KateStory XV

Kelly was a girl who lived in a faraway land. She was bored a lot, so she decided to go on an adventure.

This has made a lot of people angry and been widely regarded as a very bad move.

Ten years.

Ten. Fucking. YEARS.

A choir of angels sang. Bells rang. Babies gurgled.

But, deep within the fabled Canadas, one man was not happy.

KateStory, eh? TENTH ANNIVERSARY, EH?! BAH! I, Geothermal, HATE all Sonic '94 tenth anniversary celebrations and have vowed to DESTROY them!

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It was Friday. This meant that the members of the Mighty Trinity were experiencing great disturbances in the Force.

My Spider-Sense is tingling!
I sense a great disturbance in the Force!
...It's Geo. He wants to destroy this.
...Uh, yeah. You know, that's really completely meaningless since you're a mod now. As part of that whole us switching bodies thing.
Oh yeah. ...Which is why you've been having sex with my WIFE, isn't it!
...Zero words in that sentence made sense.
STAY AWAY FROM MY STACHE!
...I hate you all.
...Anyway. We both know there's only one man AFROCIOUS enough to combat Geothermal.
What up.
AFRO JON! YOU MUST DEFEAT GEOTHERMAL AND SAVE THE KATESTORY!
WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!

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SO. They think AFRO JON has the mightiest afro?!
I WILL DESTROY HIM!

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VS.

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WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!
...
WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!
...
WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!
...
WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!
...Jesus Christ, when's he going to get here? Is he running all the way to Canadia?!

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SEVERAL MONTHS LATER...

WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!
SO, Afro Jon! AT LAST WE FINALLY MEET! And now we shall begin the deadly combat!
WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!
...Except you're running right past me.
WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!
...And toward my fridge...
WAHlalaWAHlalaWAHlalaWAH!
...OH MY GOD HE'S TAKING MY BEER AND RUNNING AWAY!

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SEVERAL MONTHS LATER...

Oh man, I totally stole that guy's beer!
Hey, mang, pass me one of those.

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This isn't over, Afro Jon...
You should know better than to come between a Canadian and his BEER.

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Foster's. Australian for Canadian beer.

...Until the next day.  Or the one before, it's hard to tell with these things.

As usual, not having been around much, or at all, the Prime Minister of Branania was inclined to show up at the most unlikely time, but only when a long overdue joke was way past the punchline.

<Narrator>  That's right kids, it's time for the wacky fun hour with Nedlinpopo!!!

<Nedlinpopo> YEEEEESSSS!

*off in a dank castle somewhere lightning flashed and thunder crashed, while Dr. Billy continues to look absurdly vindictive and poorly underlit.

<Nedlinpopo> So...

<Megaman> So...

<Hedgehog X> So...

<Luke> I'm bored, lets smash something

<AfroJon>  What the fuck is happening?

<Brad> Vote for me, I'm not criminally insane!>

<Narrator> "EVIL IS PRO-GREEEESSSSIIIIIIINNNNNGGGG...!!![Obsequious punctuation deleted]"

*Just then the author ran out of other good ideas, so he quickly cobbled together this last little bit of punchline

As Luck would have it Castle chaos was conveniently folded in such a was as to have Kate and her corps actually in the *GASP* same dark and unhappy room, it just was so long and poorly lit that they thought they were in opposite sides of the castle.

<Kate>  I'm not even supposed to be here today!

*then as is typical for a girl/woman/female homosapein(probably) she walked across the room and slappped the narrator in the face.

<Kate> this story has nothing to do with me or anything, this is completely insane!  thei whole thing is now 9 times older than the universe itself!

*Kate slaps the narrator again this time on the other side fo the face

<Kate> What is you freaking problem(very ladylike, unusually so for a pile of circular story written by a bunch of nostalgianauts)?!

*It is at this moment when the central truth of the matter is revealed.  Kate notices that there is a disgusting piece of skin hanging from in front of the narrators ear, so she pulls at it.  Hard.  Cheezy movie style.  Hard.  And the Narrator is revealed to be none othe than...

VINCENT PRICE!!!

for the hippos...

The planet Earth is a hunk of rock 12,700 kilometres wide that floats in space in the Milky Way galaxy. It was bored a lot, so it decided it didn't particularly mind a bunch of monsters rolling up its natural flora, fauna and cars into balls larger than it cared to think about.

This has made a lot of people angry and been widely regarded as a very bad move.

I am getting REAL tired of my posts being deleted, here.

Brent breathed in deeply, clicked on WinAmp, changed the playing track to The Transformers Theme (by Lion), and, with heavy metal in his veins, boldly braved the massively irritating task of rewriting his whole fucking post.  Fuckshit.

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"Casting your vote for Mary-Kate instead of Ashley," intoned the disembodied voice of the disembodied spirit of the disembodied head of the disembodied Amazing Mr. H, "That is just... un-surferiffic."

"Bite me," X growled, and turned to shoot the ghast with his ecto-beam.  But Mr. H's soul wasn't there.  It had dissipated, only to reappear several feet above X's head.

"Tsk, tsk," chided the spirit, "Such a temper, Mega Man X.  And to think you used to be such a pacifi... WHAT IN THE UBERCHRIST IS THAT?"

