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“What makes a hero? Courage, strength, morality, withstanding adversity? Are these the traits that truly show and create a hero? Is the light truly the source of darkness or vice versa? Is the soul a source of hope or despair? Who are these so called heroes and where do they come from? Are their origins in obscurity or in plain sight?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground



In our recent MU competition, Twisted-Pixel did 100,468,120 damage. He battled hard for EZC as an agent of SHIELD, and sometimes the most heroic deeds are performed in a losing effort. These are the facts. They are boring and uninteresting. Now I tell the story:


Sing in me, Calliope, an aristeia of an agent of SHIELD for the rhapsodes to recite with honeyed tongues

Of the monophysitic Twisted-Pixel, at once a warrior, at once war itself.

On the battlefield he sits atop his quantum laser turret, FUZZAH, a Serbian drops!

His marksmanship is excellent. Each beam marks the death of another foe,

Yet, he is bored. “Did I raise my strength to 20k for a life such as this?”

Behold, he dismounts his robotic death machine, barrels glowing hot,

His bare feet step onto the dusty field of war like two angelic heralds from an ivory tower.

What do these two harbingers carry to the mortal world? It is demise.

Pixel finds his nearest lifeless victim, dead some two days before, left unearthed.

The Serbian’s leg blackened lies at his side. Pixel plucks it from the dirt like an ear of corn.

Crack! The husk of maggot-filled muscle, sinew and flesh peels back under his grip.

No morsels of food are within. It is a splintered bone, an unforged weapon.

He hones the femur on a nearby rock. Watch the yaw of his muscular arm as the bone dusts flutters!

Who would dare encounter this mythic man of war? And yet there are takers!

Across the no man’s land charge a horde of angry Serbs screaming in the Devil’s guttural.

Pixel lifts his calcium skewer, the patella hangs by a ligament like a lady’s favor from a knight’s pommel.

There is no courting here, though, except the courting of death by the first Serb to reach Pixel.

Before that Balkan bayonet begins to strike, the severed leg severs the Serb’s throat.

He twists in his death throes, splattering a ring of rosy blood about his feet.

This. This is what Pixel has sought from atop his mechanized destruction device. He grins.

No one else smiles. Shall I recount the next four men that find their way to Hell’s gate?

The first is caught by a glancing blow of Pixel’s fist and as his head rocks to the side,

A sickening crackle fills the air. The femur, like a pilgrim, has passed from temple to temple.

The next Serb is caught by the throat, choked until his face colors red, but that color is drained

When Pixel delivers a series of quick thrusts to his enemy’s guts, yes the color and life drains away.

The next is dispatched merely with a headbutt. The impact of forehead on forehead,

A Serbian egg upon Pixel’s anvil crushes the challenger’s spinal discs into fine powder.

The fourth Serbian approaches, the descendent of a king, garbed in fine bejeweled armor.

Our hero flips the bone around and chokes up his grip, he steps into the pitch and swings!

The leg bone connects with the head bone, the head bone connects with the merciless sod.

The armor belongs to Twisted-Pixel’s spoils to be placed in his oaken chest; it is the way of war.

Can no man stand before his bloody march? He goes now to destroy the Serbian homeland.

He tears through a swath of human flesh. Dozens fall before his boundless might!

Belgrade lies in his path. It will surely fall to his sanguine thirsts. But what is this?

From his golden keep, carpeted with dollar bills comes Divine Intervention. It is Plato.

“Strive no further, mortal! I wield against you Famous Points! These Serbs libate my shrines!

They offer me stainless, white calves and sweet-smelling incense! Turn back, agent of SHIELD!”

Twisted-Pixel has come too far. He will not yield. He assaults the god-king. He strives further.

Now contends Twisted-Pixel with the god mod, Plato. Grappling, each one takes the upper hand

In turn. First, Pixel flings Plato to the ground, but Plato does not surrender. He recovers and counters.

Now Pixel is hip tossed into the brush, for the bugs who live there is it a microcosm of the same fate—

The same fate that many Serbians have met today. Like Plato, Pixel does not submit his will.

A choke hold, a savage blow, gnashing of teeth, blood, bruises, breaks, and bones.

Where does one man end and another start? They are one self-destructive creature,

A mass of flailing limbs that harm their seemingly mutual trunks and faces. To see is to awe.

How long do they fight? It seems ages. It seems split seconds. So quick and enduring they are!

Finally, Pixel begins to weary. His arms feel as if they are made of stones and fire.

His energy is low. He is out of food. He must devise a strategy or be bested by the god.

He spies the rushing river and revelation comes as if from the sky on gracious wings!

Grabbing a bag of his gold, he loosens the string and flings it into the roaring waters!

For a brief moment, dozens of gold pieces glimmer, suspended in the air then fall like rain into the foam.

Plato loosens his grip on Twisted-Pixel and his uncontrollable greed seizes him.

He jumps into the river and swims to the bottom, scooping up each piece, refusing to surface.

Another and another and another he grabs. He does not realize he is suffocating.

Gold means more than air. Another piece, another, and another. Finally, he aims for the top.

Yet, his satchel is too full. It weighs him down. He struggles to release himself before darkness falls.

He has drowned. The agent of SHIELD has won the day, but what does death mean to a god?

Will he return? Can he truly die? Pixel knows not, and cannot be bothered to care

For as Plato has delayed him, he has been surrounded by a Serbian horde that number in the thousands!

Belgrade will not fall today. Pixel is out of energy with no food, and so he reaches for his last candy bar.

Like Popeye’s famed spinach, the nougaty treat slides down his throat and fills him with strength.

He must break the enemy lines. He throws a burly punch into a nearby Serb. Oh lucky Serb!

Your end was quick and dignified unlike the two nearby who hemorrhage from the shockwave.

They cough up thick clots of blood and look forward to a painful, agonizing end. Selah!

He plows his way through their lines, but alas! He has been pushed to the river’s bank.

He is too weak to swim its rushing currents. He is trapped. He will die. He will be honored.

But no! Our hero is as clever as strong. He grabs a lifeless Serb and dives into the waves.

His opponents line the river’s edge, waiting for him to claw his way to the banks where he will die,

But he uses the Serbian grunt as a raft and when he surfaces, he travels away fast as the raging current.

He is too swift to be caught. He will return. He will survive. He will still be honored.