KateStory XIII-The 9th Anniversay Edition

*Welcome one and all to KateStory XIII-The 9th Anniversary Edition because we are to damn impatient to wait until next year to commemorate ten years*

*Don't bother trying to make sense of anything, because it won't work...it's kind of like trying to make sense of Homestar Runner or the storyline on Passions...rules are simple, read the post before your and continue the story..need prior knowledge- talk to Thad, he's got the other 13 of these stored somewhere..otherwise jump on in and have lots of fun..just don't cause a median effect whatever you do!*


Being a complete supporter of narcissistic insertion, Stef sat at her computer in her not-so-very entertaining dorm room. Instead of working on her language arts classroom observartion and getting ready for her student government meeting, Stef was staring at her computer screen...again. Of course this time she wasn't searching for info on her celebrity crushes: Clay Aiken, Gregory Smith or Homestar Runner, she was staring at the instant message on her screen. "Katestory 13? It's been almost 10 years?! That's midly insane", She shrugged and clicked the instant message box closed. She closed her eyes and began the mantra her friends told her to repeat when she found herself thinking of anime or video games, "I am 20 years old, I am an adult, I am a teacher, I am 20 years old, I am an adult, I am a teacher". Stef opened her eyes.

"Oh what the hell, it can't hurt starting one of these things up again, and hey it keeps me from working on that stupid paper for EDU 305", and with that Stef jumped on the boards and began typing up Katestory 13....

*Type, Type* It was Wednesday, not a particularly entertaining Wednesday, but Wednesday none-the-less.*Type, Type* Kelly (Stef blinked twice as she watched what she was typing. She thought to herself "We can only kill this Kelly and Billy storyline so much, let's create a new character) *backspace* Janey was walking back from class...

*SLAM*

"Oh Jesus", Stef exclaimned, "I've always sucked as these. I'm never able to come up with original ideas or anything, that was always Thad and Brent's department, I need to work on this english paper" She clicked the screen closed. "I'm to old for the bs anyway"

and she got up and walked away from the computer not noticing the eerie green light and fog emiting from the computer area...

This post has been edited by Stef on Oct 22 2003, 03:36 PM

Thad sits at a table in a semi-dark room, looking disheveled, a slight look of madness in his eyes. He takes a sip of the pint of stout before him.

"Colors don't usually have flavors," he remarks, "but that tastes dark-brown."

A soothing, female voice comes from an unseen speaker. "Thad...when you were twelve...did you ever think you'd still be writing this story when you were twenty-one?"

Thad's eyes flare up and he slams his fist down on the table. "YES, God dammit. The only difference is that I thought I'd be doing it in a solar-powered geodesic dome, trying to finish up the chapter in time to take my hovercar down to rehearsal. It's the world that's failed, not me."

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

Billy von Garda wakes up in a cold sweat. "It's all happening again."

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

Kelly London wakes up likewise, and the phone rings. She picks it up. "I know."

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

Mega Man X -- the ghost version from Mega Man Zero -- lies against a black background, his eyes closed. Then they open...and they see Maleophonix the Singing Candy Machine. "X, it's time to go. We must return...to Castle Chaos."

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

The Holy Trinity assume their superhero forms in a flash of brilliant special effects and hop into the pygmy Trinity Mobile. A gathering darkness swirls in the distance; lightning flashes.

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

"It's over, Prime."

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

THIS OCTOBER...
LOGIC WILL TRUMPH.

(Fart noise)

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

The Holy Trinity all lob themselves at once at some giant, menacing form --

-- and a ring of sheer force repels them all, sends them twitching to the ground.

"Welcome," hisses a dark-brown voice, "to the town of Assaram."

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

A mad fat bat in a party hat:

"I LIVE!"

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

Flash through a series of determined-looking faces: Billy, Kelly, Thad, Brent, Stef, Steve, Maleophonix, X, the Holy Trinity.

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

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE.

KATESTORY 13: THE NINTH ANNIVERSARY.
ALSO, PLUGGING THAD'S NEW WEBPAGE.
OCTOBER 22, 2003.

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

...You know the drill. Reply. Make shit up as you go along. If you really need background, it's all on my Features page. You may be particularly interested in Part 12, from these very boards in a previous incarnation.

Janey's classes had run late. It was dark now, and the air was heavy with portent. Janey quickened her pace. Something was watching her...

"Janey..."

Janey spun on her heel and almost lost her balance. "Who's there!? Eddie, is that you? That's not funny, you jerk!"

Suddenly she felt a cold hand on her shoulder. Letting out a gasp of terror, she wheeled around again, only to come face to face with a hunched, cloaked figure.

"Pleassse..." the figure croaked in a broken hiss, "do not be afraid... I have come to warn you..."