X, whose reflexes were better than the Amazing Mr. H's on account of him being both a robot and actually corporeal, managed to jump out of the way before a nearly moon-sized ball of assorted junk rolled over them, taking the spirit of Mr. H along with it as it passed.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!" screamed the Amazing Spirit of Mr. H, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha, aaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha!"  The entire ball began to glow with ghostly energy as the laughing continued.  "Aaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaha, AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, AAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"

X witnessed before his eyes a startling transformation.  The ball began to reshape itself, and lifted slowly into the air.  Eyes opened, lips parted, a mustache began to grow.  Soon, X was standing before a moon-sized replica of Mr. H's head, glowing bright with his ghastly spirit as it looked down on him from above.

"I... AM HITLERCRON," it boomed.

"Shit," was all X could say.

"I'll take care of him!" shouted Steve as he zoomed onto the scene in his Super Hero Mobile.  With all his might he drive the car courageously into the floating head of Hitlercron, but unfortunately all he could manage was making the SHM explode spectacularly against the side of the monstrosity.

"Fuk," coughed Steve as he lay bleeding on the car, "Even that car couldn't kick enough ass to defeat Hitlercron."  And then he was instantly vaporized as Hitlercron turned his gaze upon the fallen hero.

"Shit," X said again, and teleported back to home base.

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"The plan itself went off without a hitch," X explained, "As you all know,
the severely crippled Illuminati has had to hold public elections for its new head honcho.  Of course, since they're still trying to keep a veneer of secrecy, and since members aren't allowed to vote, the only people the election was accessible to was its enemies... in other words, us."

"And since you were the most resistant to the effects of the... world outside, you volunteered to go and cast the vote," finished Gok from his hanging cage.  One of Janey's screams had gotten a bit too loud, and as such the core cast was quickly able to find the two stragglers and do the right thing with them: beat them mercilessly and lock them in hanging cages.  The last thing anybody needed right now was another rogue element.  "Okay, so, I assume you got that done.  So what's the problem now?"

"I'll tell you what the problem is," X answered, narrowing his eyes and looking around the meeting table for added effect, "Hitlercron."

There was a dead silence.

Finally Kelly spoke up.  "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Hitler," said X, "Cron.  Apparently Hitler's disembodied spirit-head is loose again, perhaps because some dickhead shut off the power grid..." All eyes turned to Anticlimax.

He shrugged.  "I thought it would work."

All eyes turned back to the table.  "Well, he's got this new form, see.  Hitlercron.  He's a giant... ball... thing... head... thing.  I think a fought a Sigma like that once.  I've been through so many it's hard to remember."

"So, big deal," HX said with a nonchalant waving of his hand, "He'll just be wiped out in the next reboot."

"It's not so simple," Kate added.  "PLOT has been showing signs of life again."

"And LOGIC too, no doubt," said HX, sighing and resting his spiny head in one of his gloves.  "That means that the universe will show some small semblance of coherency until such time as we run the course of destiny, right?  At which point it just explodes again.  Eh, fuck it.  Hey Al, what are the chances we have to save the universe from Hitlercron?"

"Ziggy shows there's an 80% chance that Hitlercron is involved in some way with this leap."  And then Al's jaw snapped backwards and he started peeling inside out like a banana until he was halfway turned, at which point he just stayed like that.

"Well, that was random," HX said, and turned his attention back to the meeting table.  "All right.  Anybody got a plan of action?"

"I HAVE A FEW SUGGESTIONS," bellowed Hitlercron from outside the stained glass window of Castle Chaos.

"Shit," said X one more time.

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Brent noticed that Random Guy decided to post despite the fact that it was clearly obvious that he was in the middle of one.

"You think that'll stop me?  I'll show you, you 3-inch-dick-prick!"  And then he willingly caused a Median Effect.

Tell me when you're scanning those last few chapters for plot details when you get to the post where I mention that I've managed to lose posts in text editors as well.

It's kind of a Katestory curse.  I don't save this shit because it's pretty much popping out of my head in a constant stream of bullshit that I'm desperately trying to stop.

Thad awoke to the sound of his alarm music, tired and very confused.  The faint light seeping in his window was slate gray.

A storm, he thought.  Probably snow.  Even the weather's apocalyptic.

He opened the blinds a crack with his fingers.

Holy shit...not a cloud in the sky.  It's just...a slate gray sky.  Now this really IS apocalyptic.  I've never seen anything like it.

Off in the distance, however, he caught blue sky.

Oh.  It's fucking dawn.

It was going to be one of those days.

And so it was.

The FCC subsequently raised a huge fuss and fined various news organizations for broadcasting the offending material.

The zombies publicly apologized for what was described as a "wardrobe malfunction graaaaaaaaaaaargh."

X, Hedgehog X, and Gok Tinnik walked down the street, shiftily, in trenchcoats, big hats, and hockey masks, trying to look inconspicuous.  Billy, Kelly, Janey, and Kate walked with them in their ordinary street clothes.

Brad Majors walked past and waved genially.  Cyan Garamonde followed, babbling about something or other.  Arthur Dent seemed elated just to be back home on Earth.

"Oh, this fucking tears it," said HX, and tore off his trenchcoat moodily.  "Don't you idiots see what's happened?"

"KateStory," Kate whispered.  "A path to every work of fiction EVER WRITTEN.  Has merged.  With REALITY."

It was about this point that everyone noticed the giant swirling cylinder of green light rising from the ground as far into the sky as the eye could see.  Fictitious characters shuffled forth from it.

"By George," said Allan Quatermain.  "This means...there IS no fiction!  Every novel, every movie, every video game and comic book, is now a documentary!"

A throng of people walked by and didn't pay the strange travelers any thought.

