Brontoforumus Archive
Activity Boards => Assorted Creations => Topic started by: Thad on October 21, 2009, 11:01:10 PM
-
It was 2009, and Janey Blackburn was beginning her second year at Miskatonic University. It was a late night in early September, and she sat in the library, poring over an arcane tome under the hawkish stare and beakish nose of a very suspicious librarian. It was hard to blame the old (middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman; this was a restricted text and could, in the wrong hands, unleash some serious shit.
Janey turned a crackling page, and a plume of dust wafted toward the ceiling. She stifled a yawn. Dimensional gates, dimensional gates...
She felt a rattle. She shook her head to clear it. Must be imagining things.
Another rattle. Stronger, louder; the windows rattled. Janey looked up.
It was 2008, and Glenn saluted as Girard paced back and forth in the oval office. George W. Bush sat not far off, playing with a rubik's cube. He'd finally managed to smash it apart with a gavel and was trying to put the 27 pieces back together.
"Are you sure you set enough fires?" Girard looked anxious and angry.
From the restricted section of the university library, the windows were barely visible, but Janey could see a reddish glow through them. Oh, God dammit...
Janey's fears were corroborated when she looked up at the librarian. The old (middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman had taken her eyes off her, and was peering intently at the window. Her brow furrowed ever so slightly; if possible, she looked even more peeved than she had before.
It was 2005, and a man stood on a cliff overlooking an ocean.
The rattling increased. Goddamn frat boys, nonononoNO...
Janey leapt from her seat and dashed out the door. She sprinted to the curb, across the street, through a parking lot, and to the top of a hill. Her fears were entirely confirmed.
It was 2005, and Geothermal still had no beer. Fuckin' Afro Jon.
There was a giant pentacle chalked into the field below. Red-robed figures ran from it, in slow motion, looks of horror on their faces. At the center -- a blackness that stood out even against the darkness of the night. And one hapless pledge, fallen onto his stomach, desperately clawing at the ground as an invisible force pulled him inexorably toward the nothing.
There was no doubt -- Miskatonic University was the single worst fucking school in the world for careless fraternity initiations.
It was 2004, and X walked down the street, covered in trash. HX walked beside him, nursing a bottle of motor oil and hobo vomit.
Janey bolted toward the gateway -- it was a gateway, she was certain. The frat boys had opened it -- a harmless prank that had gotten far, far out of hand.
"Doooooooon't..." Janey heard the voice of one of the slowly-fleeing figures, who slowly turned toward her with a look of shock on his hooded face, desbelieving that anyone should run TOWARD the hole in the field.
It was 2003, and everybody gasped! Oh my Fuck!
The weird distortion of spacetime did not affect Janey even as she approached the gate. She was the daughter of a demon, and the only boon her father had left her was an immunity to demoniacal magic. This was not common knowledge, and in fact she was blowing the hell out of her cover, but there was a life on the line.
It was 2002, and quite suddenly, and out of nowhere, Vincent Price appeared. He was pretty dead, but this somehow didn't stop him from having hot groupies who started go-go dancing upon the command of his abominable sidekick, who was, of course, named Igor.
She reached the poor pledge and reached for his wrists.
It was at this moment that she realized she was still carrying the book, clutched under her arm, her knuckles white against the cover.
It was 2001, and SnowJob finally realized that he, too, should consider retreating, but the delay coupled with his ridiculous ski/boots rendered him unable to escape. He and the jokes about his name perished under the cataclysmic collapse of Dr. Billy's lab.
She kneeled, and hooked the pledge under her free arm, then hurled him as best she could away from the gate. He didn't get very far, but it bought her enough time to flip to the index.
It was 1999, and LOGIC knew that then, finally, it had trumphed.
"Gateways, alien, azure, black, blacker than night itself...page 473..."
It was 1997, and suddenly a chorus started to sing:
o~/ They're Scarlet and Heidegg'
o~/ Scarlet and Heidegg'
o~/ One is a fat man
o~/ The other's a slut...
The inexorable force of the gate had pulled the pledge back toward her. She kicked him a few more feet as she flipped pages.
It was 1997, and X withdrew three foam rubber cutouts in the shape of Bill Clinton's head.
"Three basic types, yadda yadda...distinct features...opening, yeah, that's undergrad shit, obviously...ah." Her finger lit on the heading, "Closing."
It was 1996, and Crazy Willy tossed his head back and screamed, then began beating everyone up.
Redd was still sobbing, banging his head on the floor and yelling "Why me? Why me?!" over and over.
Frog took his Utterly Useless Masamune Which Wouldn't Light Up, and with a mighty slash cut himself a piece of the roast beef sandwich.
The Flyin' Dork climbed on top Wokko's refrigerator and leapt off, flapping his "wings" rapidly. He hovered for a second, then fell through the floor.
"Moo," said the cow.
Crazy Willy hit the cow with his chain, then flushed him down the toilet.
The Flyin' Dork climbed onto the refrigerator and made another attempt to fly, but instead he fell on the weeping Redd and smashed through the floor.
And then the world exploded.
A look of intense concentration appeared on Janey's face, and beads of sweat formed across her brow. She began muttering guttural sounds, and traced a series of very precise arcane symbols in the air. Finally, she kicked the dirt before her, scattering soil and grass.
It was 1995, and HX choked, "Listen! Some of my friends are coming to have a talk with you. One's my sister. The other's got a hand that works like a futuristic toaster. Following me?"
There was a tremor, the strongest yet, a feeling of constricting, and a Lavos shriek -- and the blackness began, perceptibly, to shrink.
It was 1997, and everyone ran, but Batman was stopped and made into a tire from a Big-O store manager. The Riddler's suit was made into a new cap for Link (who isn't in the story but he gets a new cap anyway). Robin whined that he was out of a movie career, but it didn't matter because he didn't have one anyway.
Janey heaved a sigh, and mopped the sweat from her brow.
Her mistake was in letting her guard down.
It was 1995, and suddenly, something happened.
Slowly, inexorably, and absurdly, a vaudeville hook extended from the gate and grabbed Janey by the ankles. She was immune to the gate's magical influence, but not to something as simple as a physical object yanking her through it --
It was 1995, and Yakko Wakko and Dot ran by, and Sméagol followed.
"Oh great," muttered Kate, "My loony brother, Animaniacs, and a skits-a-frantic thing!"
-- and she was falling, falling --
It was 1994, and Billy didn't know what to do, so he bashed his head on the record player. Luckily, it was a magic record player.
falling through time...
It was 1994, and Kelly was a girl who lived in a faraway land. She was bored a lot, so she decided to go on an adventure.
Janey faceplanted, with a loud bump. "Where am I?"
"The beginning of time," responded a voice. "Well...for our purposes, anyway."
Janey looked up. The sun was blinding, especially after the darkness of the night she had come from; there was a man in front of her but she couldn't make out any features beneath the spots in her eyes. He extended a hand and she took it. She stood and immediately collapsed; he caught her.
"Easy now."
Janey blinked and took some deep breaths.
"Th-thank you...I...I can stand on my own." She pushed away and dusted herself off, then slowly, finally, got a good look at the man.
"I -- I know you. Well...kind of..."
"Lots of people kind of know me," he responded, and extended his hand. "Larry Tin--"
"Tinnik, yes," Janey interrupted. "I saw you in a vision once."
"Sure you did, kiddo, sure you did. Listen, though, we'll catch up later -- you don't belong here."
"I sure as hell DON'T."
"Yeah, time to go now, Ms. Blackburn. Sayonara." He put his arms around her middle and pulled her forward, and she got the strangest sensation of being attached to a giant rubber band...
Snap.
Janey whizzed forward through time, back to 2009, and flew through an empty field into a tree.
Her eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark yet, but she could make out the hawkish form of a very angry librarian.
"How did you take that book out of the library?" the old (middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman demanded. "The wards should have stopped you."
-----
Welcome to KateStory XVIII. Post a reply and continue the story.
There's another 15 years' worth of these things on my website, but my nameservers have picked a hell of a time to stop nameserving. It is most likely for the best; fuck continuity, write whatever you want.
-
"My father was a demon," Janey replied simply, shrugging.
The old (middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman suddenly pointed and shrieked. "A hellspawn half-breed witch! Foul gwimmerk carrion dwinkinlerty! Grobble snatch, a vorpal catch! Begone!"
With that, the old (middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman suddenly whipped out a gigantic scythe and decapitated Janey. Blood spurted in a pathetic little fountain for a moment, then Janey's body slumped to the floor as her head tumbled over and over in the air, a permanent shock of surprise written on her features.
*****************************
"What the FUCK!?" yelled Thad, sitting at his computer, reading the latest update to KateStory. "That's not what happened! Goddamn these random authors, fucking with my story!"
"And how would you know what actually happened, hmm?" asked a voice from behind Thad.
Thad rotated 180 degrees in his chair, but was still unable to sit properly in it. "It's you!" he screamed.
"How are you -- Shut up," Brentai replied. "You didn't answer my question."
Thad's expression calmed, and he leaned back in his chair, lifting one hand to stroke his chin. The sun slanted through the blinds, casting sudden weird shadows on his face.
"Because I was there," Thad said, a faraway look in his eyes. "How do I know what really happened? Because I was there."
********************************
"Because my father was a demon," Janey said, slipping. She hastily covered her mouth with one hand.
The old (Middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman shrieked suddenly and pointed. "I knew it! Hellspawn halfbreed bitch! Foul dwimmerk lord carrion bugga bugga!"
And with that, the old (Middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman suddenly whipped out a gigantic plasma cannon and began to charge it up.
Janey's eyes grew wide. "What the fuc --"
Suddenly, Thad swooped in from above, neatly decapitating the old (well, dead, now, technically) woman with his vorpal sword.
"Snicker snack, bitch," Thad said, wiping off his blade on his huge pectoral muscles.
"Ohhhh, my hero!" Janey crooned.
"Come with me, dear! I shall show you how a REAL man pleases a woman!" Thad boomed, flexing.
"Ohhhh, Thaddy, you're so big and manly!" Janey giggled, and ran into his arms.
And with that, they both walked into the sunset.
**********************************
"Bullshit," Brentai said.
"What?" Thad replied, leaning forward in his chair.
"That's not what happened at all!" Brentai shook his finger at Thad.
"How the fuck would YOU know?!" Thad asked, spitting.
"Because..." Brentai said slowly, thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "I was there."
********************************
Bretai Belmo leaned back in his desk chair as the sun's last rays caressed his ample leg muscles --
********************************
"You're so full of shit," Thad said, cutting him off.
"How would you know? You're obviously just making shit up," Brentai countered.
"You're both wrong. About everything," said a voice from behind. "I would know, I was there."
They both spun around. Thad actually did a full 360 because he was already facing the correct direction to see the newcomer.
"It's you!" they both said at the same time.
"Indeed it is I!" said the old (Middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman. "And now I will tell the true story of what happened!"
-
Because Brentai had been fed up with the guy for God knows how long, the Vampire Hunter Extrordinaire Hedgehog EX had used the totally awesome Chaos Force to transform himself from a squatty hedgehog in to a squatty baby-turd colored man.