"Who... who are you!?"

"My name," the creature whispered, "isss Billy von Garda."

Janey was speechless. The creature fixed her with sickly yellow eyes.

"We have... much to discusssss..."

Janey, with weak knees, pulls out a tremebling cigarette. "So uh...what do you want? What is so important that it couldn't wait until we got back to my place?" Asked Janey. "Do you know of the Olsen Twins?" Von Garda questioned, with his eyes peering at Janey, as though he was trying to find his answer, before she could even respond. "The who? The Olsen Twins? Well of course I do! I don't see how that's important in the least bit!" Scoulded Janey; she was of course very flustered, because the night was cold and the lights were scarce. "The time for their legal stance approaches. They will soon turn 18, hence they will inherent all of the money that their parents have been holding from them." Von Garda said, with a cool, concise tone. "The Twins are a force to be reckoned with! They have been so morally trashed, it is horrid to think of what they could do with all their money and power of girls 4-11." Von Garda seemed genuinely concerned with this whole matter, but Janey was standing there, mouth wide open, as though she was astonished. "The Olsen Twins are two sweet young girls. They'd never do anything to hurt anyone. Plus, they couldn't have THAT much money." Janey seemes as though she wanted to just go home. "Oh, but you have no idea what kind of immoral brainwashing those girls have been exposed to...Also, do you have any idea how much crap they sell every year? It's unthinkable yes, but those two have an enormous amount of money..."

"We must not speak of such matters here, though. Come, follow me... I know where we may speak in peace, with no risk of Them listening in..."

The creature led Janey inside a hole; a ripped fragment of reality which led to a dark abyss. Or rather, the pressure difference between the real world and the one to which the hole led drew her inside. It was dark, save for the creature's glowing eyes and a distant glowing object. Janey would have been scared if she hadn't actually been trying to understand why this distant glowing object was a Celtic-esque bathroom sink.

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

Elsewhere...

A doorbell rung. A figure hidden by the shadows emerged to greet whomsoever had disturbed his slumber.

"YES! My TOOL finally arrived!" the figure shouted in hysteria, signing the release form that the delivery android held in it's hand. The signature read, "Dr. Mycfuckhair," the quantum ethereal professor at the local university.

After closing the door, he carefully opened the package to reveal what he had sought for all of his yesterday afternoon. It was a yellow orb with a long tube extruding outwords, nicknamed, "TOOL."

"Now I can redefine the realities of the universe. Now I can make anything I want become true, or untrue. Behold the power of TOOL, world, BEHOLD."

Setting it on the table, and sitting upon his leather sofa, he ignited the power which is TOOL. Other-worldly fumes consumed him, and slowly he acquired the powers of God. His manifestation of the world melted away, and everything became a blank canvas for him to paint on. He had a nearly infinite amount of pretty fog-like paint swirling around him, for he alone to control.

"This feeling... this is... incredible! God, you dirty rat bastard, I'm here to remake you. I'm here to... remake THE UNIVERSE," he cried hysterically.

Then he noticed something odd. Peering closely at the canvas that was the universe, he could sware he made out something which oddly resembled a bathroom sink, one of his students, and a hairy yellow-eyed man.

"Yo, man, this dope is really trippin' me," he exclaimed curiously.

"What is this? Where are we?" Janey stammered, her mind reeling.

"We are in the ssspace between ssspace. And thisss," Von Garda replied, motioning to the sink, "iss the Holy Grail. Yes, that which was sssought for centuriesss by the puressst of knightsss. It is here that it resssts, beyond mortal ken. But I..."

The creature paused, reflecting perhaps on painful memories. What had made it this way? Had it been a man, once upon a time?

The humble creature shook its head, breaking its reverie.

"It is of no consequence. I am now the Grail's keeper. I must stay here, to protect it from evil hands. But you, you are the chossssen One. You must do what I cannot... save the Universssssssssse."

"Me?"

Von Garda turned the tap, and a stream of sparkling water issued forth, seeming to contain a thousand rainbows. "Come here, my child. Drink from the Grail."

Janey took a step forward, a little unsure. But something about it seemed... right. Hesitantly, she took a sip. It tasted like water.

"You are blesssssed now. The Champion of the Universssse. You will be protected..."

"But why me?"

"There isss no time! He isss watching! Hurry, into the Astral Martin! Find Kelly! She will know what to do..."

Suddenly, von Garda pushes Janey roughly. She stumbles back and finds herself inside some kind of floating automobile. She scarcely has time to look back at von Garda's solemn face, before the Astral Martin is careening through space and time, carrying her back to the real world to face her destiny.

The sky is dark... and already von Garda's words are fading...