X ripped his trenchcoat off too.  "Of course.  And with George Bush in the White House and all LOGIC gone, nobody's even going to notice us."

"*I* say," said Hedgehog X, "we find Zaphod Beeblebrox and have him mix us up some PGGB's."

"Good call," said a tipsy voice.  "We're going to want to get good and wasted for this one."

The seven heroes turned, and there stood Thad, looking tired and sad and clutching a 40 of Brad's Homebrew.  Brent was with him, clutching a baseball bat so hard his knuckles were white and softly singing terrible '80's pop.

"Thad," said X.  "Brent.  Good to see you guys again.  I guess."

Billy bought a soda from a nearby machine.  "So what do we do now?"

Everyone looked in the direction of a large van with a set of keys that someone foolishly left in the ignition.

Everyone looked at each other.

"ROAD TRIP!"

A fierce melee broke out on who got to drive.  Hedgehog X won that little argument.  Another fierce melee broke out on who got to ride shotgun.  X won that.

For author convenience, the nexus between worlds dropped everyone off in San Francisco, California, and they decided that the best destination would be Washington, DC, so they could sneak in to the White House and punch GW in the face.

"But first," said Hedgehog X, "we find Zaphod Beeblebrox and have him MIX US UP SOME PGGB'S."

It was a good day for repetition.

It's the, eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight!
No, it's prob'ly the titties!
Now you're a man!  A man, man, man
Of the tiger.

Superasshole got off the table, sat down, reverted to Thad, and rang a little bell.

"Oh BARKEEP!  Another round of gargle blasters for the SCOURGE OF EZBOARD MORONS!"

"Dude," said Brent, "you totally saved the Internet."

"I totally did," Thad agreed.  "Man, that shit was just like old times."

"Yeah," said Brent.  "Except I didn't actually participate."

"Hey!" said Hedgehog X.  "Anyone remember David Hedgieman's Top Ten?"

"I try not to," Brent responded.

Meanwhile, X was sitting off in a corner staring at his hands in sort of a dazed surprise.  It was the sort of dazed surprise a normal person might stare at his hands with if he knew one or both could at any moment turn into a high-powered plasma cannon.  Of course, for X, this was perfectly normal, so that couldn't be it.

"Say, why the long face, metalman?" asked Thad.

"While you were saving the Internet," X said, "did you happen to notice anything...important coming out of it?"

Thad gave a blank stare.

"ASHCROFT RESIGNED," X said.

Everybody danced.  For two hours.  Even X.  But eventually X sat back down and started staring at his hands again.

"Don't you guys remember?  I JUST GOT FINISHED VOTING ASHCROFT OUT OF THE ILLUMINATI IN THE OTHER WORLD.  *I* did this somehow.  This merging of the worlds...we have real potential to change things now.  For the better."

Thad stood at attention, knocking over a table in the process.  "RIGHT.  Which means we should get back to our face-punching mission."

"Yes," said X, "yes we should."  He looked around the room and saw Hedgehog X expounding David Hedgieman's Top Ten Words Most Commonly Used By Retarded EZBoard Users to a hat rack.

"Number eight: asshat."

X heaved a long-suffering robotic sigh.

"I'll drive, you fucking carbon-based lushes."

The plywood floor of the bar reverberated with each of Captain Nippon's mighty steps, his weapon's spikes making deep, shrieking scratches until he finally sat down on a metal stool. It groaned for a few moments, but miraculously stood up to his mammoth girth. It took some doing for him to find the bartender with his ridiculously squinty eyes.

"Saki!" he bellowed, slamming the top of the bar almost to flinders with his fist, "Wots of it, too!"

In some parody of non-chalant, he turned to Roxy to speak. She never once acknowledged his presence.

"Soooo," he started, "You and your fwiend are rooking to join the KateStory, eh? Perhaps I ca - "

"No. Not really," replied Roxy. She bit on a fresh cig' and lit a match without missing a beat, calmly avoiding eye contact or even visual acknowlegement of Captain Nippon's existence all the while. Arkansas jumped from his chair to say something in a presumably cloisome gee-whiz manner, but Roxy silenced him mid-one liner with a mean look.

Nippon paused for the time required for the bartender to place the little cup of rice wine in front of him and then dive underneath the bar. "I see..." He held the glass in a dainty manner twixt forefinger and thumb, then downed it without so much as a blink. From out of nowhere, he leened a ways over the bar and crowned the barkeep with his club. Roxy looked puzzled as the poor soul began to spasm from severe brain trauma.

"Well, uh, I guess that's one way to beat the tab," she quipped while cupping the small light close to her mouth.

"Sowwy," snickered Captain Nippon, "I have to do that flom time to time. It's a fowcive habit."

KAZAAM!
G'DAMN!
SHAZAM!
...
What? Out of sequence?
...So, anyway. Do you think just the two of us can handle this?
Um.
You know. The number just before three but after one on the Arabic numeral system? Duo? Dos?
I --
Well...
Elsewhere:
Dude, see if you can position the camera so my hands look like they're wrapped around the Washington Monument while I make lewd faces!
Fuckin' A!
You need to take the cover off first.
And that's not the camera, that's your...OH MY GOD.
Ha ha ha! Mine's bigger!
...Yeah, I think we've got this under control.
Shit. What about Steve?
He was vaporized by Hitlercron, remember?
Oh. X, can you give us a hand? X...?
So... What are looking at here?
Oh, you know - death, disorder, destruction. I was thinking about letting Mike Allred be my Head of Security, actually.
Right. And what do I get out of all of this?
Uh. Geez, I don't know. A headstart on a new world order? An environment free of vigilante robots on account of no humans there to make them?
...Yeeeah. I'm charging up my X Buster now.
...A lonely wasteland on which to brood and sulk about your mostly insignificant failings?
Motherfucking sold.
Okay, now I'm thinking that we need back-up.
Hello.
Argh! My sanity!
This is a job for...The Legendary Society of Obscure Characters!