Simo Belmo, Vampire Hunter Extraordinaire, looked at the 1901 Chevy Malibu. The 1901 Chevy Malibu looked at Simo Belmo, Vampire Hunter Extraordinaire. "Well done, Hedgeho--er, Simo Belmo," said the 1901 Chevy Malibu.
Simo Belmo growled in response. "To hell with you, 1901 Chevy Malibu." Simo Belmo knew that some goddamned vampire would still recognize him as the hedgehog from the past fifteen years, but that wouldn't stop him from doing everything he could to erase his terribly embarrassing past. He walked to the guardrail of the bridge, and looked down at the river below.
In one fluid motion, he whipped out a sack from inside his trench coat, because, hey, that's what you fuckin' do when you wear a trench coat, and with honed reflexes, opened the bag and out fell seven crystals, dropping them in to the fast-running water below.
In one fluid motion, Simo Belmo, Vampire Hunter Extraordinaire, spun 160 degrees and shoved a stake in a vampire's throat, killing it instantly with honed reflexes. Then he heard the moaning.
"Braaaaaaaains..."
"Oh, fome damn it," said Simo Belmo, Vampire-And-Not-Zombie Hunter Extraordinaire, who had no real way to combat zombies.
A whole gaggle of zombies shambled their way toward Simo Belmo, Vampire Hunter Extraordinaire and the 1901 Chevy Malibu.
Suddenly, the zombies, with honed reflexes and in one fluid motion, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_f76PJ4P8g
"Shit." Said Simo Belmo and the 1901 Chevy Malibu simultaneously and they ran the fuck off.
------------------------------------------------------
It was almost Halloween. That meant the Holy Trinity was decorating the Fortress of Craptitude for the holiday.
BUT SINCE THAD'S WEBSITE WAS DICKED UP WITH DNS ISSUES AND WHATEVER THE FUCK, ADAM COULDN'T WRITE IN THE STANDARD HOLY TRINITY FASHION, AND HAD TO RESORT TO TERRIBLE LOOKING IRC-STYLE QUOTING AND RESOLVED TO FIX IT WHEN THAD'S WEBSITE WAS FINISHED TAKING IT IN THE MOUTH
<Brent> There, it's mostly done.
<Thad> Um...that's quite a bit of gore and viscera. Like, a lot more than should normally be in a Halloween decoration.
<Brent> Of course. I'm trying to keep those snot-nosed kids AWAY this year. Should I hang the cadavers from the tree or outside the windows?
-
Brentai stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"1904," he corrected, again.
-
"My father was a demon," Janey tersely replied -- best to get it over with.
The old (middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman managed to snarl, sneer, and purse her lips all at once. "Hellspawn halfbreed -- oho, there will be an investigation, girl, and it may just end with you on a dissection table."
"That's enough, Miss Salazar," said a mild but commanding voice.
Janey was surprised and gratified to see the blood drain out of the old (middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman -- Miss Salazar? -- 's face. The librarian slowly turned to look at the figure of a man who wore fine but anachronistic clothes -- Victorian, Janey guessed, but British fashion wasn't her best subject -- and had a bushy, waxed mustache over a kindly smile.
"You," hissed Miss Salazar.
"Me," the man responded. He turned to Janey and shook her hand. "Lord Fenwick Minton, they call me around here. It's an awfully stuffy honorific and I would much prefer it if you called me Fig."
"And I'm his trusted ally!" shouted an overenthusiastic man who suddenly jumped out from behind him. Janey recognized him, with some considerable distaste, as the man who had given her some spiel embracing her destiny the previous semester.
Fig was apologetic. "Miss Blackburn, this man is not with me. I have never met him before. He just started following me."
"You demented, doddering old bastard!" hissed Miss Salazar.
"I am no longer demented!" Fig protested. "I've begun traveling again! Visiting some of my old vacation homes, you know. At any rate, this young lady does not deserve your meddling, Vera. She just saved somebody's life. Maybe several somebodies'."
"The gate --"
Fig cut her off. "Geas tacitum daemonicus, Vera Salazar!"
Miss Salazar's eyes bugged and her mouth gaped -- more out of shock than any force from the spell.
"Bastard," she finally spat.
"You will help this young lady with her books," Fig said, "and leave her alone otherwise."
"You can reshelve this one, if you like," Janey said coldly, and shoved the tome into Miss Salazar's hands without looking directly at her. "Thank you, Fig."
"You're very welcome, Miss Blackburn, and it was a pleasure to meet you. If you ever want to join me at my vacation home, you are welcome. Here is my card."
"Join us!" urged the man in black, the man who had introduced himself to Janey as his death some months before. "Embrace your destiny!"
"Stop saying that!" shouted Janey and Fig in unison.
"He's not with me," said Fig. "Really, he's not. Miss Blackburn, I am at your service any time you wish to talk, but for now it is very late and you have had an exhausting evening. Ah! Here's Jones now."
A black Rolls Royce pulled up.
"Once again, it was my pleasure," said Fig. "Goodnight." He slid into the backseat of the car. His Death attempted to slide in beside him; Fig slammed the car door in his face. Janey was sure she saw him lean forward and heard him say to his driver, "Man, FUCK that guy."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"And so you can see why I came to you," Vera Salazar seethed.
"Yeah, yeah," said Thad. "Blah blah geas, you can't tell anybody what you've heard. But you can chat about it with us, because we already know."
"So are you just here to gossip?" asked Brent. "Or was there anything else you wanted?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(PS: Website's back up -- though it's a DNS propagation thing so YMMV. I've tweaked the KateStory index (http://www.corporate-sellout.com/katestory/), but haven't gotten around to updating the characters page yet.)
-
And than Frocto appeared and reviled Thad is a SNATCHER. Of course he had the evidence for this, Thad kept wearing sunscreen in winter, and wouldn't go out unless it was night. Frocto was on the verge of killing SNATCHER Thad when Copy X appeared and attacked him. Frocto knew he couldn't handle both of them, so he retreated post haste.
-
admins if you delete that post you are monsters
-
Gok Tinnik, CEO of Demonwang Foods Inc. and multibillionaire playboy, gazed longingly at his favorite diamond-studded magnifying glass. He recalled his days solving mysteries... rather, that one mystery, once. And even then he didn't quite get it right.
He spent the rest of the day riding a horse through the office building, throwing eggs at his employees. They pretended not to mind.
-
Brentai stroked his chin thoughtfully. Vera Salazar finished recanting the entirety of the last nearly 27 years of his life. He glanced at each of the other forum members present and then just buried his face in his hands.
"I hate you all," he finally said, and heaved a long suffering sigh.
-
"Wait, wait, wait," Adam said. "Are you telling me that Gok turned his street corner cart business selling fried demon chunks in paper baskets in to a multi-billion dollar corporation OVERNIGHT?"
LOGIC, bent over a toilet, heaved another stomach full of bile and alcohol from the Election '08 party. Yes, he had been hurling for over a year.
Plot was still passed out on the couch.
-
Kazz readied his grappling hook. He was standing at street level of the huge skyscraper that housed Demonwang Foods Inc's offices. It was going to be a long climb, but to protect the 12 states of AMERICA, Kazz would climb any building, hurdle any obstacle.
Several minutes later, Kazz crashed through the window of the 37th floor. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. What was the best way to determine what employees were normal, everyday, hardworking Americans, and which were sinister terrorists, bent on bringing down capitalism and installing communism and anarchy?
Suddenly, it hit him. He walked over to a nearby secretary, who was cleaning egg off her blouse.
"Hello," Kazz said, smiling.
"Hello," the girl replied, with a practiced fake smile.
"Do you like working here?" Kazz asked, eyes gleaming.
"Not really," the girl admitted. "I feel like such a sheep."
"Oh, you are done."
-
But the building was really SNATCHER Thad's rocketship, and it blasted off into space!
Kazz got distracted by a shiny thing and forgot what he was doing, but that's when Random Hajile busted through the door and punched SNATCHER Thad out! Now the rocket ship is out of control, and heading strait for...
-
...the Dagobah system!
Meanwhile, back at stately Wayne Manor...
-
Superman busted through the door and yelled "Where are my panties!" and Batman replied...
-
"Imagine an advance in medical science enabling a healthy penis to be removed from a boy and placed somewhere else, while keeping it alive and active. I put it on a desk, on a wall, on the forehead of a horse to make a kind of unicorn, etc.. “Well then, but isn’t it still a male sex organ?” Well, now you are just getting caught up in the language. The penis is now a decoration, or a paperweight, not a sex organ.
"Suppose I remove my penis and attach it to my fist so as to achieve greater force of penetration during intercourse. Traditional definitions would presumably have no difficulties with this, as the penis is still a male sex organ."
-
Superman stared at Batman. "What the flying fuck does that have to do with my panties?"
Batman stared at Superman for a long moment. "Why the flying fuck are you wearing panties?"
---------------------------
Cyan Prime lifted the bloodied baseball bat over Plot's unconscious body over and over again, bringing it down in sickening crunch after sickening crunch. Frocto silently, but furiously masturbated in the corner of the room.
The Holy Trinity Signal was shining brightly against the night sky.
-
"You FOOOOOOOOOL!" shouted the man in black. "This karaoke bar shall be your tomb!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hm," said Brent, stroking his chin in thought. "I like it."
"Thanks," said Thad.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am he that is called his death," the man continued, "and tonight, you may find that he -- is you, Morgan!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Morgan?" said Brent.
"Yeah," said Thad. "What should I make his first name? Nemo? Drago?"
"If you make it Nemo, we can make Finding Nemo jokes."
"Drago it is."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drago Morgan was, of course, the crazed and disheveled man who had been ineffectually stalking Janey Blackburn since the previous spring. Since his latest attempt on her life -- a trip to a Chicago tenement with his trusty lighter-on-a-stick -- had failed, he had tracked her to a karaoke bar she had attended once in the late 1990's.
"MY death?" Drago rasped. "It is you who is a fool and also will be dying!"
The man in the black suit, the man called his death, responded darkly, "You hunt the half-blood. I shall not allow you to interfere with her destiny. You have left me no choice...Lanny Lungfungus, go!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"'Lanny Lungfungus'?" Brent said incredulously.
"I like the sound of it," Thad responded.
"What, were you going to call him Larry, but then you remembered there was already a Larry?"
"Yeah," said Thad, "but Lanny works better anyway. I like the nnnn. It goes with lunnnngfunnnngus."
"You name a lot of characters Larry," Brent noted.
"Larry is a funny name," Thad responded.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the dimunitive mushroom man leapt from his death's jacket pocket, his death reflected on the short time they had known each other. Lanny Lungfungus was his only friend. Lanny never judged him, never said "Man, FUCK that guy."
Morgan's already-raspy voice got raspier.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Oh hey look, the Trinity Signal," said Brent.
"Hmm," said Thad, "yes. My computer says that there's a disturbance at the karaoke bar."
"Of COURSE it does," Brent responded. "You're writing it RIGHT NOW."
Thad shrugged. "We should go check it out." He stood up and abruptly bumped into somebody. He turned to see an old (middle-aged? It was hard to tell) woman with her arms folded in impatience.
"Oh, right, you're still here. Want to come with?"
Brent took Thad aside and whispered, "Are you sure that's a good idea? Taking Ms. Salazar to meet Drago Morgan?"
