossip Gal stuff, so all he really did was just toss a Hello Kitty USB thumb drive into my hands and leave. (Did I mention that Santa Corpse is also Super Gossip Gal?) At least I didn’t have to de-stink the house this time.

The super cute thumb drive had a lot of stuff on it, and while a lot of it was unreadable (zombies have poor spelling, apparently, who’d have known?) there was some stuff on it that seemed really important. Apparently, SUCKER, whoever or whatever it is, is the mastermind behind the threat that will soon be attacking Leopardia, and he wanted to make sure I didn’t get there to stop it. There were several mentions of Captain Euchre in the manuscript, plus a reference to “cards” and “sticky toffee brains,” it must have been a shopping list at one point. No clue who or what SUCKER is yet, but his plans have been in motion for some time now, apparently.

So the husband is travelling through time and space, Le Gros Chapeau is a major supervillain, all the other heroes are morons, and Santa Corpse is continuing to post scandalous info about major superheroes online in the voice of a blonde airhead. Where does that leave me?

Well, I think I have to go back to Leopardia now. I’ve been going back and forth about the whole thing, but really, the surface world is just getting too crazy for me these days. Besides, if my people are in danger from this SUCKER, then I have to do my best to protect them. Shouldn’t be too hard; I mean, if SUCKER depended on those super-losers to attack me, I doubt he has anything special, like an army of insidious killer robots or anything like that. Well, time to get packing…

So, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my last blog post, you know, the one where I tell everybody how I found the supervillain informant that’s been helping us out this past little while, and most of these questions have been about how I figured out who it was. And who it is. And why I would even bother to do a blog post about a supervillain informant without even bothering to tell people the identity of the supervillain informant, stuff like that. News flash, I’ve been busy, okay? It’s hard work trying to run someone into the ground for copyright infringement.

So, it was a dark and stormy night.

Actually, screw that. It was super-hot and sticky, like it’s been recently. I had been shedding up a storm, and was thinking of donating all that excess hair to Goodwill so they could make some rugs or children’s mittens or something. You’d think that for a half-cat person who’d been born in a subterranean kingdom close to the earth’s core would be better suited to the heat, but no.

Anyways, I had just gotten back from a day at the office, trying to contact DeadMeatGF, who was trying to get to the bottom of what was going on in Leopardia.  Well, I had just walked in the door when I found two very disturbing things. First, my fool of a husband had been back while I was gone, and had left nearly a full carton of milk out; all spoiled when I arrived, of course! Even worse, there was this awful stink coming from the living room; I thought it might have been the milk, but I knew that the Major wouldn’t be so dumb as to spill milk on the couch. Again.

So, I walked into the living room, readying my choicest insults for the Major so I could ream the dumbass out for being such a dumbass, when I first beheld the horror. His skin was grey and clammy…and rotting, as every so often another piece fell off to stain the sofa and carpet. His eyes were milky-white and kinda melting in his skull (really gross), but sparked with an evil yet jolly light. He also had a great white beard, which looked for some reason like it had been stapled back onto his face. Strangest of all, he was dressed in a Santa costume, albeit one that reeked just as much as he did.

As I stood there, contemplating how much Febreze I’d need to buy to get my house in a liveable state again, the monster spoke. “Leopard Woman? You and I must speak,” he rasped with his undead throat in a kinda Christian-Bale-as-Batman sort of way.

“Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” I demanded imperiously, like the brave and mighty superheroine I am. “And how did you get in here anyways?”

“That does not matter,” replied the fiend, giving a laugh like a bowl full of eels. “My name is Santa Corpse, and I have only come to warn you of the upcoming danger, then be on my way. My form is that of a creature of goodness and benevolence; the Plumber’s dreams shaped him into something sinister and fiendish.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” came my reply as I stared at the horror, my cute little nose wrinkling in distaste. “And when did this suddenly become a Frankenstein pastiche?”

“Shut up and I’ll tell you,” the monster replied, leaning back on my couch with a nasty squelch. “Just know that you are in danger. SUCKER is on the move, and you are his next target.”

I gasped. “You’re the supervillain informant?”

The monster nodded. “I am. Now listen and I shall begin my tale.” So he thus did:

“I was born of a dream. Specifically, the dreams of the Plumber, who dreamt one Christmas night that I had been created by Dr. Arigato Roboto to destroy him, only to be thwarted by chocolate and my partially canine DNA. Why the bad Doctor decided to send a horrifying zombified abomination cobbled together from old body parts and dog intestines to kill the Plumber instead of just, you know, shooting him, is beyond me.