Janey looked around. She was standing back in the same part before Von Garda had so mysteriously appeared. "I have to find this Kelly chick", She thought as her trembling hands reached for a ciggarette. She lit up and inhaled slowly. Her book bag was still lying on the ground only now it's contents lie scattered on the sidewalk. Her british literature book was open to a page on the Holy Grail. "Then again", She shook off the eerie feeling, "Maybe it was all a dream"

Janey picked up her book, lighters and various paraphenilia and scopped them into her bad. She failed to notice the creature in the bushes behind her with its yellow eyes darkening.

Kelly picked up the phone.

"I know."

"What?"

"I know, Billy. It's happening again."

"Who?"

"Oh... shit. I'm expecting a call, I can't tie up the line."

"Oh..."

She hung up.

An abrupt, sibilant hiss of a voice issued from the space behind her.

"What isss it that you think you're doing?!"

Her mind, frazzled by possible hallucinations and the foul smell of the entire universe collapsing (methane and mango chutney, it seemed), actually took a few seconds to react.

"It was a dream...had to be a dream...maybe I still am drea - "

As a slow pace she turned about, only to see the hunched over, fidgeting form of Von Garda standing there. The smell of High Karate wafted in a conveniently strong breeze. In his hand was an early eighties red cellphone. Janey simply stood there, mouth wide open, for several seconds, until Von Garda grew impatient.

"Perhapss you are not the one I was sssearching for. Very well, we'll have to train you from the ssstart." A pistol seemed to appear from thin air in his gangly fingers, and before Janey could so much as let out a cry of alarm, he pulled the trigger.

*POP*

The red 'Bang' sign with white letters shot out of the barrel, and cracking a smile, Von Garda tossed it over his shoulder.

"Ha ha ha ha! Okay, but sssserioussly, let's do thiss thing."

Janey was confused. This was a feeling she was going to have to get used to. But currently, she wasn't.

"Okay, okay," she said, mostly to herself, palming her hands down as if patting the situation down perfect, "I'm going to be... trained... by a..."

She looked up at Billy. He looked pitiful. Janey had an idea.

She hit him with her bookbag and ran very quickly out the nearest exit.



Janey got to the parking lot and stopped to catch her breath. Thoughts reeled about in her head. She tried to sort out what seemed real and seemed hallucination, but in the end decided she could chalk the entire thing up to hallucination if she wanted to. Janey wanted to. She stood up, shook a little, felt a lot better, pivoted on her heels to find Billy von Garda looking at her with patient yellow eyes, and nearly blacked out.

Billy caught Janey's wrist before she could fall. "Sssteady," he said simply.

Janey's pulse raced and her breath quickened. She choked. "Look, who are you?" she screamed, almost hysterically, "Are you a person or... or what?"

Billy paused a moment to reflect. He let go of Janey's wrist and instead wrapped his arms about himself as if to ward off a chill. He drew close to her, uncomfortably close, as if he were about to either share his terrible secrets with her or extract her most terrible secrets for himself.

"I wasss... onssse a man," he whispered, "Wasss onssse a man. Yesss. I wasss a man, onssse. Wasss onssse a man. Onssse a man! I was onssse a man, onssse a man, onssse was a man!"

Janey nodded. "Okay, so you were a man. I..."

"Wasss onssse a man!" Bilyl continued to himself, "Onssse wasss a man, wasss a man, wasss a man onssse! I onssse wasss a man! Wasss onssse a man! A man I wasss onssse! Onssse I wasss a man! Man wasss I, onssse wasss a man, a man, I onssse, onssse wasss a man, man onssse was I, man, I man onssse wasss, wasss a man, a a a man I onssse wasss wasss onssse man onssse man I onssse wasss I man man onssse!"

"I..."

"ONSSSE WASSS A MAN I ONSSSE WASSS A MAN I ONSSSE WASSS MAN A I ONSSSE A MAN WASSS I ONSSSE WASSS MAN A I WASSS ONSSSE MAN A I..."

"SHUT UP!" Janey screamed, "Shut UP shut UP shut UP shut UP shut UP, SHUT UP!"

There was a silence.

"Man," Billy said.

Janey screamed, "Ugh!", and passed out in frustration.

Gok Tinnik dismounted sloppily.

"Take your money and go," he muttered. His bitch grabbed his cash from the bedside table and scampered out the window, forked tail curling lazily behind him.

Twelve years ago, when he started his business, he imagined he'd be banging dames with allegorical nicknames, not blowing more than just his cash on demon's backs. He fished a dog-end out of his pocket and re-lit it. He didn't intend to smoke it, really, but the quiet smoldering helped him relax.