"Don't worry," Thad responded conspiratorially, "I have a plan."
"No you don't."
"Well, no, I don't. But dude...KateStory."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The karaoke bar filled with the sounds of unprofessional singing.
Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka-lacka boom boom
Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka-lacka boom boom
Morgan crumpled to the floor, clutching at his throat. He wheezed, and stared daggers at his death.
Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka-lacka boom boom
Boom boom acka-lacka lacka boom
Boom boom acka-lacka boom boom
His death did a too-flashy spin and swung his fist to deliver a coup de grace.
It was a night like this forty million years ago
Morgan rolled, still wheezing.
I lit a cigarette, picked up a monkey skull to go
Morgan pulled a pathetic leg sweep. His death was overconfident enough that it knocked him off-balance.
The sun was spittin' fire, the sky was blue as ice
I felt a little tired, so I watched Miami Vice
His death stumbled forward. Morgan got onto his feet, Lanny Lungfungus still pummeling him from within, and lurched toward the exit.
I Walked the dinosaur, I walked the dinosauuuuuuuuur
There was an explosion of bricks. One clonked his death right in the noggin. The singer was undeterred.
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur
Open the door, get on the floor
Everybody walk the dinosaur
"Man," shouted Vera, from the driver seat of the Trinity-Mobile, "FUCK that guy."
"Man," wheezed his death, "that car kicks a lot of ass."
-
Thad, Brentai, and the old (midd -- BLAM BLAM BLAM.) woman walked out the door and got in the elevator.
"This is a bad idea," Brentai said. "Nothing good ever happens in fiction when you're in an elevator."
"True," replied Thad, "but obviously nothing bad can happen to us, because I'm not actually sitting in front of my computer writing this anymore."
"Then who is writing this, right now?" Questioned Ms. Salazar.
"Probably someone who hasn't read the archives," Thad said, sighing. "Someone with no regard for continuity at all."
Suddenly, an alarm blared.
"See, I fucking told you!" Brentai scowled. "Never go into an elevator when you're a fictionalized version of yourself in a fictional story."
"Nah, that was just the Meta-Alarm," explained Thad. "I had it installed last week."
The alarm went off again.
Brentai scowled deeper. "A meta-alarm? That's the stupidest --"
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
Plot continued to --
BEEEEEEEEEEEEP
Logic --
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Ms. Salazar crossed her arms and said "Well this is just sil --"
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
And then the unive --
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Friday kept being interrupted by the --
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
BLAM!
Brentai lowered the smoking .38 in his hand. Bits of plastic and electrical parts rained from the ceiling.
"God damn it, that thing cost me seventy-eight dollars! That's coming out of your paycheck," Thad said.
"You don't pay me," Brentai noted.
**********************************
Thad and Brent hopped out of the Trinity-Mobile. Each was carrying one of those big shiny future guns that were used by Will Smith and Tommy Lee-Jones in Men in Black.
"The situation is under control," Thad said coolly to the onlookers in the bar.
Everybody walk the dinosaur
"Man, I don't even know what the fuck is going on anymore," Brentai said. "Are we here to stop his death? Isn't his death trying to stop Drago, who is hunting Janey, who is a good guy? Doesn't that make his death a good guy, too? And doesn't Ms. Salazar also have something out for Drago, which was hinted at in the previous update, and since we've established that Drago is a bad guy who tried to stalk and kill Janey, our friend, a good guy, doesn't that make the old -- Ms. Salazar a good guy too, despite being cast earlier clearly in an antagonistic role?"
Thad sighed. "Maybe if Friday would actually read the archives, she would know the answers to these ques --"
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
"Uh, Thad," I have some bad news," Brentai said, swallowing.
Everybody walk the dinosauuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrr
Ms. Salazar stepped out of the car. "What in blazes is going on here!?"
All the onlookers were suddenly watching Thad, Brentai, his death, Drago, and Ms. Salazar, with a very hungry gleam in their eyes.
Dinooooooooosauuuuurrrrrrr
Thad nervously swung his large shiny plasma cannon back and forth, covering the crowd. "What is it, Brent?"
Suddenly, everyone in the bar who didn't have a name, including the guy singing about dinosaurs, ripped off their human masks and erupted into Velociraptors.
Brentai swallowed. "I think... Thad, I think the Raptors have learned how to karaoke."
-
"Well, looks like it's time to rock and roll," Thad said, pumping his weapon and taking aim at the nearest Raptor.
"Thad, no! Don't --" Brentai exclaimed.
But it was too late. Thad pulled the trigger and a blast of plasma energy flew out of the barrel and hit him square in the chest, knocking him over backward.
"What the fuck!" Thad said, picking himself up. "The gun fired fucking backwards!"
"Have you tried rotating the weapon 180 degrees?" asked Brentai, smirking slightly.
Thad glared at him. "Don't tell me you made a double post just so you could include that joke."
Brentai shrugged. "Man, why are you mad at me? I didn't have shit to do with it. Hell, the non-fictional version of me is probably not even reading this shit."
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
-
My mother changed her name to Morgan.
-
"We're getting the hell out of here!" shouted Vera. She grabbed Morgan by the scruff of the neck and started dragging him to the exit.
"STOP TALKING ABOUT THE DEMON GIRL!" shouted Morgan.
Vera was surprised enough that she stopped dragging him for a moment and peered down at him. "...What?"
"The demon girl! Shut up about her! I DON'T KNOW WHY WE'RE STILL HAVING THIS CONVERSATION!"
"But I...you were...but we..." Vera sighed. "We'll talk about this later." And she dragged Morgan through the rear exit.
In an ironic and highly improbable twist, no sooner had they left than Janey Blackburn walked through the front door. "Come on, Fig," she said, "you'll love this place. I came here once in the late 1990's, and HOLY SHIT RAPTORS!"
Janey blinked. Fig blinked. The raptors blinked.
"It is a good thing," said Janey, "that whenever I go to a karaoke bar...I bring my UZI!!!" She withdrew an Uzi from her coat pocket and began unloading it into the crowd.
"Haha!" exclaimed Fig over the din. "What sport! JONES! Fetch me my sword-cane!"
"You're holding it in your left hand, Milord," said Jones.
"So I am. So I am! Jolly good. Jol-LY GOOOD." He unsheathed his sword and leapt into the fray. A slavering beast darted toward him, and he ran it through. It exhaled noxious breath into his face.
"FUCK YOU, DINOSAUR!" bellowed Fig, and savagely kicked the beast off the end of his sword.
"Very pithy, Sir," said Jones.
"Thank you, Jones," Fig responded. "JONES! Capital idea! Fetch me my pith helmet!"
"Yes, Milord." Jones heaved a long-suffering sigh, but Fig could see a smile playing at the edges of his mouth.
"Oh barkeep!" Thad called. "Barkeep? Arrogant Bastard!"
The barkeep rounded. "WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?"
Brent rolled his eyes. Thad shrugged comically.
And behind them, the battle raged on...
-
Seelzar the Velociraptor sat at the back of the bar with his lovely girlfriend, Elayne, contemplating the strange dance-off that appeared to be forming in the center of the bar. "What do you think is going on, honey?" Elayne looked concerned through her obvious human suit they wore to be cool with this crowd.
"I don't know, Elayne. It looks like it could be trouble. Want to sneak out the back?" Seelzar shifted his human mask a bit to the left and then back forward again. Elayne was staring daggers at him.
"Get over there and get the manager, Seelzar. Quit being so beta." She looked into her purse and radiated annoyed girlfriend waves. He sighed and got up. "Honey, maybe you could go into the bathroom. Your makeup is a bit runny."
She nodded and stood up. He watched her disappear and played with the strap on his black bag, tasting the air and sensing the incoming carnage. "Some heavy shit is about to go down." he muttered to himself.
Making a rational decision, he pulled his mask off and ripped the bag open with his teeth, snatching the two fully automatic AK47s out of the air in ready-to-fire position and opening up on the humans and other velociraptors around him. He wasn't going down. Not like this. They'd have to take him in dead.
He hoped Elayne would stay in the loo, but predictably she wandered out, a dazed expression on her face. "Seelzar? Where are you?" He managed to dodge an incoming projectile and a sword, shooting a turd-colored man in the leg by dumb luck as he tried desperately to control the weapons discharging in his too-small talons, his weak arms spinning like lawn sprinklers.
"GET BACK IN THE BATHROOM HONEY!" He tried to use his most commanding voice. She only walked stupidly closer to him, her tiny arms crossed, her talons clacking nervously on the hardwood floor of the fancy tavern. "God damn it." Seelzar dropped the guns and dived over the narrow space between him and the dinosaur he loved...
-
Rygaron watched the events unfolding with some middling consternation. He turned to the huge video display of Guildenstern's head he kept on his office wall and spoke, his consonants clipped and gravelly. "Why am I here? Who are you? Why do I hear a voiceover?"
Guild merely shook his head. "Beats me dude."
-
As they made their retreat on Morgan's speedboat, curls of Vera's hair came loose from her bun and streamed behind her. She looked younger, somehow, more vital -- hotter. Less Nurse Ratched and more Hot for Teacher.
"And so you see -- OOH! it tingles! hang on, let me get this." She reached into her pocket and withdrew her furiously vibrating cellular telephone.
"Seelzar? What? You -- WHAT? You're -- why didn't you --?! You -- what? Who? You have got to be --" She sighed. "I'll handle it. Love you too."
She turned to Morgan. "You're not going to fucking believe this," she muttered. "My brother was in that karaoke bar we JUST LEFT."
There was a moment's stunned silence.
"Let me get this straight," Drago said. "Your brother's name...is Seelzar Salazar?"
"Yes."
"And he's a...?"
"Velociraptor, yes."
"How--?"
"There's more," the middle-aged (thirtysomething? it was hard to tell) woman interrupted. "Three people entered the room right after we left. From their descriptions, I can guarantee one of them is Lord Fenwick Minton, and reasonably assume another is Jane Blackburn."
Drago stared blankly for a moment.
"Jane Blackburn," Vera repeated.
Drago stared blankly for another moment, and then finally gave a pithy, "Who...?"
"The woman you're stalking," Vera deadpanned.
"WOULD YOU STOP TALKING ABOUT HER?!" Drago exploded. "And anyway, I'm not stalking her. She's a half-demon, and I'm trying to destroy her. I have had a series of adventures. First I tracked her to Keystone University, except she wasn't there. And then I tracked her to a post office, but she wasn't there either. And then there was the bus station. Then the movie theater. And then..."
-----
"Are we still in the fucking karaoke bar?" Thad asked.
Brent grunted in what he hoped was a very apathetic manner.
"You're right," said Thad. "Time to get us the fuck out of here."
-----
"...and then there was the supermarket --"
"Listen," Vera at last cut him off. "Somehow, you've gotten one right. She's actually AT the karaoke bar."
A dawning realization slowly, very slowly, crossed Drago Morgan's face. He reached into a compartment in the speedboat, and withdrew an M-80. He lit it with his Girad Gun, then threw it into the air. He used his Girard Gun as a bat and hit it in the general direction of the karaoke bar.
