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[McDohl]

Bee Man willed the bees to depart from his body, revealing a short, purplish hedgehog.

Hedgehog X 'tsked' and waggled his finger, then turned to look at his effigy.  "I always hated that thing."  He looked back at Anticlimax, Coitus Interruptus, and Lord Minton.

"What makes you think that you can comprehend the power of this, the gods of this universe?"

Anticlimax's 42 zippers jingled as he pointed at Hedgehog X.  "Mine name is Anticlimax!  Glenn's hopes and dreams, and now the Masamune..."

He pulled the holy blade and electroluminescent wristwatch from out of nowhere, quickly strapped it on and hit the Indiglo button.  The blade began to glow.  He raised it to the sky and it began to shoot out a beam of holy energy.

"Forthwith I shall slay you and restore hon--"

Apparently, the shiny beam of holy energy knocked loose something in Ghod's kitchen, because a fairly large cooking wok fell out of the sky and landed squarely on Anticlimax's head, knocking him unconcious.

---

Meanwhile, in Paragon City...

Inazuma Blast, the Circle of Jerks public affairs officer, was drafting a script for the CEO's 'State of the Planet' radio address, which was given very infrequently.  She rubbed her eyes as Male Man, cheeks slightly flushed, sauntered up behind her and tried to put the moves on her.  Very swiftly, she placed her palm under her opposite arm, facing back toward Male Man, and fired a beam of concussive energy that launched him about twenty feet away, across the hall, in to the Chapel of Mario, where he collapsed in a heap of broken pews.

Inazuma Blast heaved a heavy sigh and turned back to her work, when suddenly, the wall opposite her burst open with flames crackling around the broken bricks.

Girard cackled madly and charged headfirst toward Inazuma.  She sprang in to the air and sailed over Girard as he barreled through the desk she had been sitting at.  She turned and fired a volley of energy bullets at him, which deflected away.  Inazuma grunted and focused, swing her arm in a reverse circular motion, sending a wave of energy toward the floor, striking Girard and knocking him back toward the Chapel of Mario.  Inazuma dropped to the floor and snatched up the device she seldom went anywhere without: A Long-Range Missile Launcher.  She shouldered the device, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

[Guild]

As rocket after rocket piled into Girard the sound of chaos reached the roving hoards of bored superheroes beating up homeless people outside. They began to pile in, asking who'd spawned. Over 9000 heroes entered the hole in the building, and Vegetafan004 shouted something that was lost in the sea of emote bubbles and poorly spelled questions. To say he felt cheated would be an understatement.

"How did you all get into this instance?" Inazuma raged as she blasted Girard again and again, little realizing that the force of her attack was what had opened the hole into the instance.

The crowd ignored her, as one locking onto Girard with every imaginable power available to them. Healers formed a ring around the assembly, green numbers sparkled everywhere, and Girard's health dropped...

...Girard looked at the numbers appearing over his head. 22. 12. 22. 42. 36. He glanced at the top left corner of his vision and saw his health bar. 12,442,814/12,441,357

He took a step out of the crater being created by his body as the force of a million bullets and other powerful projectiles slammed into him.

"Ha ha ho ho hee ha hee ho ho ha ha ha."

He clapped once. Twice. A third time.

The room became silent, then a massive purple wave of force blinked from the space around Girard's feet.

"WHAT THE F-"

Before the level 32 controller could finish his sentence, everyone in the room was dead except a taxi who'd stepped in out of curiosity. She meeped and ran out. Inazuma cursed and decided to log.

[sei]

Why are Luigshe's legs so long?

[Thad]

Piling another layer of symbolism onto the recovery story, Thad had just had his watchband replaced after going watchless for a week.

Frog approved, and said:

"The band is leather, treated chemic'ly
Resistant t'water.  Wrist no longer bare,
Illuminate the darkness with thy watch."

Everyone stared at Thad.

"...yeah, that was a bit I meant to put in my last chapter but forgot.  That's all I got."

[Brentai]

Luigshe

That's Mama Luigi to you!

[Kazz]

Gok Tinnik lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.  He wondered if he'd ever be good for anything except figuring out tremendously complicated conspiracies and butt sex.

Then, he sat bolt upright.  Of course!  He was a tremendous frycook, back in the dimension of horror!

A look of disappointment crossed his face as he realized that the creatures that he once battered up and served did not exist on this plane.  However... if he could somehow go back, he may be able to serve those demonic treats here in (what passes for) reality!