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When suddenly, the structure of the KateStory lurched. Everyone onboard threw up because they weren't paying attention.

Captain Nazi climbed hand over hand up and out the hatch of his seacraft. The subtle wafting of the sea breeze and the splash of foam soothed him. He smiled to the horizon. The sun was just now beginning to lower over the horizon, just as his wrath would descend upon the American pigs in Washington. Soon they would  lower into the depths. With a bit of luck, they would avoid the Coast Guard and make their entry into the city of D.C. by nightfall. He could hear a young Huck Finn scramble on deck. The lumbering Crazy Willy was close behind. Nazi heard Crazy Willy scream his trademark "EAT SHIT AND DIE!" before trying to crush the shivering but spry country bumpkin with his bare fists, but didn't bother to intercede, as he was too lost in his clunky metaphors. Soon enough, Bad Native American Stereotype joined them, and managed to seperate Crazy Willy and Finn before Willy grabbed the youth by his ankle and slammed him against the hull like an overly excited child with a rag doll.

Do children even play with rag dolls anymore, thought Captain Nazi as he wistfully stared out onto the waves.

"Uh, sir? Yeah, I guess it's 'sir'..."

Captain Nazi sighed and eventually replied, never losing his aimless gaze. "Vat is it, B-N-A-S?" His hand tensed around something under his uniform.

"Why am I even here? The group name is The Legendary Society of Obscure Characters, and I don't think I fit alongside old World War Two-era comic book villains and - "

Captain Nazi produced a luger from the folds of his cloak and fired at Bad Native American Stereotype without even turning. Which was silly, because it only ended up grazing the dark-skinned behemoth's shoulder. Crazy Willy even looked up puzzlingly, Huck Finn's burst cranium still in his hands. A few surreal moments passed, topped off as a young boy's brain juices slid down the smooth hillside of metal into the passing waters.

Bad Native American Stereotype said nothing. He turned and descended the nearby ladder, made somewhat more difficult by having to keep pressure on his wound. Captain Nazi never returned his careful stares, but stayed erect and alert at the darkening oblivion of the ocean at sunset.

"Queeezacoooaaatl!" said the Aztech priest. He was feeling lonely and ignored.

Crazy Willy looked at Quezacoatl with a murderous gaze.

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

Quezacoatl, not to be outdone, belted out his name like some politically offensive Pokemon.

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

"QUEEZACOOOAAATLLL!"

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

"QUEEZACOOOAAATLLL!"

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

"QUEEZACOOOAAATLLL!"

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

"QUEEZACOOOAAATLLL!"

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

"QUEEZACOOOAAATLLL!"

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

"QUEEZACOOOAAATLLL!"

Captain Nazi spun on his heel and nailed through the temple with surprising accuracy. Crazy Willy had never rose from his position over Huck Finn's ruined corpse, and looked back blankly at his commander.

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!"

"Zoon, my friend," hummed Nazi.

"Very zoon..."

-----------------------------~====________[%$#@...

This...isn't...really happening!
Actually, you fellows are kind of annoying. I'm thinking that we'll kill you first. With murder.
Fine. I'm going. SHAZAM!
And finally the smoke cleared, revealing...
Gasp! Oh my fuck! It's...


Timmy!

INTERLUDE

"Excuse me for a minute," said Thad.

"Uh...okay," said Yog Sothoth.

Thad grabbed Brent's arms and hauled him away.

"They're bitching about Simpsons again," he hissed.

"So what do you want me to do about it?" Brent responded.

"You know goddamn well what I want you to do about it!" Thad hissed.

Brent rolled his eyes.  "Fine, god dammit.  Take it.  But you have to give it back when you're done.  It's mine now."

Thad nodded.  "Yeah, yeah.  This is just like that time in the second season where Sven got to fly Blue Lion one last time.  Now if you'll excuse me..."

Thad zoomed back over to the Boba Fett thread.

"I HATE YOU ALL."

And then he zoomed back and returned the catchphrase to Brent.

Yog Sothoth and Mormos stood tapping their...well, tentacles I guess.  Tapping their tentacles.  Also they had tentacles crossed in front of them like crossed arms indicating irritation.

"Sorry," Thad said.  "Had business to attend to."

END INTERLUDE

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So okay.  X has gone and switched sides on us, right?
Mmmmhmmmm.
So we're fighting him, Mormos, and Yog Sothoth?
Eeeeeyup.
...What the fuck happened to Kelly, Billy, Janey, Gok, and Kate?

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"What up," said Kate.

"The narrative structure just changed back," Brent observed.

"Eeeeeyup," Thad said.

"...You couldn't find a picture of Kate, could you," Brent observed.

"Mmmmmnope," Thad said.

"I bet you rummaged through old CD's and archive.org, didn't you," Brent asked rhetorically.

"Mmmmmhmmmm," Thad said.  "Fuckers only kept my index page for some reason."

"Wait a minute.  Didn't Jill draw her once too?"

"Eeeeyup," Thad responded.  "Found the link and everything.  But no image."