Aside from the untimely death of a school of fish, none of that had anything to do with what happened next, but for years after Drago would claim credit for destroying the karaoke bar all across the Internet forums he read. And then delete all his posts. And demand everyone pretend he had never written them.
-----
Janey sniffed. "That's not gunpowder," she said.
"What?" said Fig, resplendent in his pith helmet, as he pulled the pin from a grenade with his teeth and hurled it.
A look of panic crossed Janey's face.
"WE'VE HIT A GAS MAIN! GET THE FUCK OUT!" she cried. With superhuman speed, she leapt forward, catching Fig under one arm and Jones under the other. She crashed through the front doors.
And then the karaoke bar exploded.
-----
"NOOOOOOOOOO" shouted Seelzar Salazar. "IT CAN'T END LIKE THIIIIIIS"
"You're right," said a voice. A giant robotic hand reached out and caught him and Elayne in midair as they flew away from the shockwave.
Well...not really. The hand wasn't so big. Actually there were two robotic hands, and they kind of grabbed them and pulled them to a giant robotic chest. Then set them on the ground.
"Th...thanks?" hissed Seelzar. "Who...who are you?"
He looked up, slowly, at their savior, and then surreptitiously back at the flaming wreckage of the karaoke bar, and then at their savior again.
It was a girl in a mech. Not a giant warmech. There had been budget cuts, and it didn't have any weaponry as far as he could see, and it wasn't giant, either, only about the size of a small Buick. All the same, it was a sight for sore eyes.
"My name..." the figure inside the mech paused dramatically, "is Kelly London. I am here to rescue the both of you from this karaoke bar."
"But...why?" Seelzar asked hoarsely.
"Wherever thosee two clowns go," Kelly intoned, "devastation follows. And in a sea of redshirts...well, your story is not yet over."
Seelzar nodded, very slowly, still in shock.
"I think I understand you."
"Then you may have a concussion," Kelly deadpanned.
"Still and all," Seelzar responded, "I should probably call my sister and let her know we're all right."
-
Defenestration sat in his office, with the two exposed but previously hidden displays showing the mildly annoyed faces of Guildenstern and Ryagaron as he flipped through the last few hundred pages of script.
"So... who the hell is Kate? You know, in the title?" Rygaron shook his head. Guild stated "Beats me, dude."
Defenestration threw up his hands and the script with them as he left. The pages scattered across the room like frightened butterflies. Guild and Rygaron shrugged to each other as the displays rolled back into the wall, a bookcase sliding over each.
-
"You...you SAVED me," coughed his death as he brushed dust and loose drywall from his black suit.
"It was an accident," Janey deadpanned.
"You SAVED me!" exulted his death. "Janey Blackburn, at last you have learned...at last you are embracing your destiny!"
Jones clocked him in the jaw.
His death gasped, and eventually let out an "OW."
"Good work, Jones," commended Lord Minton.
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a fighter jet overhead. And cackling.
"Uwee hee hee!" laughed the jet. It dropped missiles on the rubble of the karaoke bar. "Now it will never be rebuilt in time for the big finale where everybody sings Journey!"
Brent gave Thad a "You have got to be goddamn kidding me" look. The two of them were sitting on the ruins of their barstools, at the bar, which was cracked in half like the Stone Table. Impossibly, all the alcohol bottles were intact.
"Thad?" said Brent. "THAD."
Thad looked around.
"I just wanted to say that you have got to be goddamn kidding me," Brent informed him.
"Oh," said Thad. And turned back to what he was doing.
"Thad?" said Brent.
"What?" said Thad.
"What the hell are you doing, anyway?"
Thad was hunched over a strange keyboard-like device in his lap. "I'm updating the characters page (http://www.corporate-sellout.com/katestory/characters.html)," he responded, his spoken dialogue somehow appearing as a link. "I go to all this trouble to make the goddamn thing accessible and throw out all the 15-year-old baggage, and then they're all like WELL WHO THE FUCK IS KATE ANYWAY." He threw up his hands theatrically. He paused for a minute, and then said, "Hey Brent, did I ever tell you about the time --"
"Yes."
"-- I was at Thespian camp -- "
"Yes."
"-- and my classmate's mom told me...with a straight face and no hint of irony...not to be so THEATRICAL?"
"Yes."
"Good times."
"Thad?" said Brent.
"Yes?"
"I am fairly confident that there is a giant fighter jet that just bombed the rubble we are sitting in before it made a comment about a very bad ending chapter you apparently have in mind for whenever you finally decide to let this thing peter out."
"Hmmm."
"He laughed like Kefka."
To reinforce Brent's words, the jet laughed like Kefka again, then flew down and transformed into a giant robot and began menacing Janey, Fig, Jones, and his death.
"Crap," said Janey. "Could have SWORN I saw Kelly pull up in a little mini-warmech on the other side of the rubble..." She called out, "Kel, if that's you, could really use your help over here!"
"I be no Kel," boomed a voice from behind them, "but sirs and madam, stand back and allow me the honor..."
They stood back and allowed him the honor.
The speaker was a giant robot tractor trailer with a giant katana. It seemed unsure on its footing, like it didn't quite know how it was supposed to operate. "How might these abominations be manipulated?" it muttered, still in a very loud voice, because it was a giant robot.
Brentai facepalmed. "Cyan Prime," he groaned.
Thad simpered with self-satisfaction.
"Long walk for that joke, Boyd."
"Heh heh...yeah."
"You've been wanting to do that for awhile now, haven't you."
"Yep," Thad said. He then checked off a little box on a sheet of paper that mysteriously appeared in his hand, where it said "Cyan Prime". It was above an item that said "BIG KARAOKE BAR FINALE" and below one that said "McDohl's Bit with the Trinity-Mobile", which had a large question mark written above it.
"Nothing can beat the music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison," said the Starscream/Kefka guy. Starscrefka? No, that sounds fucking awful. We can name him later.
"I am your worst nightmare," said Cyan Prime, and lurched forward unsteadily.
And so the battle began.
-
Suddenly, Adam crashed through the wall in a large, junked out van with a sword crudely lashed to the front of it with duct tape and rope. Anticlimax was pierced on the front of it, and immediately barreled in to the Trinity-Mobile, spraying oil and Anticlimax's blood everywhere while Adam roared gleefully.
"SWORDVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
[/b]
-
Guild sat at his desk smashing his hand with a hammer. He made sure to crush up all the tiny bones, grimacing as he took a drag on a cigarette. Finally tossing the hammer aside, he smiled and flopped his now-useless appendage about, flinging blood all over his nice expensive Mac.
"Why the hell are you doing that?" Rygaron blinnked at him from the tiny box on Guild's desk below the camera Defenestration had installed in his air vent.
"I could tell you why, but I think I'll show you instead." He picked up a pair of scissors and began cutting words out of the entirety of Katestory and rearranging them in a kind of mad fit. "There." he finally said.
"What is it?" Defenestration's voice boomed over the speaker in the wall.
"I call it Etak. It's a paper golem, programmed to write plot for Katestory. In fact, its primary power is creating conflict. But it can really do anything. Here, I'll demonstrate."
"Golem," he said. The thing on the desk sat up and looked at him. "Fix my hand."
Guild's hand immediately regrew, becoming whole as if by magic as the words, "Guild's hand immediately regrew, becoming whole as if by magic." appeard on the Golem's face. They slid around and then disappeared from view into the folds of its body. Other words seemed to be constantly sliding across it, as if it had already begun changing the story.
"Go find Thad's repository of character information and get to work." Guild pointed at his computer screen.
The creature turned to the screen and seemed to grow a bit as it read the open browser. In the center of the page lay a hyperlink with the words 'characters page (http://www.corporate-sellout.com/katestory/characters.html)' highlighted. It put a hand on the link and its legs shriveled and sucked up into its body. They watched it pump itself into the hyperlink through its arm and disappear from sight.
"What's that going to do?"
Guild turned to the camera. "Yes, that is the question, isn't it?" And he began to laugh and laugh, then stop and cough, then laugh and then finally fall asleep.
-
The doors to Gok Tinnik's office swung open.
"How the hell did you get past my recep oh I see you have two velociraptors with you."
He peered at his visitor. She peered back. He recognized her and relaxed.
"What can I do for you, Ms. London?"
"I'm afraid this isn't a social call," she responded.
"Right," he responded. "I figured. Because of the raptors."
"Oh, right," she said. "Actually, they're just kinda along for the ride. Gok, this is Seelzar, and this is Elayne. Seelzar, Elayne, Gok."
"Charmed," said Gok. He strode across the room and kissed Elayne's claw. She giggled and Seelzar scowled. "So I imagine you're here on behalf of Hormel."
Kelly smiled. "Mr. Tinnik, as you well know, this economy has been kind to producers of budget meat products..."
"I DO hope you're not comparing my fine, fresh foods to canned pork shoulder," Gok responded.
Seelzar licked his chops. "They're both good choices."
"Mr. Tinnik," Kelly reproached, "Hormel produces MANY fine foods, and is always looking to expand."
Gok tut-tutted. "Everybody wants a piece of Demonwang. Sorry, sugar, but no dice. You got nothing I want."
Kelly nodded, slowly. "I'll relay your message, but I must tell you that my superiors are very persistent and you have not likely heard the last of them."
Gok chuckled. "Demonwang is not a publicly traded company, so it's not like they can finagle a hostile takeover. As for anything less above-the-board than that? Well, you know me." He held up one hand, which slowly grew fur and fangs, and then reverted to human form. "I don't scare so easily.
"But hell's bells, Kels," he said, relaxing, "enough shop talk. How the hell are you? Ever see Janey?"
"Yeah." Kelly relaxed too. "I ran into her the other day, at a thing."
"Good, good. Hear she's doing the grad school thing. Good for her. I see this one numbnuts on the TV sometimes who I think is after her, but she can take care of herself and he's borderline retarded. Anyway, when's the wedding?"
"Wedding?"
"You know, when von Garda started working here he said something about..." Gok trailed off as he realized his mistake.
"Billy works HERE?" Kelly asked.
"Er, yeah. He came by, you know, said times were tough and uh...anyway. I gave him a job. For old times' sake. Frankly I figured you'd probably pumped him for information before you came, but...wow, okay. Boy can keep a secret. I should give him a promotion."
Kelly smiled. "He can keep a secret a lot better than some other people."
Billy von Garda stumbled through the door. "Kelly! I heard you were -- oh Gok, you didn't --"
"Hey Billy," Kelly said with a smirk, "will you marry me?"
-
Defenestration's monitor slowly rolls out of the wall as he clears his throat. "AHEHEHEHEM." Guildenstern awakens with a start and turns to regard the face staring at him with disdain. "This is a reckless idea. Such a thing could be subverted against us, and all of this reality in the process."
Guildenstern scoffed. "You simply are jealous of my foresight and work ethic. Or simply bored?" Defenestration sighed. "Fine. I shall demonstrate. Etak, manifest." On command, pages of paper swirled out of Guildenstern's monitor and slowly coagulated into its previous form. The strange paper made monitor faced towards Defenestration's monitor, which now seemed to be slightly magnified upon his devious grin.
"Golem, display 'The golem displays the desired statement on his monitor, which read', and then loop."
Rygaron chokes on his drink. Guildenstern jumps from his chair, words in his throat that never reached open air.
