To make sense of this, you'll have to read the previous 18,000 words of A Neopoleon Creation Story.

The best place to start is at the beginning.

I was having a dream that I was being kicked in the stomach. Over and over. I didn't want to wake up. I was learning to like the abuse.

It was KICK, KICK, KICK, KICK, KICK, KICK, KI. you get the idea. Over the kicking, I dreamt that Massif was yelling at me.

"GET UP. GET UP, YOU IDIOT. THIS ISN'T A DREAM. I'M ACTUALLY KICKING YOU IN THE STOMACH. OVER AND OVER. DON'T PRETEND THAT YOU'RE STARTING TO LIKE IT. WAKE UP."

I thought that was a nice, authentic touch to the dream. Massif would say something like that.

Next I felt my migrant worker's shirt tighten around my chest as a pair of hands yanked me off the ground. I was swung up and over a shoulder. It was intimate in a way that suggested my developing taste for abuse might be turning into a weird fetish. I made a mental note to stop dreaming that my wholesome desires were being perverted into deranged fetishes.

Suddenly, from the relative comfort of having been planted over a shoulder, I felt like I had fallen into something soft, wet, and cold. It was an unexpected development. I could understand the interest in being kicked in the stomach, but I hadn't yet found a place in my heart for soft, cold, wet things. It was one of those moments when a dream becomes a nightmare. I wanted to wake up.

After I resolved to escape my dreamworld gone bad, I took another few kicks to the stomach.

KICK, KICK, KICK, KICK, KICK, KICK, KI. you get the idea.

"This is nice," I thought, "maybe I'll sleep a while longer."

But my sleep was disturbed again when the kicking stopped and was replaced by what I thought might have been the soft, cold, wet thing being shoveled onto me by a few, oh, I don't know, just to pull something out of the air, migrant workers.
I wouldn't have it. My mind had played with me enough. I had a few unpleasant words with myself.

"I don't want the soft, cold, wet thing! I want to be kicked in the stomach again! I don't care if it's a fetish now! I want it! Give it to me! GIVE IT TO ME!"

Rather than working with Me, my mind fooled me into thinking that my nose was being plugged and my mouth covered so I couldn't breathe. I was going to show it what for and ride it through, but I just couldn't. I caved, coughed, gasped for air, tunneled through the grogginess, and opened my eyes. I was on my back in a pile of snow. Massif was standing over me, squinting and shaking his head. I was surrounded by migrant worker slaves. They were laughing. One of them dumped a shovel load of snow over my face.

"I wasn't dreaming."

"No," said Massif.

"So I was talking out loud when I may have said something about a fetish, but that was really a sentence about something else even though it did sound a whole lot like. um. you're not buying this."

"No."

Massif grabbed me under the shoulders, pulled me up, and set me on the ground, standing. That's when I realized that a group of migrant workers hadn't listened to me talk about my fetish. It should have been a relief, but part of the revelation was that it was actually the entire camp that had been listening. I was surrounded by every person who had been in the cave. At least a couple hundred faces trained on their savior, the god with a thing for getting kicked in the stomach.

"What's going on, guys?"

"Filbert, formerly known as The God of Wandering Outside in the Middle of the Night, was wandering outside in the middle of the night when he noticed that he wasn't walking around in the middle of the night quite as well as he used to."

"Ah. so that's the 'formerly' part, then. You lost your ability to wander outside in the middle of the night, then, Filbert?"

Filbert had the air of someone who had recently been a god, but then stopped being one. It's kind of like being right in the middle of watching the Audrey Hepburn version of Sabrina on the classic movie channel when the cable cuts out, and you're all, "Hey. I was watching that."

"I was out here, wandering around in the middle of the night, and then I felt like going inside. It was horrible. My power's gone."

"Yeah. that's a big loss. Sorry. Aright, Massif, give me the situation, and don't spare me the bad news. If Horton, formerly The God of Airbrushed Tigers on Vans, has lost his ability, then I want to know about it. Tell all."

"The situation is that, after Filbert ran back into the cave to tell us what happened, we all woke up to find our god powers had been deactivated. We knew this was coming, but we didn't know how soon it would be."