Private investigation. It was a much-romanticized trade. Thanks to the likes of Bogart, he imagined himself standing silhouette over the corpse of some belligerent crook who juked when he should have jived. The reality wasn't so pretty.

About three years ago, Gok Tinnik spotted something very unusual. Following the alluring scent of fame and riches, he tailed some unworldly beast for twenty blocks through the streets of Chicago (Gok refused to start his business anywhere else).

The beast entered an alley, and then Gok made his mistake. He wanted to corner the beast, and then try to capture it. He pulled his quintessential revolver from his cliché trenchcoat, and slid around the corner into the alley.

It fell upon him from a fire escape, slamming his body to the pavement. It looked down at him, grinning madly. "I don't get sssspotted unlesss I want to, human!" Its eyes flashed bright yellow. It seemed to claw through the air, tearing space from time, reality from imagination.

The next thing Gok knew, he was in an alley alone. He sat up, brandishing his weapon. Colors didn't look right. He was worried to note that colors didn't smell right, either. He rubbed his eyes with his left hand. When he re-opened them, a large purple-haired four-armed creature, only vaguely resembling a human, was standing on the sidewalk before him.

He was told, rather rudely, to sell his gun and get a fucking job.

He did. He became a fry-cook in some backwater dive.

The demons he questioned knew nothing of Chicago, or of Earth, and only little of humans. But humans were "old religious folklore." He learned quickly to keep his mouth shut about his origins.

He wanted to return to his home, to beat the shit out of the demon who sent him here.

His opportunity to do so came suddenly.

The Five sat in the darkened room. The Five who were the heads of the Illuminati: Green, Pan, the Prof, the Chairman, and the King.

"The time grows near," hissed the Prof.

"You're high again," observed Green.

"You should talk," retorted the Prof. "You and your beloved absinthe."

"It's a sacred tradition," Green responded. "I merely follow the legacy of every other economist in the past 500 years."

The King cleared his throat. "We was talkin'," he said, "about the Twins."

"Yes," responded the Prof. "But the resistance...it's heating up. Von Garda...he survived. He's a monster, but he's still managed to find the girl."

"The GIRL," trilled Pan. "Why hasn't SHE been eliminated?"

"Somebody," growled Green, "dropped the fucking ball."

All eyes turned to the Chairman. He scowled.

The double-doors opened. The Chairman and the King looked surprised, but the other three merely folded their arms and turned their backs.

The King and the Chairman realized the boat they were in. They weren't the type to gasp in surprise; quickly as they could, they stood up out of their chairs and reached for their pieces. But they were old men, and it was no contest with the creepy jailbait redheads who entered the room.

BLAM. BLAM.

The Chairman and the King slid to the floor, gunshots right between their eyes.

"Thankewverymuch," taunted Mary Kate as she stood over the King's body.

"I'm on my third goddamn PS2," Ashley growled as she kicked the Chairman. "Cheap fucking nip."

The prof's lip curled. "We don't ordinarily accept kids -- " Pan opened his mouth to protest -- "INTO THIS UPPER ECHELON OF OUR SOCIETY, you sick fuck -- " he turned back to the Twins, "but we just got two openings."

Green clapped his hands and a host of agents appeared. "Dispose of the corpses," he ordered. "The Chairman died of a heart attack. And as for the King..." he smiled slightly. "...Well, he's been dead for decades, hasn't he."

Billy Von Garda stopped his screaming and looked down at the passed out figure of Janey, "Girl, you musssst be ready to face the imposssssible". He kicked the inert figure. He sighed, "Ssshe will never make it."

A cell phone rang.

Billy answered it, "Yessss, oh Kelly. I have found the one that the prophecy hasss been talking about, No not that prophecy, that'ss a complete other universse". As he spoke on the cell phone, he grabbed Janey's arm and started to drag her across the parking lot to a portal which opened up out of nowhere in very much D&D like fashion. "Kelly, we need to make ssssure thossse twinsss don't find the girl, so I have to train her at the old headquartersss"

There was a gasp on the other end on the line.

"Not Casstle Chaossss"

Meanwhile in a slightly alternate reality,

Stef had completely abandoned the compter not realizing that she had failed to delete the begining of the Katestory she had been writing. She turned around and looked at her computer. "I didn't delete that yet?" She asked herself, and by this time she noticed the green light and smoke coming from the computer. Stef sat down at the desk and was struck by the sight before her of seeing the Katestory come to life, and currently the screen focused on von Garda pulling Janey through the void. Stef felt a sharp burning pain and looked over at her right hand which was glowing a vibrant green. A wicked smile played upon her lips and her normally brown eyes falred bright green. Laughing evily she spoke outloud to noone in particular, "So my avatar returns..."