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
The golem displays the statement on his monitor, which read:
-
After completing its infinite loop, Etak took another crack at the Characters Page. It noticed two characters we hadn't seen in awhile.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hey Billy," Kelly said with a smirk, "will you marry me?"
"But but...jeez, I haven't even gotten you a ring yet..."
"You rang?" came a female voice. A giant ring appeared, and a teenage-ish girl in green stepped out, holding a smaller ring. She flipped it to Billy, who clumsily got down on one knee and offered it up.
"Kelly...?"
"I asked you first."
"Oh! Well uh...yeah! Yes. Yes I will."
Kate, Gok, Seelzar, and Elayne golf clapped. "Congratulations," said Kate.
Then she glared at the giant ring she'd stepped out of. A grunt seemed to come from somewhere on the other side.
"Hedgie..."
"No," responded the voice. "I'm supposed to be Simo Belmo now. I keep trying to quit these fucking things."
Kate glowered.
"Uh, grats," came Hedgehog X's voice. The ring started to shimmer and fade. Kate looked at the happy couple apologetically and said, "He'll see you at the wedding," before stepping through.
"Who says you're invite -- " Kelly began in perturbation. But the ring had already disappeared. "...ed."
The doors to Gok Tinnik's office swung open. "Yeah yeah, congrats kids, may you have a long, happy, and not-too-heavily-retconned marriage. Gok, m'boy, we gotta talk. Haha, that rhymes."
Gok's eyes narrowed. "How the hell am I supposed to miss you when you never stay dead, old man?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a candlelit room on the fifth floor of the Dyer Building, a council of hooded and cloaked figures sat around a round table.
Their last visitor strode in the double doors. He wore a bathrobe over a hooded sweatshirt.
The faintest of smiles curled the corners of the mouth of the man seated at the head of the table. A look of horror parted those of the middle-aged (thirtysomething? it was hard to tell) woman nearby.
"Now that our final guest has arrived," intoned the man at the head of the table, "I would like to call this meeting of the Bulwark to order." He banged the table with a gavel; it gave a hollow thud.
"Why is HE here?" hissed Miss Salazar, as Lord Minton casually sat down next to her and put his feet up on the table.
"He is here," said a robotic voice, "because he saved the entire City of Boston during the--last--Blight." All eyes turned to a wizened man in a wheelchair. He took a drag from a cigarette through the hole in his throat and continued. "I understand that--you--are here...because you are a particularly. Good. Librarian."
Vera's mouth opened in anger, but she bit back whatever it was she was going to say. The man at the head of the table shook his head slightly, but he would not contradict the speaker either. This was, as the saying goes, not a man to be trifled with.
"Come now, Old Man Rivers," Fig responded, "she's here because she's only managed to read the goddamned Kulten cover-to-cover, that's all. Which is about a hundred and eighty pages farther than I got before it sent me into a decade's worth of doddering convalescence."
Far from being flattered, Vera looked even more upset that Lord Minton had come to her defense. "Yes, well...the O'Donnel translation's not for everybody," was all she said, and then she pursed her lips.
The man at the head of the table cleared his throat. "Getting back to the task at hand," he said.
A younger man looked up. "Are we sure it's a Blight?"
"Of course it's a goddamned Blight," Old Man River responded -- snapped seemed like the appropriate description despite his monotone.
"I'm afraid so," Fig affirmed. "The walls between the worlds are the thinnest I've seen since...well, since then. We've got so much interdimensional commerce that it's become a multibillion-dollar industry."
"You're referring to Demonwang Foods," the young man said. "Do you think they're the ones causing it?"
"They're not helping," Fig responded, "but the cracks must have already been there. I assure you, if we don't do something soon, we will be dealing with some serious dragonage."
"We need help," said the man at the head of the table. "We've called the BPRD but all they can offer us is Redshirts. It seems their highest-ranking members are all in Wales -- apparently demons are POURING through the Cardiff Rift and our friends there are a little understaffed. There's been some, ah, serious turnover."
Fig nodded. "I know someone who can help us, if she's willing."
Vera's face turned into something of a snarl. "NO."
Fig ignored her. "She's a doctoral student here, a Miss Janey Blackburn."
"She's a terrible choice," Vera burst out. "She's--she'll--" She seemed momentarily tongue-tied, and then blurted out, "You're sleeping with her, aren't you?!"
Fig began to laugh, much to the annoyance of the man at the head of the table. Old Man Rivers shook slightly, his own laughter silent.
"My dear," said Fig, "I believe everyone at this table can tell you that Janey Blackburn is very much not my type. She seems a little more like yours, to be honest." His smile faded as what he'd just said dawned on him. "OH. ...OHHHH. Yes, that's exactly it, isn't it?"
Before Vera could respond, the man at the head of the table banged his gavel. "ENOUGH. Ms. Salazar, while I would not seek Lord Minton's advice on decorum, I AM seeking his advice on how to deal with a goddamned Blight. Can you give me a reason not to follow it other than innuendo?"
Vera seemed to regain some composure. "I have an alternate suggestion," she said, still slightly flushed but mostly in control of her breathing. "My brother, Seelzar, is an active member of the velociraptor community. He will enlist their aid, and I assure you they will be a greater asset than any wet-behind-the-ears doctoral student."
"A sound suggestion," said the man, "but it doesn't answer my question. Why shouldn't we trust this Ms. Blackburn?"
Vera seemed at a loss.
The younger man cleared his throat. "If Ms. Salazar has misgivings," he said, "perhaps we can enlist Ms. Blackburn's aid and I can simply keep an eye on her."
"A perfectly reasonable compromise," Fig responded. "Thank you, young man -- Carter, was it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well," said the man at the head of the table. "May you each pursue your own lead. I will try to meet with Gok Tinnik, the CEO of Demonwang Foods. Professor Rivers --"
"I know what the hell I'm doing," Rivers snapped -- yes, definitely snapped.
The man at the head of the table managed a thin smile. "Meeting adjourned."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Etak stumbled across another name.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No sooner had Fig stepped out the door than a man in a black fedora began pestering him. "Lord Minton! What was their decision? Did they agree? Do you believe Ms. Blackburn will at last --"
"Get the hell out of my way," snarled Fig, and shoved past him. Under his breath, he said, "Man, FUCK that guy." Then, louder: "Jones! JONES!"
Jones stepped up and offered Fig his coat.
"Much obliged, my good man." Lowering his voice: "Wait until you hear what the geas made her say; it was simply MARVELOUS."
-
"Wait, wait. Guild. Guild. GUILD. GUILD. GUILD GUILD GUILD."
Guild looked at Rygaron. "What?"
"What did you make that golem out of? HOW did you make it?" The camera in the vent zoomed in on Guild's face and he frowned.
"An excellent question, sir." he said as if rewarding a schoolboy for an insightful point instead of his immediate supervisor. "I didn't make it. Well, do you remember the librarian from the beginning of the story?"
Etak suddenly popped out of Guild's pencil sharpener trailing a tear in the multiverse behind it, pausing to hop over a pencil before leaping into the trash can at the end of the desk and tearing through the bottom and into the blackness of some other dimension. Guild merely talked on, but his eyes followed Etak, as did the eyes of Rygaron and Defenestration.
"Anyway, that librarian was guarding a very special book. You see, in the infinity of the multiverse, there exists at least one incarnation of every item that can be imagined. For example, there is a dimension where Carl Marx is president of upside-down Norway and tends a garden of plastic Sorry! playing piece trees. I assume."
Here he paused as Etak once again apparated, this time trailing a long cable and running out of the wall by the door. It reached Guild and tried to lasso him, so he bent over and picked the thing up and placed it on his desk instead. He opened a google browser and continued, placing the mouse carefully in front of Etak.
"So, in theory, I knew there had to be a book that could learn from what was written on it. I furthermore knew there had to be a universe where magical golems could be created. So, by half-assedly backfilling story I was too lazy to write at the time, I can narrate myself acquiring them in some distant, never-fully-described events in a past-tense manner, as I am about to do. You see, I went looking for these items."
Rygaron held up a hand. "Where am I?"
Defenestration's screen turned to face the tiny Rygaron screen on Guild's desk. "You are an employee of Demonwang Foods. Your job is to monitor the person shown on the screen on your desk. Now be quiet and pay attention to the story."
Guild nodded and continued. "Right. So I went looking for them, and I got them. It was kinda hard I guess."
"Why name it Etak?" asked Kazz from the screen on Rygaron's desk. He'd been listening in on his own giant wall monitor, which showed Rygaron talking to his giant wall monitor on which Guildenstern talked to Defenestration on his wall monitor. It was all very meta-whatever.
Guild tried to answer, but just then Etak had clicked the Wikipedia link and tunneled inside, only to start growing faster than it could push itself in, resulting in a backlog of data that swelled to fill Guild's office. He continued to speak as if nothing were out of the ordinary. "Furthermore, it will continue to grow until it has filled the entire multiverse. Omniverse. Whatever they call it nowadays. All the realities." Then he stopped talking because his body became toothpaste smeared on the wall by the evergrowing Etak's need to fill still more space.
Finally reality couldn't handle the stress and Etak began to ooze into the multiverse at-large, every part of it seeking more information to absorb.
-
"Hi." said someone.
Someone, someplace else. Not here, or there, but perhaps everywhere.
If someone is everywhere, one must assume that -- barring a multi-bodied entity from beyond the stars or that one really bad episode of Star Trek Voyager where Tom Paris breaks warp 9.9 and then goes off with Captain Janeway and they both evolve into lizards and have creepy flipper babies together -- they must be dead.
Probably exploded.
Thus the 'said,' because they obviously can't say anything anymore.
(Hi Thad and Brent. Forever really is a long time.)
-
Brent leapt into the closet and started bashing skeletons left and right.
(Hi! I'm not sure I fully remember you. Were you a girl or something?)
-
The skeletons suffered self esteem issues... as well as face removing ones!
(Certainly not a girl! Wait, let me check.. no, still not a girl. I was around back on Prodigy, and I couldn't construct a sentence worth shit, let alone spell shit.)
-
The skeletons suffered self esteem issues...
Wow, I slammed my face right into that one.
-
In the back of the classroom, Mark Grayson tapped his pencil nervously on his desk. The enormity of the events he'd heard on the news, the events that Professor Isenberg was currently discussing, pounded in his skull. The tap of the pencil seemed to reverberate: Blight, Blight, Blight, Blight...
"Minton and Rivers returned to academia," Professor Isenberg was saying. "They wrote a book about their experience. You will notice it is not on the list of texts for this course. That is because the published version was redacted to the point of uselessness. There are numerous versions available on the Internet claiming to be the complete text, but none of them are verifiable."
A hand went up. "Yes?" said Isenberg.
"Why wouldn't Minton and Rivers produce a digitally-signed copy, with a verifiable public key? To the best of my knowledge, even strong black magic can't reliably create a 128-bit collision."
"I...don't really know what any of that means," Isenberg responded, "but there are a variety of reasons why Minton and Rivers might not want to publish the version the US Government doesn't want you to see, starting with, well, the fact that the US Government doesn't want you to see it."