"What time is it?"

"Just after midnight. And we're going to need You to do your best with the god powers yOu're hopefully getting back. Whoah. did you see that?"

"What?"

"The second letter of one of your pronouns was capitalized. Your powers are completely on the fritz. I didn't even know that could happen. You need to get a handle on this, because we're putting YoU to work immediately."

"What do you need me to do?"

"We're an army without weapons. We're outnumbered, and if we don't have some kind of advantage over the enemy, we're going down. Time is short, and we have to march soon."

"I don't know much about killing large numbers of people. Tell me what we need and i'll try to make it, but don't get mad when mY powers don't quite get you what you want."

"We don't have a choice. If You screw up, then yOU screw up. The first thing we need is a fleet of vicious animals to ride on down the mountain and into the city. Do You remember the bear You made for that stupid car thing?"

"Yeah. you want me to make bears?"

"Yes. Specifically, bears that do something more intimidating than juggle. It's cute, but it won't help us out down there. Also, make them white so they'll blend in with the snow. Just think 'Snow Bears' when conjuring."

"Ok. Here goes."

I closed my eyes and tried to picture non-juggling white bears. What I saw was a white blob pulsing and undulating, morphing through inkblots, some of which reminded me of getting kicked in the stomach.

"Let there be Snow Bears!"

I felt powerful. It was the first time in days I'd tried to create anything.

Sure enough, a little ways off, and a little tough to see since they were white, it was dark, and they blended in so perfectly we'd be lucky to find them at all, was a fleet of attack beasts. The crowd around Me broke into applause.

I was a hero again. For at least thirty seconds.

"Hold it. hold it!" cried Massif.

The crowd, confused, stopped clapping in several indistinct stages until only one person was still clapping and another guy said, "Stop it," which the clapping guy did.

"Those aren't Snow Bears."

Massif walked out to one of the white blobs, took it by what must have been a harness - a sign that I'd gotten something right - and led it back to the crowd.

We walked over to meet him halfway. The slaves and former gods stopped before Massif. I walked through the crowd, emerging by Massif and the creature.

"Look at this," said Massif, "LOOK - AT - THIS. This is not a Snow Bear."

I tilted my head to examine it from a few angles, trying to find the one that would contradict Massif's complaint, but failed.

"You're right. No argument here."

"That's all You have to say? LOOK AT IT. LOOK."

I gave it another once-over.

"Yeah. it's not exactly what we wanted, but I don't think there's any reason to get upse-"

"Shut up. 'Make a Snow Bear,' I said. I told You how to do it. Exactly what we needed. And you've created a. a."

Massif searched his mind for the words to describe this thing.

"You've created a giant chicken with a huge udder up front."

"Huh.? Uh. Oh! Oh, yeah! I see it now. Yeah, it's totally a giant chicken with a huge udder up front. That's not so bad. It's still. I don't know. white! We'll call it a 'Battle Chicken' - that's even scarier than 'Snow Bear'. Bears would have just slowed us down anyway. This is way better."

"'Way better'? You think this is 'way better'? IT'S A CHICKEN. IT'S. A. CHICKEN. Do You think sandwich's forces are going to cower at the site of two-hundred 'Battle Chickens' hopping down the mountainside toward the city?"

"Two-hundred? Are there two-hundred? Wow. two-hund-"

I was interrupted when the Battle Chicken began squawking as though its alimentary canal was being traversed by a large rake.
It flapped its wings, sending feathers everywhere. It hopped up and down, squawking through that gaping mouth, extending its neck in time with each utterance.

"Our vehicle is having a seizure!" someone called out from the crowd.

A minute later, an egg the size of a Volkswagen was squeezed out of the Battle Chicken's egg-hole, and fell into the snow where it sat, inoffensive in every way. It didn't intimidate in the slightest. Much to the contrary, it looked very nutritious.
The Battle Chicken looked content. Even proud.

All eyes turned to me. They wanted an explanation. I didn't have one.

"Well," I said, "that might be an inconvenience..."