"Lousy archive," Brent muttered.

Kate cleared her throat.  "The important thing," she said, "is that I'm here now.  And I've brought a friend."

As if for the first time, Thad and Brent noticed Stef.

Stef grinned.  "This almost became the KateStory I never replied to," she said.

"Actually," Thad said, "you didn't post in 6, 8, or 11."

"...," said Stef.

"...Yes, well.  I really think we should settle this business with Mormos and Yog Sothoth, because it's a tremendously unpopular story thread which nobody seems to want to settle."

And with that, he left it for somebody else to settle.  Because for somebody four days away from picking up his degree, he really wasn't that bright.

Stef remained puased in silence and slapped a hand to her forehead, "You know I had no means of replying 6, 8 or 11 which is why I didn't reply therefore THIS WAS ALMOST THE ONE WHERE I NEVER REPLIED TO".  Kate looked at her "reality" counterpart.
"Were you always this spastic", Kate said somewhat fearfully,"Because I alwasy recall you being this sort of happy girl".  Stef turned around and faced Kate.
"Shut up, Shut up, Shut up. Your a stupid fucking figment of my imagination, all of this crap is", She screamed and then pointed to Brent and Thad, "ANd you two, I've known you guys for like ten years and the only way we've ever met is through this dumb story...I give up".  Stef sat on the ground crossed legged and placed her head in her hands.

"I know what this is about!!!", squeaked a tiny voice.  Everyone looked around puzzled to see where it was coming from.  "Oh never mind where its coming from..I KNOW why Stef is so angry tonight"

"Why's that", asked the crowd.

"She's just bitter because she played FFVI for 3 hours and still hasn't uncursed that cursed shield and she's only at like battle 217"

*Facefault*                  

"No," Thad hissed.  "Not like this.  Not the tenth anniversary special.  It's not going to end like this."

A finger tapped him on the shoulder.

"Thaddeus Boyd?"

Thad whirled, and was faced with two dangerous-looking men in black suits with wires attached to their ears.

"You are under arrest for conspiracy to punch President Bush in the face."

Thad sighed.  "Well, I guess that just means KATE! NOW!"

Kate traced a circle in the air and a giant golden ring appeared.  Thad leapt through it.

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It's a funny thing, you know.  Sense memory.  I can't remember the backpropagation algorithm I learned last semester, but, even all these years later, if you stick a controller in my hands -- I don't care what kind of controller, Genesis, GameCube, PlaySation, whatever -- and put a copy of Sonic 3 in front of me, I'll have all seven Chaos Emeralds by Hilltop.  With seven Perfects.

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THAD HAS ALL CHAOS EMERALDS
NOW THAD CAN BECOME SUPER THAD

"SURPRISE, COCKFAGS!" Thad shouted as he rematerialized.  A quick double-jump and he transformed into a glowing, indestructible thing with ridiculous spiky yellow Toriyama hair.  He tore off to the White House at the speed of light.

(50...49...48...)

He hopped the front gate in a single spinny leap.

(30...29...28...)

He tore through the guards who attacked him, up winding staircases.

(20...19...18...)

He reached the Oval Office.

(10...9...8...)

And there was the President, who was talking animatedly on the phone.

"Listen, shithead, I told you, I ran on a platform saying there's no such thing as gravity, and the people elected me, so it must be true!  Didn't you hear?  I have a MANDATE!"

(3...2...)

Thad punched the President in the face.  As hard as his super form would allow.

(1...)

And he reverted to normal Thad.  Surrounded by about a hundred guys in suits with machine guns.

"You going to come with us now, Mr. Boyd?  Or are we going to have to shoot you?"

Thad cracked a grin.  "Shoot me."

Bullets tore through Thad's flesh -- and also the agent standing on the other side of him.  They really didn't think this circular firing squad thing through.

But of course seven Perfects means seven more lives.  Thad respawned...three feet away.

"Oh, fuck, I was wondering what a lamppost was doing in the middle of the Oval Office.  ...You spawn-camping whores."

They led him away in handcuffs.

"Uh, Kate?  Try and spring me from Gitmo BEFORE the sodomy starts, huh?"

Kate and Kelly sat in one of the dining halls of Castle Chaos.  They had returned to brood -- to reflect on the negative turn the universe had suddenly taken.

Mega Man X was there too -- when he'd heard there was going to be brooding, he insisted on coming along.

"The funny thing," Kate said, "is that I really should've seen this coming.  ...I was born on Earth, you know.  In 2000.  ...You know, that probably means I'm around here somewhere, in this timeline, five years old.  ...I didn't leave Earth until I was 15.  How the hell could I not have known about George Bush being elected to a second term, and the destruction and absurdity that would cause?"

Kelly shrugged.  "Two possible answers, I guess.  Either you're from a parallel universe and this timestream's been corrupted, or you're just a reflection of the American education system.  ...I mean, really, how many of my classmates knew who President Reagan was when *I* was in high school?"

"C'mon," said X softly, "I'll go make some cocoa."

And so he walked to the kitchen...and saw a beafroed form sneaking out.

"GUYS!" he shouted.  "WE'VE GOT INFILTRATION!"

Kate and Kelly rushed in.  "FOLLOW THAT FRO," X commanded.

"Dammit," muttered the figure, "I've been spotted."  He traced a circle in the air and a giant ring appeared.  He turned around, smirked, and hopped through.

"Geothermal?!"