Mark's phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the caller ID...shit. This was one call he definitely had to take. He threw his books in his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and made his way out the back exit, trying to attract as little attention as possible -- but he still got a dirty look from Professor Isenberg. He responded with a helpless shrug and mouthed "I have to."
In the hall, he took a quick look around and put the phone to his ear. "Is there no help for the Widow's Son?"
"Tubal Cain," came the voice on the other end. "Invincible, do you, ah, remember what we discussed?"
"How could I forget?" Mark responded wanly. "So it's come to that?"
"I'm afraid so. The, ah, Archfiend is on the move. The Guardians of the Galaxy will meet him in battle. Right here in our nation's capital."
"My objections haven't changed," Mark responded. "I agree that the world needs the Guardians of the Globe...I just don't see where I fit in."
"But I do," said the voice. "Son -- your country needs you."
Mark sighed, heavily. "I'll be there."
He was out behind the history building now. He ducked behind a particularly putrid Dumpster, and opened his backpack. "Let me just get into my work clothes."
(http://www.corporate-sellout.com/katestory/guardians-invincible.jpg)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hell itself was at war.
This was nothing new. As long as he had been there, he had watched the maneuvering of demons -- had been a part of them himself. All things considered, a dragon was a step up from a fat clown.
Darkspawn? Hnnh. Mindless monsters, undeserving of the name.
His arm flicked forward. His chain wrapped around a Hurlock's neck. Snap.
If these armies were going to overwhelm the surface world, they would have to get through him first.
(http://www.corporate-sellout.com/katestory/guardians-spawn.jpg)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick sunk his axe into a roamer's skull. Damn. He had gotten separated from the others. Separated from his son. Where the fuck had this herd come from?
He swung again. A rotten head fell, and its body collapsed.
He heard thudding footsteps. Not a roamer. He whirled --
-- not a human, either. He had never seen anything like it. It was fast, coming right for him.
He leapt forward, buried his axe in its head. Another was behind it. With -- a bow? It snarled as it aimed an arrow at him.
"What the fuck?!" He fumbled for his gun.
There was a rumble. A hand erupted from the ground and caught the monster by the ankle. A crack appeared beneath it and it fell. The rest of the herd fell with it. A figure in a black costume and a high red collar clawed itself to the surface.
"Jesus Christ," Rick muttered, cocking his pistol.
"...Rick Grimes," said the figure in an unearthly voice. It sounded faintly surprised.
"Okay," said Rick, without lowering his gun. "So you can talk. And you know my name. Mind telling me just what the fuck is going on here?"
"We have met before," said the figure. "You were a rookie cop...and I was with the CIA."
"Simmons?" Rick threw his hands up, incredulously. "Fine, whatever. I just finished a lengthy phone coversation with my dead wife, so what the fuck. How the hell have you been? Interfered with any investigations lately, or too busy dressing up for fetish balls?"
"We must cast aside any petty rivalries we may have once had," intoned Simmons. "We have been chosen."
(http://www.corporate-sellout.com/katestory/guardians-rick.jpg)
"Chosen for what?" asked Rick. "I'm just a guy trying to keep his friends, his son, alive in a world that's gone to hell."
"The world hasn't gone to hell," Simmons responded. "Hell is coming to the world. And only the Guardians of the Globe can stop it."
"Guardians --?"
Simmons pointed skyward. Rick squinted, and saw a speck. It grew larger, and with a growing whoosh, resolved itself into a young man in tights and goggles. Rick facepalmed.
"Spawn," said the young man. "Glad you're here. Sort of. And you must be Rick. I'm Invincible." He landed, extended his right hand, and then apologetically withdrew it and extended his left. Rick shook it, in stunned silence.
"These are Darkspawn," Invincible continued, pulling Rick's axe out of the Hurlock's head and handing it back to him. "As I'm sure you've noticed, they're smarter, faster, and stronger than the roamers you've been dealing with. And there are thousands of them -- maybe tens of thousands -- about to converge on Washington, DC. And, uh, there's a dragon with them."
Rick didn't know how to respond. Finally, the question that made it to his lips was, "...why Washington, DC?"
"Because we, ah, decided to lure them here," said a confident voice. Rick whirled to see two figures -- and gaped.
"President Barack Obama," said the main in the suit. "And Eugene you know."
(http://www.corporate-sellout.com/katestory/guardians-obama.jpg)
"M-Mr. President," Rick stammered. "And Eugene -- you were telling the truth?"
Eugene nodded. "The zombie virus was brewed in a government lab -- under the orders of the President himself. Simmons -- our Hellspawn here -- was my contact at the CIA. But the outbreak -- well, from what the President has been telling me, the outbreak has attracted the attention of the Hordes of Hell. And they're about ready to crawl up and conquer the Earth."
"I'm not going to let that happen," the President said, adamantly. "We are the new Guardians of the Globe. And we will, ah, guard the globe."
Invincible looked at Eugene, then at the President. "You told me that our fifth was going to be a wizard, not a government scientist."
"Oh, I'm just here to do the lab work," Eugene responded. He glanced at his watch. "The wizard should be here aaaaany..."
There was a pop, and a disheveled-looking figure in a cloak appeared out of thin air. He dropped his glasses, scrambled to put them back on, and ran a hand nervously through his unruly black hair.
"Oh no," Invincible groaned.
"Invincible!" said the figure. "What's it been, two, three years? You played chaser pretty well -- for an American."
"You cheated," Invincible responded.
"Boys, please," said the President. "Invincible, Mr. Potter here has become the Chief Auror in the United Kingdom's Ministry of Magic. We were lucky they agreed to let him join us, what with that, ah, business in Cardiff. So, as one Chosen One to another, Mr. Potter, I welcome you to the United States of America."
(http://www.corporate-sellout.com/katestory/guardians-potter.jpg)
Harry smiled and straightened his glasses nervously. "Let's...hunt some Orc?"
-
Adam glared angrily at his monitor.
"Why the sweet fancy Jesus would Harry continue to wear his school uniform after...well, not graduating from Hogwarts, but was probably awarded an honorary diploma for practical demonstration of skills learned in his previous six years at said institution..."
Then Adam realized that he was self-debating the logic of a fictional universe, and realized that Thad brought to his attention to a comic book about President Barack Obama teaming up with Spawn and Harry Potter to save the world, presumably from the title.
Adam bought Thad a beer.
-
Suddenly Frocto showed up with Thor and Odin to stop the menace known as the Commies. Frocto hurried over to the barrels on the left and shattered one into a katana where he quickly laid waste to 17 commies in one slash. Soon after Thad came in and started shooting the rest of the commies with a Gatling Gun made out of a pine tree before realizing that he was king of the commies, and turned his gun to Frocto. "You'd better run, my son." He said with his hand on the trigger.
-
Fuck it. There were like three more chapters' worth of shit Thad wanted to happen before this one was sewn up -- maybe FOUR. He had a checklist, God dammit. A CHECKLIST.
"So," said Kelly, "this is my office. Well, our office. There have been some budget cuts and now I share it with Tim. Hi Tim."
"Hi, Kelly," said Tim. He looked nervously down at Elayne's claw for a moment and then timidly reached out and shook it.
"But you were telling Tinnik how much money Hormel has been raking in," Elayne said.
"Oh, the bosses are doing just fine," Tim said, "but any excuse to cut budgets. And make us work Saturdays."
"This is actually extracurricular," Kelly said. She gestured at her bulletin board, a spiderweb of photos, tacks and strings.
Elayne put on a pair of unusually-shaped reading glasses and peered closely at the board, first with one eye and then the other. "Mmm. I see what you mean. Seelzar and Vera will want to see this." She pulled out a phone and pointed the camera at Kelly's board. "May I?"
"Just the DC part of the picture," Kelly cautioned. "The rest is still classified."
"But...you showed it to me."
"And me," Tim piped up.
"You..." Elayne started, tentatively. In a whisper: "You don't trust Vera, do you."
Kelly shook her head.
Elayne's voice was even softer now: "Sometimes I don't trust her either."
She snapped a photo.
-
"You're going to ask me, aren't you," said Janey -- more resigned than accusatory.
"Yes," sighed Fig, "I'm afraid that I am."
"Everybody eventually does," said Janey.
"I'm sorry," said Fig. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm leaving the 'it's your destiny' claptrap out of it. The long and short of it is, there's a Blight on, we're going to need all the help we can get, and you're good at killing monsters."
Janey looked at her shoes, then looked Fig in the eye. She exhaled. "All right, fuck it. But I still don't want to broadcast my identity. I can rock a full helmet; I trained under Merlin. Say --"
"No," said Fig, "he won't be there. He's in Wales. And yes, a helmet would be fine, but before you give me an uncategorical 'yes' I should warn you that the Bulwark will know it's you -- and they've assigned you a partner. Though I've made it very clear that he is NOT to spy on you and he will NOT report to Miss Salazar."
"She's in the Bulwark?" said Janey.
"Yes," said Fig, "and where things get terribly awkward is, well, I'm going to have to give you a bit of background on her as well. No, I'm not altogether sure why she hates half-demons so much -- seems a bit illogical, really, since her brother is a dinosaur...never really DID find out how that works; was always too polite to ask...but, well, the truth is that I know perfectly well why she hates ME so much, and it has to do with the fact that I made the mistake of sleeping with her several decades ago."
Janey's mouth contorted into a series of different shapes as a myriad of different thoughts tried to fight their way out. The one that finally made it was, "...I thought you were gay."
"Oh, I am," said Minton with a shrug. "So's she. Those are reasons two and three why it was a tremendously bad idea. Number one is that she was my student.
"At any rate," he pressed on before Janey could attempt another word edgewise, "the other day she attempted to tell the Bulwark about your heritage, and the geas I put on her prevented from doing it -- with the rather awkward result that she, well, accused me of sleeping with YOU. Which led me to the realization that, well, in addition to several decades of pent-up bitterness toward me...she fancies you.
"Now! I realize that's going to be an awful lot to process right now, so, before I go into any further detail, I do believe you need a good stiff drink." He clapped his hands, loudly, in the air, and shouted, "JONES! BRANDY!"
-
With honed reflexes and in one fluid motion Simo Belmo brought the delicious, flame-broiled Whopper sandwich to his salivating mouth. Before he could take one bit (with honed reflexes) however, he was stopped by a sight that he could not believe. A male peacock had walked into the Burger King.
A fucking male peacock. Fucking just walked into the fucking Burger King. Simo Belmo knew...
This was the work of vampires.
With honed reflexes Simo Belmo dropped the delicious Whopper sandwich and leaped to dispense righteous justice to the offending avian. Before he could arrive however, some sort of god damn catgirl had already started feeding the peacock bits of bread. Bits of bread soaked with blood, Simo Belmo thought.
"What the bleepity bleep fucking bleep do you think you're doing, enormously hot and ambiguously naked catwoman?" Simo Belmo shouted in one fluid motion. "Don't you know that that peacock is the work of freaking vampires?"
"What... what are you talking about?" said the ridiculously hot catgirl, "I'm just feeding this peacock some bits of hamburger bun I've got left over."
With honed reflexes and in one fluid motion, Simo Belmo squinted his eyes at the catgirl. "Cat... lady... whatever... is that a bikini or fur by the way?"
"Irrelevant!"