"Now...time to pollute the thread with Shinji x Kaworu fanfics out of spi - "

The universe exploded. Scientists in a parallel world theorized that it was suicide.

Somewhere dark and isolated, an unknown, ancient evil chuckled to itself and pushed a red, comically over-sized "MULTIVERSAL RESET" button. An entire existence was spontaneously granted a second chance. Lives were returned. The great cosmic wheel, though one of many, continued to turn. Everyone present smiled to themselves, not knowing why the present day suddenly seemed just a little brighter. Even the mighty Billy Von Grada flinched, not sure why his universe seemed to hiccup. Was he already too late? "Not...yet," the malevolent being whispered. "I'm not quite bored yet."

Stef sat before her PC. The last few moments had never occured, and she didn't really know what just happened, but it felt...minty.

She also didn't seem to be wearing pants.

"Oh no...not him."

She didn't know who the hell he was, but she thought it was time for a dramatic moment. Plus she liked how breezy the room was, and that was as good an excuse as any to sit and wait (dramatically!) until the story picked up again.

Gok Tinnik smacked his lips. The air tasted strongly of foreshadowing. He didn't know how he felt it, but it seemed as though the many Gods in control of the multiverse were trying desperately to get the other Gods to do something interesting.

Gok took a long drag from a bottle of some fermented fruit. He couldn't take this life any more. He worked in a demon's kitchen, for Christ's sake. He saw creatures more wonderful and beautiful than humans can imagine, and he battered them and deep-fried them and served them with the ethereal analog to onion rings.

He saw an oncoming taxi, speeding up the street. He shut his eyes, exhaled, made his peace, and attempted to sack it.

He was aware, through his eyelids, of an intense flash of light.

Then, he was lying on the hood of a real yellow cab. The driver, who at first and second glances seemed to have olive skin, two eyes, and five fingers, screamed in horror. Gok stared back. "What?" he hissed. His voice was wrong.

He looked at his hands, now coated in reddish-brown fur, ending in short, ferocious claws. He looked at his reflection in the windshield, and saw two spots of bright yellow light. His tail twitched.

He screamed. Windows shattered. Tires popped. The cabbie whose hood had made a fine landing pad died quickly of a heart attack.

He scampered into a nearby alley. Steam rose from his face as his tears met his burning eyes. Now that he was home, he didn't belong there.

A name flashed through his brain. His sharp teeth gritted.

Von Garda.

Gok Tinnik sniffed the air intently, then scampered up the side of a building and into the night.

A dark figure next to a glowing monitor decided to give everyone a random thought that really didn't advance the plot.

--

Kelly sniffed. Billy sure sounded different, she thought. It was lucky she saved his cell phone number. Waiting for him to call was boring.

--

Von Garda wondered for a moment why eveyone and everything revolved around him. It passed.

--

Janey got no respect. Being dragged through voids, rifts, and anomalies was no fun, and she wasn't even told what the Olsen Twins have to do with anything. As she came to, she resolved to be as indignant and whiny as possible.

"Uh-"

"WE'RE GOING."

"Yes sir."

--

Meanwhile, the dark figure realized something.

"Shit."

Kelly London sat at the terminal in her lead bunker. The Spam factory had promoted her, and now she got a lead bunker. She'd never really asked why but always assumed it had something to do with the toxicity of the product.

The wall looked like something out of A Beautiful Mind -- photos and newspaper clippings everywhere, circles and cryptic comments scrawled over them in various colors of ink.

Scanned -- good. Kelly pulled the latest article -- about the sudden death by heart attack of the President of Sony -- off the scanner and pinned it up next to a photo of Billy. Just to the right was the Rolling Stone cover with the Olsen Twins, and below it was a National Enquirer article about a world-warping drug called TOOL.

"There's got to be a connection, there's got to," she muttered to herself, pacing back and forth. "He was a world ruler...maybe even one of the Five. This smacks of upheaval."

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Castle Chaos. Two men sat on either side of a table, sipping sherry.

They had begun as abstract concepts and slowly been anthropomorphized. They appear different ways to different people, but I've always pictured them as a large, sweaty man with receding black hair and a malnourished, twitchy fellow with thick glasses. Seems like he'd have a lot of scars, maybe some tattoos totally at odds with the rest of his appearance or something.

"It's not going to last," Plot asserted.

"Of course it's not," LOGIC responded, in good humor. "So we may as well enjoy it while we can." He trumphed loudly, hiccupped, belched, and scratched his balls. "Drink up, my lad, for tomorrow we may die."

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

"Von Garda?" hissed Gok Tinnik.

"Yessssss," he responded. He smiled slightly and added, "BILLY von Garda."

