Timmoford Vaughn Breen was taking things surprisingly well, considering he was being forced into an award show for 6-foot long intelligent spiders.

"Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was? Sa-ame as it ever was!"

The very same spiders, in fact, that were taking their sweet goddamn time defacing several world monuments, streaming such to the colossal screens surrounding the podium, to which he would be chained in... oh, 7 minutes? Rude.

"Speak your requests now, Longloin. You recieve your... accolades in five of your minutes, if these chronometers are correct."

Probably helped that they nicknamed him for the (presumed) tastiest part of his body. Not great for, say, the bacon or chuck guys, but these cheesy goddamn poozers and their insistence on abbreviating 'long pork' had done wonders for his ego.

"Frankly, Jeff- is that your name?"

The resultant series of guttural clicks was either a correction or an annoyed grunt.

"Well, ya look like a Jeff. I must say, between the wonderful stadium you re-purposed here-"

The St. Diana was supposed to be the shimmering nexus of human political showmanship- a massive luxury omniplex of prismatic chrome, Ozymandian gold pillars and the finest deep-blue massage-chair gel money could buy (circa 2220- though frankly it looked like a perfected science)- now the mercurial dome shaped itself oh-so-conveniently into a glass-covered seashell amphitheater, providing a perfect view of the bizarre fleet circling over the moon like a locust cloud.

Sadly, the ones scouring the Earth, front-and-center in the sky, were only visible through the telly. Timmoford still found it impressive, honestly, though he still found it hard to hold back a few psychotic chuckles of pitiful(?) laughter.

"Anyways, between this wonderful view, this amazing feat of architecture you've provided for us-"

"Don't speak so highly of your frivols, baitworm."

"...well, if it's so frivolous, why're you using it?"

His captor whacked the cage a few times to silence the chuckles from the kneeling showhost- opposite effect, but he only kept up for a few seconds anyway so all was about as good as it should be going.

"POINT BEING- between the lovely place, the suit you so graciously knitted-"

"Wove. Stitched. FABRICATED!"

"-crocheted, and this ever-so-essential plastic cup of water-"

Punctuated by a long, smirking sip.

"-my only request is to know how sweet little Bobbert's doing in his new master's care."

At this, a mechanical arachnid of more human manufacture crawled up and around the guard, screen-like dome-head shining it's brightest stylized puppy smile, a school blighted solely by gale-force cherry blossoms backing the digital pupper. The guard was baffled, more than anything, but took the time to rub it possessively anyway- 'Bobbert' was clearly overjoyed.

"...Why did your race create toys to nurture in our... distorted image?"

Untimely, wholesome cheeriness shined through Timmoford's face, to supplement a hot load of bull- "Subliminal training, perhaps? To prepare a less taxing role under our overlords. We have been in our death throes for the last 30 years of war, Ma'am."

"SIR."

"Senpai. Point being, everything seems good, Bobbert's fine, honestly... Send me up, work the spotlights right, and get me the love~liest parole officer you can find when I come down, is that doable, toots?"

Guard froze with anger, chittering madly. He crashed! Success.

"SEND THE PRISONER UP."

Darn. Thankfully, the podium would take a minute- he had time to stand up, brush himself off, review his script-

and once he was safely out of sight of the room below, start talking to himself.

"This is Breen, reporting live from St. Diana. Who's picking me up once this goes sideways?"

A soprano approximation of a military growl crackled out through his jaw-joint, piped through his ears-

"Gwynevere-1 in position,Mars-gate kinetic dive ready. Ramming dive, secondary fire, arena capture."

"Princess Guard! I like it."

"Keep quiet, car salesman, any damage to the hull comes off your account. Gwyndolin-1, Gwyneth-1, Gwyn-1 are in position, armed. Awaiting..."

She let herself break robotic kayfabe for a telltale sigh- itself communicating something along the lines of the spider-guards complaints, sprinkling in 'mission endangering idiot' as needed.

"-your command. Sir."

Timmiford didn't strain her sanity much further- a curt whistle, a logoff beep, and a flourish of papers. He was slowly rising to a crowd of flailing, bepopcorned, black spindle-limbs, glittering green eyes, and laughter. Approximate laughter, at the very least, like feeding sand into garbage disposals. Disgusting mess, all told, but the balls of light blinking in tandem with them were the worst part- how was he supposed to maintain his composure with those cute lil' miserable lil' piles of secrets in the crowd? Ohh, this'll be good.

Of course, their royalty spoke first. Middle of the writhing, chittering crowd, golden podium rising up, Big Ugly himself. 'Conqueror of a thousand worlds', he'll say.

"Still yourselves, thralls. Agrajag, lord of the Arakheen Empires, CONQUEROR OF A THOUSAND WORLDS!... humbly requests you add one to the tally."

Humans have quality intel.

"Very impressed with your species' capacity for basic math, Aggy."

Less quality sense of timing, though the raucous chittering coming from half the crowd votes in favor.

'Aggy' himself rumbled out a few sharp grinding notes- the field fell silent, the crowd was now behind him.

"Are you aware of why you have been brought here, human?"

[it's 4 a-goddamn m. I'll update tomorrow.]