"Okay. Anyway, possibly naked catgirl, don't you think it's a bit strange for a male peacock to just waltz into a Burger King?"
"Well sure, but what makes you think it's a vampire? I mean, I know some vampires. They mostly go around turning men into women and women into hotter women."
"They... what? I thought I had killed the Rule 63 Vampire!" With honed reflexes Simo Belmo stroked his chin thoughtfully. "No, but anyway, do you want to know how I know that peacock is a vampire?"
"Yyyyy... no, not really," said the catgirl, "I'd rather not understand the thought processes of a crazy person."
"Well then missy, just answer me this one question." With honed reflexes and in one fluid motion, Simo Belmo pointed dramatically at the offending avian. "What animal in this world would actually think the hamburger buns from Burger King were food?"
The ridiculously hot catgirl looked at Simo Belmo blinking for a moment. She looked at the peacock. She looked again at Simo Belmo. She looked again at the peacock. Then she looked at Simo Belmo. Then she looked at the peacock. Finally, she looked at Simo Belmo. And then, once more, she looked at the peacock.
"...you actually raise a very valid point," the hot naked catgirl was eventually forced to admit.
"And that's why I must beat it to death with my bare hands."
"You what?"
And then Simo Belmo beat the peacock to death with his bare hands.
I'M COUNTING IT
-
Knock yourself out.
-
The President cleared his throat.
"And so, my fellow Americans," he paused, "the situation is dire indeed. I have assembled a panel of experts to assist me in our time of need. As we are facing hordes of magic superpowered zombies from Hell, I have assembled an expert on magic, an expert on superpowers, an expert on zombies, and an expert on Hell."
Obama paused, looking very Presidential. He continued: "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick. And the consensus at this point is, it's the dragon. It's the, ah, giant fucking dragon in the middle of Washington, DC, whose ass we need to focus on kicking right now. And so, together with my panel of experts and a sizable number of tanks and explosives and so forth, I intend to, ah, do just that. Thank you, and goodnight."
The camera stopped recording.
"Mr. Grimes," said the President, "can you come here for a moment?"
"Can I get you a ladder?" said Rick. "So you can get off my back?"
"Uh, no Rick, that, ah, won't be necessary," said the President. "As I was saying -- I'm going to need you to lead a charge right into the heart of the undead horde."
"Can I get you a ladder?" said Rick. "So you can get off my back?"
"Well, ah, no, Mr. Grimes, as I said, I'm more interested in talking strategy --"
"Can I get you a ladder?" said Rick. "So you can get off my back?"
The President's brow furrowed in consternation. "Uh, you know, that doesn't even really make any sense."
"Can I get you a ladder?" said Rick. "So you can get off my back?"
The President threw a stapler at his forehead.
-
"When the hell are these FROM?" asked Elayne.
"World War II." Kelly's voice was reverent as she ran her hand across the dull gray metal of the antique mech's Gatling gun arm. "This sucker killed Nazis."
"And you know how to drive it?" asked Elayne. "I can't even drive STICK."
"Levers, wheel, triggers, clutch, choke," said Kelly. "I think you may need to start it with a hand crank. But no electronics anywhere -- we're going oldschool. The spells those monsters are casting disrupt quantum states or some goddamn thing. That's why we don't just drop a neutron bomb -- kill the organics, save the capital."
Elayne paused a moment, as if looking for what to say. "Kelly, in --"
"Shh," said Kelly, and hugged her. "Just help me get in the robot.
"You know," she said, more cheerfully, as she strapped in, "I fought Hitler once. Well, sort of. By the time he actually showed up, these magical pirates..."
And so they talked, and they laughed, and they shared stories. And by the time the sun set, Elayne was dead.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even without bombs, electronics, or radios, the Earth faction had a clear advantage in firepower. But the Devil only knew how many Darkspawn would keep pouring through that rift. And they had far more magic-users than the humans or the raptors.
No sword or arrow was going to stop Kelly's warmech. But a bolt of force blew out one of its knees and knocked it flat on its back. Elayne was there in a flash; she'd helped Kelly get into the robot and she'd help her get out...
Elayne, like most of the raptors, had refused to arm or armor herself. Let the apes use their crutches -- there was no improving on a raptor, the perfect killing machine. Of course, she hadn't put it that way when she'd talked to Kelly...
A lot of raptors died that day. But not a one died without leaving behind a pile of Darkspawn corpses first.
Kelly was stuck. An arrow whizzed toward her. Elayne didn't stop to think; she blocked it with her body. It buried itself in her right shoulder.
She winced. "Don't need arms." She vaulted toward the Hurlock who had fired and landed her clawed feet squarely in his chest; she'd torn his throat out by the time they hit the ground.
She'd gotten the group's attention. Two more arrows; one in her side and one in her stomach. She reared, leapt upon the Genlock and disemboweled him before he could fire off another spell.
Blam. Kelly had gotten her pistol from its holster; another Hurlock fell dead.
Then a spurt of machine-gun fire. Seelzar didn't share the other raptors' disdain for firearms; he'd brought his AK's. In another un-raptorlike display, he was sobbing.
It wasn't much longer before the knot of Darkspawn was dead or fled. But it had been long enough. Elayne slumped to her knees. Seelzar ran to her; Kelly pulled free of the wreckage and did the same.
"Kelly..." coughed Elayne, "s-sorry...your wedding..."
"Shh," said Kelly, and hugged her. "Shhhh. Jesus, Elayne, you..."
"You and Billy..."
Kelly choked. "We'll be fine, Elayne." And a whisper: "If we have a daughter...we'll name her after you."
A smile teased Elayne's tired features. "That's good. I like that." With some effort, she turned her head; her eyes fought to focus. "Seelzar...you were the best...l...love..."
And she was gone.
Seelzar choked. "Would...would you...?"
Kelly nodded and closed Elayne's eyes. Seelzar trembled, shook all over, and then roared. "PRESS ON! On to the dragon. On to the rift. And leave as many dead Darkspawn between here and there as...as...as get in our way."
Without another word, he handed his spare AK and some clips to Kelly.
-
Elayne stood and spit up a half-gallon chunk of gelatinous, black blood containing three bronze arrowheads. With a swing of her gimpy arms the shafts fell from her body and clattered to the blood-stained ground. As a mysterious cloaked figure waved its hands, the freshly-undead dromaeosaurid theropod tilted after Kelly, her mind no longer able to process emotion or thought but her killing-machine body ready to maim. She sprinted after them.
++++++++
"Oh fuck you, Guild. How much do we have to kick this puppy?" Thad was opening a fresh pair of mellow lagers and handing one to Brentai who merely grunted in a manly way. From the front porch of their 126,000 square foot home, purchased with money from a lawsuit suing California for denying them the right to marry despite the fact that they both had girlfriends, one could see a stand of flamingoes landing in the pristine horizon pool bordering the five hundred foot cliff along their property line.
Brent finally spoke through his slight buzz and over the snapshot of him and his hot asian disney cartoon girlfriend and her hot blond anime girlfriend at Disneyland. "Don't worry. Guild wrote himself into the story by making himself and some other people Demonwang employees. That means we're safely in the fourth-wall dimension so his bullshit won't spill over into our perfect lives. Just close the browser and-"
Suddenly Etak burst from the screen and lept into Thad's eye. A stream of viscous clear fluid streamed down his cheek as it pushed itself firmly into his brain. Thad immediately sat back up and started typing furiously. Etak, having discovered as much about Katestory as it could, had finally found the source of its mission: Only by forcing Thad to delete every Katestory ever written could it accomplish its goal.
Brent took another swig of his beer and flipped on his PSOne.
+++++++
Kelly and Seelzar were in the thick of a massive horde, their bodies soaked in demon blood. A custodian of Demonwang foods drove a meat wagon not too far behind, harvesting the bounty of their river of gore for use in various snackfoods. It wasn't long in narrative terms before they reached DC proper and were stopped dead by a stone block roughly five football fields tall and wide and with a black iron door centered on its face. Two of the largest demons they'd encountered that week stood guarding it, one wielding a halberd made from a dire redwood tree, the other wearing dark glasses and a trench coat.
"We're here to deliver some asskicking. Can we go in?" Kelly rolled her eyes at Seelzar's cheesy line but let it slide in light of his recent loss.
The Neo-esque demon shrugged. "You'd have to kill-"
The gat delivered a hot stream of depleted uranium into its skull and it dropped dead. "How about you?" she asked the other, who promptly stepped aside sixteen feet and turned his head slightly to the right. "Something in my eye," he mumbled as they walked past.
The doorknob foiled Seelzar for not a moment and he grinned. "We figured that out a while back," he said and started to step through, but Kelly raised a hand. "We've got company."
Elayne's reanimated corpse lept screaming from the quasi-described foliage beside the gate, her talons ripping the air in a direct line for Seelzar's neck. He backflipped and sliced her belly with his talons but she merely became lighter and faster with the expulsion of her magically rotten guts onto Kelly. The viscera immediately jammed the mechanisms of her mech's guns.
Jumping down from the machine in disgust she flipped the AK off her back and tried to take a bead on Elayne, but now the zombie had landed and become entangled with Seelzar. As they battled, a spinning, ripping vortex of talons and screams, Kelly stood waffling between abandoning Seelzar to his battle and helping him. Her compassion won.
"Get down, Seelzar!" She opened fire as he hit the deck and the most reliable war machine ever made cut a chunk out of Elayne's brainpan.
"Oh my GOD. Elayne... argh!" Clearly on the brink, Seelzar backed awkwardly away from his mate's corpse and bowed his head, trying desperately to cover his enormous eyes with hands that could not reach them.
"Come on, Seelzar. Pull it together. She's already dead and we have a job to do."
Be it revenge or shock, Seelzar managed to turn his attention back to the task at hand, but his eyes had glazed with fury and try as she might, Kelly couldn't get him to hear her screaming for him to circle around and flank the squadron of temporal ghost ninjas approaching from the west. As they battled on, Seelzar's motions became fluidly robotic, his talons tearing limbs and vital organs free without discern for his own safety. She watched horrified as he waded into the dead middle of a pack of vernicious knids backed by a murder of airborne crowmen bearing particle beams.
Unbelievably he emerged ten minutes later without a scratch on his feathery hide. Kelly tried to break through his rage with a question. "When did you get neck feathers?"
"About 72 million years ago." he replied in a dead voice. "There's a tower ahead. Do you think-?"
"Definitely a decoy. Let's head for the shack on the right. I noticed several troopers came from that direction."
They loped along, Kelly with a particle gun and Seelzar with nothing but his feathers dripping with green and yellow and orange and blue and clear ichor.
-
The shack was empty and too quiet. Kelly turned in a circle with the particle gun, then made her way to the door into the next room, taking another quick look around.
"How does that gun work, anyway?" asked Seelzar. "I thought the magic fucked up modern technology."
"It does," she responded. "I don't know how they managed to use them, and I'm hoping I don't have to test it myself."
"Maybe you shouldn't say that so loud."
"You brought it up," Kelly said with a wan grin, "but anyway, I'm pretty sure this place is empty."
"But we saw guards coming out."
Kell opened the door at the end of that room, and revealed stone stairs leading down.
Seelzar sucked on a fang. "That doesn't look like it belongs."