Gok chuckled and shook his head. "Let me guess."

"I," Billy affirmed, "wassss onssssssse...a man. Like yourssssself."

"You were there," Gok said. It was not a question.

"Yessssssss. There'ssss a breach between worldssss. Sssssome kind of dirty pool being played out between the Five controlling our world and the demonssss on the other ssssside. They're sssssselling our fucking sssssoulsss sssso they can grow even MORE powerful. Sssssoon the Olssssen Twinssss will be of age, and thisssss is sssssentral to their plot. Kelly and I've been watching them...we got too closssssse. Sssshe'sss essscaped their wrath...for now. But as for me --" He laughed hollowly. "My only conssssolation is that I'm almosssst certain they MEANT to kill me. Yet here I am -- ssssome kind of goddamn furry, but sssstill alive."

Gok had learned not to be surprised by anything. He nodded.

Janey was, herself, quite surprised, but kept her mouth shut.

Billy looked at Gok. "I don't know where you fit into the sssssscheme," he said. "Maybe you ran acrossssss something incriminating to them, maybe they foresssssaw you meeting me and helping fight againsssst them...or maybe the demonsssss merely took you to their world for ssssssport.

"Let me assssk you something," he said suddenly. "Doessss 'the Prof' mean anything to you?"

Gok shook his head.

"The name he ussssesss in hisss public perssssona," Billy said, "issss Mycfuckhair."

Janey gasped.

"Yessss," Billy said, "of coursssse YOU know him. That'sssss why you're here."

There was a pounding on the door. It swung open, revealing a figure shrouded in darkness. His manipulation of shadows would make a ninja ejaculate in envy.

"Ah, I see you're here already," Plot said. LOGIC was leaning against the wall with a grim smile.

"Just finish us quickly." He leaned back uneasily in his chair.

There was an uneasy silence as the figure drew out the shape of a rifle. Thunder crashed outside Castle Chaos.

"I'm not here to destroy you," Said the figure, "I'm here to protect you."

The ears of a small, purple mammal twitch.

"Yo, man, what is it?" says Mega Man X.

Hedgehog X looks up at him. "Someone, somewhere, just used the phrase 'goddam furry.'"

X opens up the trunk of a rusty Corvette. "Well, get over it. We got work to do." He reaches in. "You know, this is my least favorite part of this job."

"The actual job part?"

"No, man, the death."

"Oh." Hedgehog X sticks his hands in pockets which he does not have. "Well, we ARE hired killers." He looks at brightly colored, yet somewhat ominous castle looming before them. "You know, we really should have shotguns from this."

X pulls two long objects out of the trunk. "We got shotguns."

"Oh. Cool then."

***********
THIS SUMMER
***********

Hedgehog X and Mega Man X stand back to back, feverishly gripping their katanas as ninjas dance and circle around them.

"Ouch!" says X.

"Maybe standing back to back isn't such a great idea in this case," HX shouts. "By the way, what happened to our shotguns?"

"Katanas were cooler!"

"This is your fault, you know."

"Can we PLEASE talk about this later?"

**********
MEGA MAN X
**********

X barrel rolls into a room. It is small, perfect for a one-on-one battle between two fighting machines. X knows the scenario well. He looks around for a robot master, but sees only...

A suit, orange and red predominantly, moving toward him with a feminine grace. Then, it rolls itself into a perfect ball and shoots towards him.

**************
AND HEDGEHOG X
**************

HX rushes down a long hallway. Glancing at the katana in his hand, he tosses it away in disgust and picks up his pace. "Ha! Gotcha now!" he shouts, and leaps into the air, only to be blown backwards by a shotgun blast. He hits the ground hard, rolls with the natural aptitude of a hedgehog, and stops himself in a kneeling position facing his opponent. He almost starts his rush again, but after a few steps he stops and steps back in surprise.

"You!" he gasps, then cringes. "I don't fucking believe this."

"Believe it," says former governor Gray Davis, sporting a leather jacket and pointing his shotgun at the hedgehog. "You are 'recalled'."

****
WILL
****

X and the hedgehog burst into a lavish dining room.

"You're dead!" X screams. He thinks for a moment, and adds, "Bitch!"

Hedgehog X serreptitiously raises an eyebrow at him.

"I... uh..." X starts, "YOU try thinking up clever action phrases on such short notice."

"We could go borrow some from the Governator."

"No."

**********
**********
KILL LOGIC
**********
**********

"DID YOU REALLY THINK IT WAS GOING TO BE THAT EASY?" bellows a voice from the darkness.

X shrugs. "Yeah, we kind of expected everyone else to do it for us. Oh well."

He raises his buster and fires.