Thinking hard, he came up with a plan for returning.  It was utterly insane, which made him suppose that it had an excellent chance of working.  Walking to his apartment window, he opened it, and after taking a deep breath, he launched himself outside.

Plummeting toward the street at surprising speed, he stayed conscious just long enough to attempt to divide by zero.

When he awoke, he noted happily that colors tasted wrong.  Then he went grocery shopping.

[Brentai]

"BEHOLD, COWARD!!!!!!"

"What?" said Girard, and then turned around quickly as a giant robot crashed through the wall.  This was odd as there were no more walls left to crash through, but Ministar Prime managed to do it anyway.  Because he was fucking Ministar Prime.

The giant robot glared down at Girard.  It was as tall and as thick as the character editor allowed, and most importantly, it was on fire.

"Are you threatening me?" Girard sneered hyperactively, a trademark feat.  "You have no idea how powerful I am!  Taste my fiyah!!!"

Girard laughed, put his hands together, and fired a massive stream of flame which encompassed the towering mecha.  Ministar Prime stood stoically and took it all, showing no signs of damage.  Girard's jaw dropped.  The flames on his head drooped comically.  "What?  I set you on fire!  You should be melted to a puddle of slag!"

"COWARD!"  Ministar Prime boomed thematically, "I'm always on fire!  It's basically my only power."

"Oh," Girard said thoughtfully, "Er, mine too, actually.  Guess we're both screwed, then, huh?"

"Oh, wait," Ministar Prime added, curling his giant hand into a fist, "I've got super robot strength too.  Forgot about that."

"Aw, crap..."

"SUCK IT, COWARD!!!" Ministar Prime bellowed as his massive metal fist crashed spectacularly into Girard's face.  A number appeared over Girard's head.

1

"What?" Girard sputtered laughing, "One damage?  Jeez, what level are you, man?"

Ministar Prime hunched down.  "Um," he muttered, "Like 24.  I haven't played this game in years."

"Dude, I've got 12,441,356 HP.  How the hell do you think you're going to take me down like that?"

"Well..."  Ministar Prime's visor then lit up menacingly.  "You can't hurt me.  Do you have any healing or travel powers, coward?"

"Errr... no."

Ministar Prime raised his mighty... well, his impressively large fist once again.  "So all I have to do is punch you 12,441,356 more times, then."

"Wait!  Wait!"  Girard threw up his hands, a look of panic on his face.  "Won't you get tired?"

"I'm a robot."

"Aww, spoon."

"BEHOLD!!!"

Fisto.

----------------------------------------

"Hey, I just realized something," Hedgehog X said, "What happened to the Obvious Trap?"

"The assassins?" asked Coitus Interruptus, shrugging, "We passed them already?"

"What?  No, that wasn't the Trap.  Where's..."

"There you are, Hedgie!" cried a delighted voice from the shadows.

"Oh God NO..."

Before he could move, Hedgehog X was pounced by a lion.  A disfigured lion wearing a two-piece swimsuit.  "I've been waiting for you all this time," he/it crooned, "There's no escape this time."

"For the love of all the made up deities in this story!  Somebody help me!" HX screamed as he was dragged off by the Obvious Trap.

Lord Minton shrugged.  "Well, that takes care of that, I guess."

[Thad]

Frog had been through quite an ordeal, and now he had retreated to his home for some well-deserved R&R.  He reclined in his favorite easy chair, sipped a Dogfish Head, and channel-surfed.

*CLICK* Bear Grylls was eating bugs again.  This made Frog want a sandwich.
*CLICK* Something poorly-animated with annoying voices.
*CLICK* The news.  A skeletal visage appeared.  Frog spit out his beer in shock.

"He lives! He lives!  The monster haunts me still!"

----------------------------------------

"Any fours?" asked Anticlimax.

"Go fish," responded Coitus Interruptus.

A ring appeared, and Frog stepped out of it.

"My sword, my friend.  I hope it served thee well,
but I have bus'ness to attend, and must
needs ask you to return it to me now."

"...Kay," said Coitus.

Frog took the Masamune, nodded, saluted, and stepped back through the ring.

----------------------------------------

The saw blades were still, and the lights were out as Glenn approached Cheney's lair.  It was quiet...a little TOO quiet.

He crossed the long bridge, a shadow against shadows, the wind howling in his ears with perhaps just a hint of his theme music on it.

He opened the large doors, crossed through the large, empty corridor, into an office room.  A desk stood in front of him, a chair behind it, with its back to him.