Kelly pulled a stone from her pocket. It glowed blue. "It doesn't. We found a gateway."
"So Vera --?"
"Yeah, she and the rest of the bulwark will pick up the signal and be here in a minute." Kelly started down the stairs.
"Should we wait for them?" Kelly shook her head. "Ah, I get it. Forge on ahead, clear out any goons we find. And keep them covered while they cast their spell."
Kelly nodded and descended the stairs, Seelzar following, the only light the glowing stone in her hand. It seemed that the staircase curved slightly, in a very wide circle, an impossibly wide circle, wider than the shack they had entered. And far too deep -- down and down they went, deeper and deeper, down and down and down and
"Kelly?" said Seelzar.
"What?"
"When did we start going...up?"
Kelly realized he was right -- they were moving up. She looked over her shoulder, but the stairs behind them went down, as far as the glow illuminated them.
"The gates distort things," she said at last. "It's not a strictly euclidean path we're following." And she trudged onward, and upward.
Up, up, up -- it seemed like hours -- and then there was a tiny wooden door, rounded on the top. Kelly opened it a crack and sighed. "I was afraid of this."
She and Seelzar stepped out, and, inexplicably, directly onto the roof of the White House. Across from them, they saw another door open, Vera, Carter, and Fig stepping through, jaws set, with an armored woman who must surely be Janey. Above them, a giant gate rent the sky; it would be the Bulwark's duty to close it.
In front of them was something that would make it rather difficult to concentrate on the gate: a great red dragon, nostrils flaring.
"GO!" shouted a confident voice. "We'll, ah, hold off the Archdemon!"
The Guardians of the Globe stepped from a third doorway.
"This is MY house," growled the President.
"STUPEFY!" shouted Harry, as he took to the sky on his broom.
Vera nodded at Carter. He ran to the farthest spot from the Archdemon, the rest of the assembled Bulwark following. Fig traced a chalk line; Carter knelt, closed his eyes, and began to chant. Janey drew a broadsword, Vera a wand, and Fig his trusty Uzi; they stood protectively over their comrade.
"So at this point," said Kelly, "our job is, keep the dragon away from that guy over there."
Seelzar nodded, emitted a roar, and leapt feet-first at the Archdemon.
-
The Archdemon was having none of it. It batted Seelzar away with a swipe of its claws and sent a plume of flame right at Harry, then in a single bound was right on top of the Bulwark. The force of his landing shook them right off their feet -- knees, in Carter's case. His head smacked the rooftop and he knew no more.
There was a hum and a thrum and the dragon jerked its head around. Kelly had activated the pulse cannon. It didn't seem like it was working quite right; it was shaking in her hands -- but it had zapped him. She fired off another shot -- it only dealt him a grazing blow this time, but she had his attention -- long enough for Billy to step out of the shadows and fire a shotgun blast right into the dragon's eye. It howled, and before it could recover Fig had come up alongside it and was emptying as many rounds as he could fire into its hide.
Vera looked down at Carter and cursed. She felt his pulse, sighed with relief, and then scowled. She clenched her jaw in thought, grimaced, and reached a decision. She withdrew a chimaera wing from Carter's pocket and threw it skyward; he disappeared. She reached into her robe, turned to Janey, and thrust a folded-up piece of paper into her hand.
"I know you can close the gate," she whispered. "And if you try to double-cross us, I assure you I will drag you to Hell with the rest of the world."
Janey ignored the threat and unfolded the piece of paper. She recognized the spell; she had seen it in the book she had accidentally borrowed from the library all those months ago -- copied in Vera's handwriting. She handed her sword to the middle-aged (thirtysomething? it was hard to tell) woman and began muttering guttural sounds.
The dragon roared; a dozen darkspawn began running toward her.
"EAT SHIT AND DIE!" shouted Spawn, and beat the darkspawn with his chain, as Rick buried his axe in a Hurlock's skull and Seelzar disemboweled another.
Janey traced a series of very precise arcane symbols in the air. She could feel the heat of the dragon's breath coming toward her --
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" shouted Harry, and a silver stag appeared before Janey, absorbing the heat and the force of the flames.
She kicked the ground before her, scattering debris. There was a tremor, the strongest yet, a feeling of constricting, and a Lavos shriek -- and the blackness began, perceptibly, to shrink. Janey staggered forward as the gateway closed; Vera caught her.
There was silence -- just for a moment -- and then the dragon roared in rage.
That was when the final door opened on the rooftop. Larry Tinnik held it open for the mysterious man who was the head of the Bulwark; he pushed Old Man Rivers onto the roof in his wheelchair. And, bringing up the rear:
"Hi, dragon. I'm Gok. I hear you're the baddest fucking demon in two worlds." The fur on Gok's body stood on end as he rolled up his sleeves. "But the thing is, I cook demons for breakfast. Fucking literally. And you are going to make me even richer than I already am."
With that, he reached for the scabbard on his hip and withdrew a giant potato peeler. For the first time, Janey could see fear in the Archdemon's eyes.
The beast reared up, as if it would fly away -- but it seemed stuck fast. Janey could feel waves of power --
-- it was Old Man Rivers. He sat there in his wheelchair, silent, his gaze fixed directly on the dragon and a snarl twisting his mouth.
Gok strode forward, swinging the peeler in a broad, lazy arc. And he began to sing.
"His head was bent in sorrow --" slice "-- red scales fell like rain." And they did. "Puff no longer went to play along the Cherry Lane..." Swish, swish; he was cutting through the dragon's hide like it was hardly there.
"Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave --" Gok thrust the sharp end of his peeler-sword into the beast's chest and cut a seam. "So Puff, that mighty dragon, sadly slipped into his cave!"
He reached his hand into the beast's chest and pulled its heart out. He dropped it in a Styrofoam to-go box, took several steps back, and watched the beast fall, dead.
A collective sigh went up from the gathered heroes, and then Rivers snapped up. Fig ran to him, pulled him from his chair.
"What's happening?" said Janey.
"This is how we kill Archfiends," said Vera, softly. "The beast's soul inhabits the nearest Warden, and then...we kill him."
"No," whispered Janey. "No!" she called to Fig, "You don't have to --!" She reached for her boot. "I have a spirit knife, I've done this before --"
Fig shook his head sorrowfully. "I'm afraid this isn't like that, Janey," he said. "You can't kill this demon outside of a Grey Warden host. If you use that knife, it'll just jump to the next one -- me."
"But --" Janey tried to say something, and then finally sobbed and collapsed to her knees. Vera put a hand on her shoulder -- comfortingly; the first time Janey had ever associated that word with her.
With difficulty, Rivers turned and faced Janey, with a look of gratitude. But he shook his head, gave a weak smile, and turned to Fig.
"Goodbye, old friend," whispered Fig. A knife flashed in his hand. Janey put her head in her hands; Vera held her tightly.
And then it was as if the whole world exhaled. Clouds gathered, and a gentle rain began to fall.
-
Kelly and Billy were married, and, thanks to Cyan Prime's intervention, the karaoke bar WAS rebuilt in time for the big finale. Cyan Prime still got banned from the forums for life, though. It was for the best, really.
Jonathan "Doctor" Cain's opening piano bars began to play, and Kelly took to the mic.
Just a smalltown girl, livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere
Billy chimed in:
Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit
He took the midnight train goin' anywhere
Gok:
A singer in a smo-kay room
Plot:
The smell o' wine and cheap perfume
Both:
For a smile they can share the night
Marvin:
It goes on and on and on and on
And the newlyweds again:
Strangers, waitin'
Up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searchin' in the ni-i-ight
Derek the Derelict:
Streetlight people
LOGIC:
Livin' just to find emotion
Jojo the Flipping Elf:
Hidin' somewhere in the niiiiiiiight
The Flyin' Dork sang along with the piano:
Laaaa, la la laaaa, la la laaaa, la la laaaaa, la la laaaa
Janey:
Workin' hard to get my fill
Vera:
Everybody wants a thrill
(Janey squeezed her hand)
Gok:
Payin' anythin' to roll the dice
Just one more time
Fig:
Some will win, some will lose
Seelzar:
Some are born to sing the blues
Kate:
Oh the KateStory never ends
It goes on and on and on and on!
Everybody cheered! She'd changed the words to the name of the thing they were in!
Uncle Larry:
Strangers, waitin'
Jones:
Up and down the boulevard
MYSTERIOUSSHADOWYFIGURE:
Their shadows searchin' in the ni-i-ight
Girard:
Streetlight people
Lanny Lungfungus:
Livin' just to find emotion
Stef and Steve:
Hidin' somewhere in the NIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT
X made a guitar out of lasers, like any good sci-fi robot can, and ripped a righteous power chord.
GUITAR SOLO!
And Maleophonix took to the stage.
DON'T STOP BELIEEEVIN'
HOLD ON TO THAT FEEEEELAHAHAHIN
STREETLIGHT PEEEEOPLE OHHHOHOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
DON'T STOP BELIEEEEVIN'
HOLD OHOHOHOHONNNNN
STREETLIGHT PEEEEOPLE OHHHOHOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
He transformed into Hedgehog X and began breakdancing.
DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'
HOLD ON TO THAT FEEEEELIN'
STREETLIGHT PEOPLE OHOHOHOHOHOHHH
The company sang another chorus. Because this was a karaoke version with an extra chorus. I don't know. Do I look like I spend a lot of time in karaoke bars? I tried to go to one once. There was no karaoke. And then Kazz kicked a beer can into the back of my head.
STRANGERS, WAITIN'
UP AND DOWN THE BOULEVARD
THEIR SHADOWS SEARCHIN' IN THE NI-I-IGHT
STREETLIGHT PEOPLE
LIVIN' JUST TO FIND EMOTION
HIDIN' SOMEWHERE IN THE NIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is 1986, and I am a spy in Mumm-Ra's pyramid. He's observing Skeletor in his cauldron.
I am three years old, and I am dreaming in self-insertion crossover fanfic...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'
HOLD ON TO THAT FEELIN'
STREETLIGHT PEOPLE OHOHOH
DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'
HOLD ON TO THAT FEELIN'
STREETLIGHT PEOPLE OHOHOHHHHH
DON'T STOP!
And then they stopped.
The newlyweds took a bow, and the cast erupted into applause and raucous cheers.
Anticlimax slid up to the mic and began to sing.
"Any way you want it, that's the way you want it, any way you want it, wantitwantitwantitwantit..."
But those were the wrong words. To a different song. And the song was over. Oh, Anticlimax, will you ever win?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thad and Brentai strode away from the karaoke bar, heads held high in drunken merriment.
"So," said Brentai, "fifteen fucking years of this thing, huh?" He was trying to sound less pleased than he actually was.
Thad's watch beeped and flashed a little blue light. "Don't look now, Brentai my good man," he said, "but it's sixteen."
"Thad?" said Brentai. "It's just Brent now, okay?"
"BRENT?" Thad was incredulous.
"Just Brent," confirmed some king-guy who showed up. Then he kicked a beer can into the back of Thad's head.
"Brent it is," said Thad.
KATESTORY XVIII: KATESTORY FOREVER
16 YEARS, MOTHERFUCKERS
DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'.
-
And then the world exploded.