****************************
COMING TO PYOKO OCTOBER 2003
****************************





"You know," ponders Mega Man X as he and Hedgehog X climb into the Corvette, "That would have worked a whole lot better if it were 'Kill Billy' instead."

Hedgehog X says nothing for a moment, but seems lost in thought. Then he looks up at X.

"Do you know," he asks, "What they call a quarter pounder in Paris?"

The two drive off.

The Olsen Twins' birthday was extremely fucking nich. Preperations for their airtime were being made, their new GBA game was out, and their bank accounts kept rising and rising. The foundation for a new world was being set; remember, to have a new world, one must destory to old one. Old and new cannot coexist as two entities with checked and balanced power, new will always win. Thus, the Olsen Twins were meant to destroy the world of man, ever since their birth, because they were destined to start a new world.

The true father of the twins has always been a secret. Who, among all humans, would want two blond haired, blued eyed twins for daughters? Mr. H had created the Olsen Twins--with genetic manipulation--to weaken the very base of the world. The children are indeed the future, destroy their morals and you've got it made. The flagitious project was drawing near and it seemed as though nothing could stop it.

Mr. H was, for all accounts, dead, but still had "life" on another plane of existance. He was now in cohorts with the demons on the other side. Mr. H never intended to give up his vendetta against a society, which held others in power. Von Garda had come from the plane of existance where Mr. H had been acquiring his army, but had left for his love of X.

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

In a room with the heads of the minorities of Earth Mr. H stands, with a slight girlish smirk.

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

"Your not even trying. When I wassss a man, I always made sssssure to put all my effort into anything I attempted," snarled Garda. "Oh dammit, this gun is difficult. Oh shi..." A bullet went off and struck something, which let out a subtle "yelp." "The hell?" Asked Janey. Numbers had appeared above her head. "Those are your experienccccce pointsssss. I ssssssuppose it would be best if you were to kill the helplessssss; I do hope you do not be comfortable with killing small creatures. You will soon have to deal with creatures, which you cannot fffffathom." Von smiled, which revealed his old and worn teeth, and turned his back to look upon the night sky. Garda was immersed in thought.

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

"You ever think about life without killing?" X had a distant tone to his voice.

"Get ahold of yourself, man! Were not here to talk. When your on the field, you have to be tip-top!" Hedgehog never thought of anything that wasn't right in front of him.

"You're right. Let's kick it into X gear." *thematic driving music plays*

If that was a 28 days later reference, and ye bootched it, I'm going to vomit in your eye.

It was a 28 Days later reference. Let the vomitting commence.

Kelly stared into a half-empty cup of black coffee. It was a bleak, white cup, stained brown on the inside from years of abuse. Kelly licked her teeth.

"Assassination," she repeated.

Her phone rang. It was on her ear in a flash.

"Billy?"

"No. No, God damn it, No!"

"... who is this?"

"Kelly. I .. love you."

Kelly paused.

"I love you. I always have. You hung up on me earlier, saying you expected a call. I stared at the clock for an hour, waiting to call you back."

"Who is this?"

"..."

"Who is this? Tell me now."

"... you're in danger."

"What?"

"It isn't safe where you are. You have to leave."

"But I'm busy! Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"God damn it, Kelly. It's me. LOGIC."

"... oh no."

"Run."

Kelly threw the phone to the floor and ran for the exit.

She heard cacaphony of terrifying shrieks. Demons crashed through the windows, bursted through the door.

Kelly was prepared. She'd seen so many Kikia clones that she had become quite difficult to startle.

Planting her fist into the face of demon at the door, she vaulted over a railing and slid down a girder. Demons scrambled out of her office in chase, while one set about sabotaging her roomful of evidence.

Kelly landed in a three-point stance and hit a button on the wall labeled "Mech Access." Hydraulic doors shot open before her, and she sprinted into the cockpit of a giant battle robot.

She turned the Mech's torso to face the first of the demons to reach her. It reeled back in horror.

"Security Breach in SPAM Lead Bunker #4," she reported. "Request permission to engage unknown entities."

"Permission Granted," came the reply without missing a beat.

Autocannons tore the unsuspecting demons to pieces. Kelly pushed the throttle up, and twisted her left arm to carve a hole in the Mech Bay doors. In a second, she was outside in the snow, running across the landscape in a massive battle robot.

She flicked a switch labelled "Multiverse Fold Unit."

"Here I come, Billy," she whispered.

----

LOGIC listened to the sounds of flame on the other end of the cell phone.

Plot shook its head. "It's not good of you to interfere like that."

LOGIC shot a glance at Plot that would have killed a flower.

The figure in the corner ignored them. It was busy sensing the harmful resonations of Gok Tinnik. There was no greater threat to Plot or LOGIC than he.