"Stands to reason," X responded.  "He raided our fridge.  He was probably stealing our beer in retaliation."

"After him," Kate commanded.  The trio leapt through the ring.

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

They fell through another ring onto cold, hard ground.  The sky was dark, and dilapidated skyscrapers surrounded them.

"We've been expecting you," said a voice.

A crowd of thugs appeared from the shadows.

Crazy Willy
The Flyin' Dork
Jojo the Flipping Elf
Maleophonix the Singing Candy Machine
Evil Wokko
Mr. Shithead the Shithead

But something was different.  Each one showed evidence of cybernetic implants.

A plasma blast rang out.

"But I bet you weren't expecting us."

A spindly, red and black robot rolled into the fray brandishing a beam sabre.  A knight in a high-tech suit of armor followed.

"GO," X shouted, recovering from his surprise, and blasted Crazy Willy.

Willy just kept coming.  "EAT SHIT AND DIE!"  He swung his chain at X and shocked the fuck out of him.

Kate cut through the chain with her right hand's green chaos aura, but Willy produced another.  She ran her hand through his throat, decapitating him, but he sprung another head immediately.

"Something," hissed Kelly, "is WAY THE FUCK WRONG here."

"You have no idea," came an echoing, feminine voice from the knight's helmet, as she swung her sword in a wide arc and cut Maleophonix in two.  Each half grew a new machine.

The Flyin' Dork dodged the sword, flying out of the way.

"The Flyin' Dork can actually FLY," X hissed.  "That's it, get us the FUCK out of here."

The knight seemed to nod, and addressed someone they couldn't see: "He's right.  Get us back."

A giant ring appeared.  "Go, go, go," the knight hissed.  They retreated and the ring disappeared.

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

The sky was dark and hazy.  Ancient hulks of trees surrounded them, and they could see the dilapidated husks of primitive wooden huts.

X looked around in shock.  "This...is Knothole."

"It's all we have left," intoned the knight.  "The year is 22XX."

"That's 33XX Mobian calendar," said a voice from the darkness.

"And Castle Chaos?" Kate asked.

"It's gone," said the voice.  "We lost a lot of good people that day."

"And the Hidden Palace?"

"This is all we have left now," said the voice, and the speaker stepped out from the shadows.  "Deal with it."

The speaker was, unmistakably, Kate.  She had not aged, but looked somehow older: something in her eyes, the way she carried herself.  She had multiple piercings in one eyebrow and closely-cropped red hair.  She wore black leather pants, black leather boots, and a black leather jacket over an emerald-green shirt.

The Kates walked forward to examine each other.

"Surprised to see me?" asked future-Kate.

"A little.  I'm more surprised by the new look."

"What about the rest of us?" asked X.  He took a look at the robot who'd rescued them.  "Jesus, they don't make Reploids like they used to."  This Reploid looked like a parody of the old models, with spindly arms and legs and giant hands and feet, a round face with dots for eyes, no nose, and a narrow line for a mouth.

And...a ponytail.

"No."

"Yes," said a voice.  There was a shimmer of light and the ghostly form of X's own future self appeared.  "That is Mega Man Zero."

"What the hell happened?!" X asked, glancing between his own future self and Zero's in shock.

"It's a long story," said another voice.  A girl stepped out of yet another shadow -- the lighting was extremely poor here.  "Suffice it to say he doesn't remember you guys."

Zero cracked a nervous smile.  "Sorry about that."

"This is Ciel," said ghost-X, indicating the girl.  "She's a scientist, and was the leader of the resistance on Earth."

"Was?"

"The timestream's a fucking mess," said future-Kate.  "Geo's taken over Earth, and the bulk of Mobius too.  We all barely escaped."
 
"When he vowed revenge against Thad and the KateStory," continued future-X, "he meant it.  And when Bush got elected and destroyed LOGIC, and the timestream became fluid, he saw his chance."

"He started out small," said future-Kate, "doing little things, like corrupt the hard drive with KateStory IX on it, or raid the beer in the Castle Chaos fridge.  But he craved more power.  And so he came to this era, some two hundred years in his future -- one hundred years in yours, X and Kate --, and came after us in earnest."

"Jesus, Kelly," said another voice, "it's good to see you.  I'd forgotten how beautiful you were at that age."

X slapped his forehead.  "How many more figures are going to emerge from the shadows?"

"Just us," said a gruffer voice.

Two of them walked forward: Billy von Garda and Gok Tinnik.

Billy -- he had gray hair, glasses, and a mustache -- put a hand nervously on Kelly's shoulder.  "We, ah...we lost you."  He couldn't control the anguish in his voice.  "When Castle Chaos was destroyed."

Gok snarled and indicated a large scar on his craggy face and an eyepatch.  "I'm...I'm sorry.  I tried to save you.  Von Garda did too, of course, but I caught the brunt of the attack."

Kelly gritted her teeth.  "And Janey?  What about Janey?"

"Isn't it obvious?"  The knight, speaking the first time since they'd arrived at Knothole, removed her helmet.  Janey had aged well, probably because of her half-demon blood.  Her hair had streaks of silver, but her face was still youthful, and her skill in combat had shown she still had a young woman's reflexes.

"But wait," said Kelly.  "If this is two hundred years in our future...how are the three of you still alive?"

"Modern medicine, a lot of time travel," Billy responded, "and these."  He indicated necklaces the three of them wore, each containing a small piece of green gem.

"Pieces of Life Jade," Kate observed.  "Then...how could they kill Kelly if she had one too?"