The chair slowly turned.  Cheney sat in it, his hands steepled and doing the Evil Villain Hand Thing.

Frog croaked,
"Deceiver! Manipulator of minds!
I saw you die.  Why do you haunt me now?"

"Is that important?" asked Cheney.  "Yes...to you, I suppose it is.  Long ago, on a rooftop, you saw Richard Cheney destroyed -- blasted through his midsection by a Chaos Child with a Chaos Emerald!  You saw me die!

"But they found me..." he continued.  "My people found me...my pieces...

"Halliburton is very resourceful...and has knowledge of a great many skills.  Some from the time of legends and myth...some from the time of logic and science.  Together...all things are possible.

"Imagine a creature of our Earth -- a worm.  Small, blind, useless...but it eats.

"And from what it eats, it learns, and adapts its own cells' structures.  Others eat from the same dish, and join together, taking on a completely different form.  This colony becomes a different being!

"They ate, and began to think and act as one...from one structure...one being.  I stood...GROTESQUE...ALIVE!!  My LUST for VENGEANCE, my HATRED for you -- STRONGER than BEFORE!!

"...But now...the waiting is over."

Cheney stood.  He drew two katana.  Frog hefted the Masamune.

"Thou creature foul, thou aberration black,
I will destroy you, of this certain be.
Now you shall burn, thou motherfucker -- burn!"

The Masamune glowed as Frog leapt forward.  Cheney crossed his swords over his head and parried, then kneed Frog in his frog nads.

"I cannot die!"

Frog wheezed:
"Indeed you can -- and rest assured you will!"

Cheney swiped at him; Frog bounded out of reach.

"TIME -- TO -- DIE!" Cheney shouted.

Suddenly Joseph Lieberman rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl like a dog he sprang on Cheney's back, jerked his head back, cut his throat, and with a yell ran off down the corridor.  Before Frog could recover or speak a word, a crossbow twanged and Lieberman fell dead.

To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Cheney a gray mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the castle.  For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.

Frog looked down at the body with pity and horror, for as he looked it seemed that long years of death were suddenly revealed in it, and it shrank, and the shrivelled face became rags of skin upon a hideous skull.  Lifting up the skirt of the dirty cloak that sprawled beside it, he covered it over, and turned away.

"And that's the end of that," said Marle.  "A nasty end, and I wish I needn't have seen it; but it's good riddance."

"And the very last end of the War, I hope," said Lucca.

"I shan't call it the end, till we've cleared up the mess," said Marle gloomily.  "And that'll take a lot of time and work."

[Guild]

Barack Obama stepped over a pile of ashes and looked around the Oval Office.

"What the fuck, yo? Who been steppin in dis here truck? Git yo white ass down and clean dat shit up, bitch!"

A white Secret Service agent immediately dropped to all fours and started licking up Cheney's ashes.

Barack set about getting the national bird changed from Bald Eagle to Fried Chicken, loudly yelling at anyone in sight as he worked, repeating something about whitey reporting to the cotton fields now, bitches, and by the time he'd also signed his first bill - an order to replace America's water with grape soda - the ashes were cleaned up and the White House staff were dragging down the last vestiges of Cheney's dark reign.

[Thad]

Thad sighed, shrugged, and squeezed the trigger, splattering Guild's brains on the wall behind him.

"Well," he said, in a world-weary manner, "that actually took a lot longer to happen than I expected.

"Somebody get a mop."

[Guild]

Guild stood over Thad's shoulder staring at the corpse of Guild, nodding slightly. "You made the right move. That guy's a prick."

[McDohl]

Adam was out on a beer run.

[Brentai]

Brent pressed the button.

[Thad]

It was a big red button, labeled "EXPLODE WORLD".

[Guild]

The button looked worn with frequent use. The picosecond

of time between the pressing of the button and the in-

evitable exploding of the world seemed to drag on and on

as the loquacious (sp?) authors of the story passed the

narrative buck back and forth, each adding-without-adding

to the time between events, pulling that moment apart into

a long, thin, taffy-rope of anticipation. An anticipation

doomed to go unappeased, doomed to turn to sour regret in

the mouth of the reader once the anticlimactic moment

actually occured, or so everyone assumed as they read, for

such was the impression given by the spurious (sp?) words.