“Regardless, I think my creation in the real world is the result of your husband, Major Faultline. During his travels through time, he had stumbled into an adventure with the Mega Powers League, who were attempting to stop Professor Foreshadow from stealing people’s dream energy, or something like that. He had destroyed the atomic dimension smasher Foreshadow was attempting to charge, and in the resulting blast energy, I was pulled in through the cracks in reality as dimensions shifted and shattered, with realities becoming erased and merging and being formed anew, and the multiverse itself screaming in anguish. So, basically the same thing that happens anytime someone tries to review an Ultimate Warrior comic.”

“The Mega Powers League?” came my shocked question. “Didn’t they all die in the Obfrustrated Wars?”

“It’s Obfuscated, and they did disappear, of course, but your husband managed to find them in a time before the Wars, or in a parallel universe the Wars destroyed, or he in fact caused the Wars by blowing up the dimension smasher…look, it was a crisis on multiple Earths and other associated planets, we don’t have to explain it.”

“Anyways, I first awoke to discover that I was naked, and not very attractive to boot. After getting my Santa outfit, I tried to learn more about this strange world I inhabited, full of pain and hunger and lots of funny lights people were stringing up on their houses. While I could consume almost anything to survive, I found that brains were particularly appetizing, and so set about devouring as many as I could to replenish my strength. This had the unfortunate effect of causing the ordinary humans around to become frightened, and so I became constantly lonely and hunted as a monster.”

“Well, eating people’s brains will do that,” I replied, drifting in and out of his story.”

“Be quiet. Anyways, as such, I felt that in order to get my revenge, I would take from them what they cherished most, the holiday season. My life was absent of joy and happiness, while Christmas gave them much of both; I would take it from them, and so reduce my own misery. I think that was what drew SUCKER’s attention to me, honestly. All the brains I could eat, all the misery I could cause, and it seemed like a great career move, at first.”

“Wait!” I exclaimed, drawing an annoyed look from Santa Corpse. “Shouldn’t you be speaking in, like, zombie-talk, you know, oogh, arggh, aaah,” I asked, giving a perfect rendition of how zombies speak as they shamble forward. “Why are you speaking like a university graduate now?”

“Unlike you and your idiot husband, I am capable of improving myself and my diction,” the monster replied pompously, a bit too pompous for a brain-eating dead guy, if you ask me. “SUCKER actually sent me to university, Queen’s, to be more specific. Only ended up taking a first-year English class, but it’s more than you’ve ever done. Its plans have been sent in motion a long time ago, and it felt it best if I was in a better position to help it.”

“So what changed?”

“I have come to realize that SUCKER’s plans are in direct conflict with my own. After all, when he succeeds, there will be no Christmases for me to ruin, no joy to destroy, and very few brains to eat. His success means my ruin, for not only will there be nothing for me to find pleasure in, I doubt that SUCKER will allow any loose ends to threaten his power.

“And so I have been helping you and the rest of the superheroes from the shadows, guiding you, leaking the information and plans of various supervillains in the hopes that you’ll be better able to defend humanity from SUCKER. It hasn’t really worked, to be honest; the lot of you are morons. Even if I wanted to devour your brains, I don’t think it would be much of a meal. I’ve even had to set up some random gossip feed just to find a sense of purpose and fulfilment these days.”

I gave a shocked, yet very cute gasp. “You’re Super Gossip Gal?”

“Yes. You can see how far I’ve fallen that I have to gossip about other people’s lives just to feel the least bit better about my own unlife. It’s quite pathetic, really.” And with that, the rotting holiday figure sat up to leave, his index finger falling in-between the seat cushions. “I will contact you later, once I collate all the data I possess on SUCKER’s plan, but for now, know this. Captain Euchre is the key to everything. Everything. Do not forget it.”

And then he was gone, with a reek of spoiled ham and the jangle of rusted bells.

So, yeah, that’s how I met the supervillain informant. Neat, huh? Anyways, he’s going to meet up with me again, maybe show me how I can bring down this SUCKER fellow and end up saving the world, showing what an awesome and independent superheroine I am. Because nothing says strong leader like having someone else do all the work for you.