"They're small pieces," future-Kate responded.  "They can slow down aging and speed up healing, but they can't grant immortality like the full Jades did.  And remember, even the combined might of all three Jades couldn't repel Julian's invasion."

"So what the fuck do we do now?!" snarled Gok.

"Stop Geo," said Kate, "save the world, repair the timestream, and make sure his attack never happens in the first place.  Save the KateStory."

X looked at Zero.  "Then what are we waiting for?  Let's go...partner."

Future-Kate nodded.  "Come with me."

She walked to one of the ancient huts -- Rotor's, Kate and X were dimly aware -- and produced a Chaos Emerald from her jacket pocket.  A trapdoor opened, and the party descended the steps into a giant underground lab.

It was like the scene in Merlin's armory: weapons of every description, from every era.

And, in one corner, to Kelly's pleasure, was a giant warmech.

"Right," said Future-Kate.  "Everybody get what you need.  This is going to be one hell of a battle."

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

When you have a KateStory to save...rip off something awesome.

McDohl was running down a long corridor, poorly lighted, the sounds of thumping music coming from several of them.  He looked over his shoulder and sighed as he fumbled for his keys.  "Phew...should be able to lose them in here."  He stood in front of a door marked '4-107'.  He inserted his key and opened the door, slipping in.  He only had a few hours, maybe, until the Evil Navy Reaming Squad found him again.  He walked over to his computer and sat down.  He twitched when he saw the Pyoko boards.

'How long has it been, McDohl?'

Before he could determine if it was himself or someone else speaking, there was an intense rumbling coming from the floor directly to McDohl's right, and an enormous green metal pipe extended from the floor.  He eyed it with suspicion, then decided that the Evil Navy Reaming Squad was probably a worse fate than whatever a large green metal pipe could bear.  With faith, he leaped in to the green pipe.

The Super Mario Brothers Pipe sound effect was triggered.

McDohl had entered the reality of Kate Story.

In one of those upside-down pipes.

"Fuck!" shouted McDohl as he fell from the sky.  The earth rushed quickly up beneath him as he prepared to leave this mortal coil when he hit the ground, it did that wierd dipping effect that they did when Neo fell off the building.  It launched him back in to the air, and he thudded on the pavement, the asphalt solid.  He stood up and dusted himself off and looked around.  Thunder and lightning clashed in the sky as he took in these new surroundings.  In the distance, silhouetted by the lightning, was the fro-shaped castle.  McDohl set out for the citadel, wondering what this world offered him.

Out of habit, he slid his hands in to the pockets of his cargo pants, and was shocked to find something other than his keys and wallet in there.  He pulled out what appeared to be a futuristic gun.  Instinctively, he pointed it at the nearest object, a trash can, and fired.  Immediately, the trash can lifted off the ground and flew toward McDohl.  He tried to jump out of the way, but the trash can kept on course and attached to the gun.  He looked at the trash can, and then pulled the trigger again.  The trash can launched off and flew in to a wall, banging loudly and breaking some rubble off.  McDohl smiled to himself and continued to the citadel.

Kelly London rubbed her temples. She'd just been fighting Geothermal in a post-apocalyptic future.

Or had she? It was all so damned confusing.

Suddenly, ahead of her, she saw Mega Man X and Hedgehog X sitting at a white table. She could swear they were floating on a cloud.

"So," ventured X, tentatively, "are you...are you from that future, or a different future, or this timeline, or what?"

Hedgehog X rubbed his temples. "Would you believe I have no idea?" He smiled wanly. "X, do you remember my oldest brother?"

"Time," X responded. "Not a cheerful fellow. Sat around and brooded a lot."

"Reminds me of somebody I know," HX chuckled, "except without the occasional psychotic replicidal rages. ...Anyway. Somewhere along the line...Time died. Somewhere near the end of the war. And I...I seem to have wound up with his power. I can perceive the totality of the Whole Sort of General Mishmash...but I don't have the capacity to INTERPRET it like he did. It's like looking at a tesseract. Maybe you can understand it intellectually, but you don't perceive it in five dimensions. Not really.

"So I don't know what's real anymore, X. Or when anything happened. I see this world we saw, the one where Zero shut himself up in a capsule for a century and came out looking like a Saturday morning cartoon character. And I see another one, where he stayed in his own time and fought alongside you and Axl. And even while all that's going on, I hear his voice in my head, even now."

"More universes, being created all the time," X said.

"Yeah," said Hedgehog X. "Say, X? Do you remember Maxl's story? The 72 Hours?"

X smiled wryly. "I remember back when we talked about not bogging this fucking thing down with so much continuity nobody would want to contribute. THAT worked out great."

"Yeah, yeah. Spilt milk, my good Reploid."

"Yeah, that's another thing," X said. "Since when am I a Reploid, anyway? Reploids were supposed to be, by definition, replicas of my design."

HX shrugged. "X, if that were the worst contradiction in your life, you should count your blessings. ...Hey. Remember that time you fought Zero?"

"Yeah, because his ship crashed and he turned evil, per his original programming."

HX smiled. "Did it? Or did you just pick a fight with him for no rational fucking reason?"

X recoiled. "Dear God, you're right...they BOTH happened. Somehow."

HX nodded. "Parallel universes. So many parallel universes. ...That's what happened in 72 Hours, remember. Somewhere, in a parallel world, Crotswurth -- remember him? The mad scientist? -- built a machine that would plunge the Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash into chaos, by creating an infinite number of an infinite number of an infinite number, and so on, of different universes. ...Sound familiar?"