And still the moment would not come. Brent stood, immobile,

his right index finger cocked in a badass way, the joint at

the tip bent backward causing the flesh surrounding to turn

white with the force of his pushing action. Somewhere in the

room a fly hung suspended in midair, crusts of blood upon its

mouthparts. It was the blood of a simple-minded man who'd

recently been shot in the face by Thad, who also stood frozen

in time, a wisp of gunsmoke curling about his hair, a halo of

purest self-content at the murder, for he felt no regret and

less remorse at his bloodthirsty actions just moments before.





Such was the situation as the button was pressed, and such

it remained, unchanged, for time itself stood frozen before the

mighty magic of the pen applied to paper. On and on the mo-

ment twined about in space, now a razor-sharp thread hitching

two nearly inconsequential events together amidst a vast, un-

explorable void of literative masturbation.





Moments that now seemed separated from the long moment

by a wall of endless nothing preceeding a choked windpipe of

events which now would never occur. On and on and on and

on and on and on and on stretched the moment...





And when, in their hubris, the authors tried to find further,

more elaborate methods of prolonging the continuation of

time...











































































...time suddenly broke.

[McDohl]

...and then, after all that David Lynchian bullshit, the world exploded.

----------------------------------------

WE RETURN YOU TO OUR PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED KATESTORY, ALREADY IN PROGRESS

----------------------------------------

Inazuma Blast, Frivolous Suit, Tiny Activist, and Ministar Prime pulled a punch-drunk Male Man out from underneath the rubble of Jerkhaus.  Flagging down a passer-by Empathy Defender to patch up Male Man, the other four Jerks compared notes.  Of course, Ministar Prime and Inazuma Blast were the only two with solid combat input.

"The flaming-head man seems to be impervious to all forms of conventional damage.  I shot lasers and rockets at him, Ministar punched him in the face.  We seem to have exhausted all currently known forms of combat."

"COWARD.", shouted Ministar Prime.  "He will feel the true wrath of the Circle of Jerks!"

Three figures materialized in the wreckage of Jerkhaus.  The first was a man clad in plate mail and sunglasses.  He carried a broadsword.  The second was a man dressed in a white with black pinstripe suit, white shoes, and a white tie.  And a doofy-looking black helmet.  The third was the chief executive officer of the entire planet.

CEO of Earth looked around at the wreckage of Jerkhaus and facepalmed.  "...and you people wonder why I don't come here anymore."

Captain Concussion and Lost RO Knight looked at each other, then to Inazuma Blast.  She shrugged.  "In any case, I suggest we catch up with the man with the flaming hair and 'requisition some reparations'."

Captain Concussion smiled.  "I bet that totally means 'punch him until he cries and gives us things'."

Inazuma nodded.  "Yes.  Yes it does."

CEO of Earth cracked his knuckles. "I approve of this plan."

Kate, X, Billy, and Kelly all sort of stood off at the side.  Kate looked at X. "You think we'll figure in to this story any more?"

X shrugged.  "I don't know anymore.  This is getting pretty damn ridiculous."

-----------------------------------------------

Anticlimax, Coitus Interruptus, and Lord Minton stood in front of the Magic Pencil.  Anticlimax looked at Coitus.  "You think we'll figure in to this story anymore?"

Coitus shrugged. "I don't know anymore.  This is getting pretty damn ridiculous."

[Kazz]

After many hours of searching, Gok Tinnik proudly raised his prize overhead.

"I've found the liver of the felpigeon!  And at only $1.99 a pound!"

He tossed it onto the pile of strange demonic innards that currently filled his shopping cart.  Then, glancing back behind himself for the manager, he pushed the cart forward.  Hard.  Soon, the momentum allowed him to place one foot on the back and kick forward with the other.  When he reached top speed, he was hurtling through the produce, perched on the back of his cart.  He shut his eyes tightly as he neared the infernal broccoli.

Conjuring a mental version of Thad, he attempted to win an argument with it.

There was a great crash, and when he awoke, he was in a terrestrial supermarket, covered in devil bits.  He began to cheer with victory, when an enormous goat-hooved gentleman with a tidy white apron and a name-tag reading "Emmanuel" stepped through the portal behind him and grabbed him by the trenchcoat.

"EXCUSE ME, SIR."

Gok gulped, then looked to the camera and shrugged helplessly.  There was a laugh-track and the credits rolled.  An announcer declared that the next episode would feature the conclusion of Gok's pummeling, followed by the organs in his shopping cart somehow fusing together into a hideous abomination that slides around the market, feeding on shoppers and egg nog (when in season).

[Thad]

It was time to see what Janey was up to.

Thad decided she was in a doctoral program now, in a clear acknowledgement of his own dissatisfaction with his currently nonexistent career path.  He was a man who was secure in his insecurities.

It was also time to give her a last name.  "Blackburn" sounded good.

Janey Blackburn was a doctoral student at Miskatonic University.  Her research paper on arcane rituals and dimensional gateways had gotten her accepted to the most prestigious quantum ethereality program in the nation.  So far she had kept her parentage secret -- she wanted to prove herself as a researcher, not a test subject -- and was saving it for her dissertation.

She was grading papers with the TV on as background noise.

"And now, on the lighter side, we go now live to Wendy Halverson at the local Shaw's Supermarket.  Wendy?"

"Thanks, Terry!  Earlier today, a portal into a demonic realm" -- Janey perked up her ears at this -- "opened up in Shaw's.  A man in a fedora appeared through it and spilled what appeared to be a shopping cart full of demonic organs, presumably obtained from the demonic realm's version of the same supermarket.  An enormous goat-hooved gentleman followed and administered a severe beating."

The camera switched back to the chuckling anchor, with a picture of a confused and bleeding Gok Tinnik in the corner of the screen.  "Thanks for that, Wendy.  Well, you know, you don't go robbing demonic supermarkets without expecting to pay the piper!  Up next: the search for the missing Vice President continues..."

Janey pursed her lips.  "Well," she muttered, "I guess I should have expected things like this when I moved to Arkham."

[Thad]

Even though KateStory XVII had at least two story arcs that had reached satisfying conclusions, and nobody had written anything in three weeks, Thad stubbornly refused to let it go.

He remembered, fondly, the good old days when he had interjected forum drama into the KateStory.

Yes, it had been an eventful couple of days...

-----------------------------------------------

Janey was watching the news again -- more attentively this time, as she'd been following the occasional local stories of Gok Tinnik's latest enterprise.  Last she'd heard, he had opened a roadside stand where he sold his various deep-fried demon bits, and it was proving somewhat popular with the Miskatonic student body.

"And in a developing story," said Terry the newsanchor, "an attempted terrorist attack at a dormitory on the Keystone University campus."

Janey dropped her fork.  Not only was the screen now showing an aerial view of her old school, but her old dorm.  And--

--yes, as they went to the interior, she could see a very skinny, very white college-age male with a crazed look in his eye being hustled by police out of her old dorm room.

"The suspect has been accused of stuffing this room full of explosives and attempting to ignite them with a cigarette lighter on a stick, or 'Girard gun'.  His identity is unknown.  The police commissioner is quoted as saying, 'Nothing.  No DNA, no fingerprints.  Clothing is custom, no tags or brand labels.  No name, no other alias.  Nothing in his pockets but knives and lint.'  The suspect himself made a statement after being read his rights, which we will play for you now."

"DEMON SPAWN," frothed the greasy-haired suspect from a jail cell.  "You FOOOOOOOOOOOLS!  The girl who lives in this room carries the blood of a devil in her veins!  She must be stopped!  She must be DESTROYED!  I have traveled long and far, and I shall not be thwarted by such as you!"

"Damn," said Derek the Derelict from the next cell over, "that motherfucker is CRAZY."

Janey rubbed her temples.  It seemed very unlikely that the current resident of her old dorm room was ALSO a half-demon, so she could only conclude that the attack had been meant for her and the inept terrorist had not bothered to check if the address he had found by Googling her name was still current.

Yes, it appeared her life was about to get interesting again...

[Friday]

Suddenly Joseph Lieberman rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl like a dog he sprang on Cheney's back, jerked his head back, cut his throat, and with a yell ran off down the corridor.  Before Frog could recover or speak a word, a crossbow twanged and Lieberman fell dead.

To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Cheney a gray mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the castle.  For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.

Frog looked down at the body with pity and horror, for as he looked it seemed that long years of death were suddenly revealed in it, and it shrank, and the shrivelled face became rags of skin upon a hideous skull.  Lifting up the skirt of the dirty cloak that sprawled beside it, he covered it over, and turned away.

"And that's the end of that," said Marle.  "A nasty end, and I wish I needn't have seen it; but it's good riddance."

"And the very last end of the War, I hope," said Lucca.

"I shan't call it the end, till we've cleared up the mess," said Marle gloomily.  "And that'll take a lot of time and work."

I never thought I'd say this to you, Thad... (in public) but...

I love you.