X looked at the swirling shapes floating around him. It seemed to Kelly, as she watched, that he faded a little, became slightly transparent. "The KateStory."

"The KateStory," HX confirmed. "Pure concentrated entropy. So many different worlds, created, destroyed, and simply passed on through. And this one, you know, was a doozy, what with all of them converging."

"Do you think that's the purpose of the KateStory?" X asked.

"I'm not so sure it HAS a purpose," HX responded. "But that's the inevitable result."

"So what are you trying to tell me?" X asked. "What can we do?"

"I'm not trying to tell you anything," HX responded, "and WE can't do ANYTHING." He turned his head, and his eyes locked onto Kelly. "I'm trying to tell YOU something," he said. "Something I've been trying to tell you for a very long time.

"Kelly...wake up."

Kelly gave a little gasp.

"Open your eyes."

The hedgehog and the robot, the table they sat at, the chairs, and even the clouds, shimmered, began to fade.

The whole of being began to fade.

And then, the world...you had better believe the world exploded.

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

Kelly popped up on a beautiful Sunday morning. But something wasn't right...

The room swirled around her, and she was disoriented. But she saw enough to notice that it was a little girl's room. An eleven-year-old girl's room.

She looked down. Her body was tiny, and covered in a bright pink nightgown.

The Lion King calendar on her wall proclaimed that it was 1994.

Dear God. The past ten and a half years...

"It's like I've been in Narnia," she whispered to herself. And then, "I HAVE been in Narnia. Among about a million other fictitious places."

She shook her head to clear it, and wandered out of her room.

"But it wasn't a dream," she whispered to herself, "it was a place."  She wandered through the living room, looking from her brother's Mega Man X cartridge to the copy of The Hobbit sitting on the coffee table.  "And you were there...and you were there..."

The doorbell rang. She knew, even before she answered it, that Billy von Garda would be standing on the other side.

She flung the door wide.

"And YOU were there."

"I was where?" said Billy.

"In my... I don't even want to talk about it."  Kelly rubbed her temples briefly.  "I'll be ready in a minute."  Quickly she threw on her school clothes and threw some things in her backpack, then rushed out the door to join Billy in the everyday walk to her everyday school.

She didn't make it far before she noticed the young forms of Brent, Thad and Stef, hiding near her house with strange keyboard-like devices in their laps.  Stef and Brent were asleep, and Thad was looking despondant.

"YOU!" she nearly screamed.

"I couldn't hold it up myself, dammit.  The experiment was..."

He didn't get further than that before Kelly's foot came crashing down on Thad's device, breaking it and waking up Brent.

"What were you three DOING?" Kelly demanded.

Brent shook the sleep out of his head and tossed his device ingloriously to the side, breaking it as well.  "Nothing," he said tiredly, "We're done."

"With Katestory?  You're finished?"

Thad furrowed his brow and started to speak, but Brent interrupted him.  "Oh HELL no," he explained, "I don't think this stupid thing will ever stay dead.  I'm just saying, we're done with you.  You're free.  Go to school.  Kiss your boyfriend.  Do whatever.  Ten years is enough."  He looked lost in his thoughts for a moment, as Thad, still indignant, started to fade and then disappear.

"You expect me to just... move on, after all that?"

Brent looked up.  "I don't care," he said with a shrug, "It's not like you're real."  Then he, too, started to fade and vanished.

Stef stayed fast asleep.  Kelly looked at her for a moment, and then twisted and broke off a piece of her device.  Stef faded and disappeared.

Then she realized that Billy was not there.

"Billy?  Billy!  Oh no..."

She heard footsteps.

"Kelly!" Billy said, breathless, "Come ON!  We're going to be late!"

Kelly looked at Billy.  Billy looked at Kelly.

"Okay, I'm coming!" she said.

Then, Kelly had a good day at school.

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

Brent looked at his broken keyboard device, then around at his apartment.  It had been ten years.  The things that he had expected to happen by now hadn't happened.  He growled, kicked the device again, and then looked at a scrap of paper he hadn't noticed before.

It was a sketch of a person.  Anime styled.  Spiky purple hair.  It was an original sketch, but at the same time, all the elements were familiar.

" 'Hedgehog'," Brent thought to himself.  "Huh.  I think I'll write a story."

So he did.

Kelly London and Billy Von Garda went on to get married, and had two kids, which were named Jimmy and Elaine.

Mega Man X returned to the year 20XX or whatever and stood on a cliff, brooding.  And he was happy.

Hedgehog X returned to Moebius to assist with the reconstruction of Knothole, after having been devistated by the destroyed timeline.

Gok Tinnik went on to take hosting duties on the Tonight Show.  The show has never seen higher ratings.

Janey eventually joined the Illuminati to help in repairing the extensive damage to the time stream.

In an impressive battle, The disembodied spirit of the disembodied head of the disembodied conciousness of the Amazing Mr. H was forced from the katamari and sealed in to a fold in non-space, never to return...or so many believe.

Legion was merely the candy shell of another katamari, and was broken away to free the Prince of all Cosmos.  He could be seen later that day flying over the earth with his father.

Thad graduated college, and went on to have a productive life, full of enrichment and humor.

Brentai continued to obsess over the silliest of inane details of 80's cartoons.

Stef continued to have a freakin' life.

Adam remains in the Navy to this day.

...and...

Geothermal still had no beer.  Fuckin' Afro Jon.