(About an hour and a half from now.)

Thad shouldered his bags as the Greyhound bus pulled into the station and the exit doors opened. He hadn't been on one of these things in over a year, and hadn't planned to do this again since they'd never sent him that Student Advantage Discount Card he'd paid for.

But what the hell -- he had tickets to Al Franken and no ride to Phoenix.

You always meet the most interesting people on buses, he mused. One time, he'd sat across from a man who'd just gotten out of 8 years in prison. The man had, predictably, smuggled on some cheap beer and proceeded to get drunk and start doing Edith Bunker impressions. Another time, he'd taken a trip with Afro Jon, and a couple guys sitting across from them had asked to leaf through a few of the comics Thad had with him. One guy made it most of the way through X-Force -- Milligan/Allred era, of course; it was the one with Wolverine's guest appearance to drum up sales -- and then proclaimed that it was too violent, and no wonder kids shoot up their schools.

A sojourn to Target the preceding night had left Thad with new batteries (a fifteen-pack...who the fuck sells batteries in an odd number?) to ensure the extended operation of his Game Boy Advance ("Guess I'll try some of those Expert Missions after all") and his Discman ("I need to do that Stream on Greendale"). He also had, of course, Al Franken's new book, which he'd hopefully be bringing back with an autograph on it. And if he really wanted, he could reread all last week's comics on the way down, too.

Thad sighed. Three-hour bus trips -- more like three and a half in practice -- that should have been two, without even Afro Jon to keep him company, tended to leave him tired and irritable. But at least he'd had a nice, tall glass of Vitamin Guinness before he left...

...Only problem was, now he really, really had to piss.

...See you guys Sunday.

Plot frowned, "Nothing's happening."

"I know." Said the figure.

---

Janey psyched herself up. This was like some sort of demented RPG that came to life. With a willful imagination that kept her from reaching insanity, she drew up some statistics on her queer little party.

JANEY
Human
Level: 1... I guess
Strength: ...not very
Speed: Kinda fast
Vitality: Uhhmm

VON GARDA
????
Level: ?
Strength: Can drag me
Speed: ??
Vitality: ??

GOK
????
Level: 6 (he said so)
Strength: ??
Speed: ??
Vitality: ??

Since this was after 1997, she assumed the party wasn't going to get any bigger.

But all this was to hide the name Mycfuckhair from her memory. Why was he involved with this? Why was he-

Her brain immediately killed the thought. She instead began to think of ways to describe her companions in iambic pentameter.

---

The feeling of running inside a giant mecha is like the feeling of running naked, if you're Optimus Prime.

Plot eyed LOGIC. LOGIC did his best to ignore the glare at the back of his neck.

"It's you," he said. LOGIC ignored him.

"You're destroying the story," he said. LOGIC gritted his teeth.

"You're going to fuck up everything," he said. The figure quickly put himself between LOGIC and an advancing Plot.

"Don't," said the figure. "You'll destroy everything."

"Yeah," said Plot. "Nobody's written for three days, and I'm the one who's going to destroy everything. I'm going to save this fucking story."

LOGIC stood up and faced Plot. "What are you going to do, kill me?" he shouted.

Plot stared into LOGIC's eyes.

"You don't have to kill me," said LOGIC. "I'll show myself out."

With that, LOGIC opened the door.

"Don't do it," pleaded the figure.

LOGIC didn't look back. The door shut behind him. Plot smiled.

---

Von Garda grabbed Janey by the head, lust in his eyes.

"What are you doing, Billy?!" she screamed. Von Garda thrust his raging, red-hot erection into Janey's eye socket, spilling blood and brain matter onto the floor. With thrust after thrust, he violated her skull. Her body shook and spasmed. Von Garda whooped with animal pleasure.

Gok Tinnik punched through the floor, grabbed a cat, pulled it through the hole, and tore off its head with his teeth.

Kelly smashed the wall of the building with her mecha's massive arm.

"I'm here, BilOH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

"MY MIND IS A BLANK!" screeched Billy, as gallon after gallon of acidic ejaculate bursted from the back of Janey's skull onto the intruding mecha. It quickly dissolved, and Kelly lay screaming and disfigured among piles of corroded scrap metal.

---

The Olsen Twins commented to one another that their vaginas tasted much better after a few hits of TOOL.

"I really don't think this is appropriate Council behavior," said Green.

"I SAID BUKKAKE, I MEANT BUKKAKE!" ordered Mary Kate.

---

Hedgehog X and Mega Man X stood atop a massive pile of defeated robots.

"Well. I'd say our work here is pretty well done, yeah?" said Hedgehog X.

"Not so," said Mega Man X. "Something is terribly, terribly wrong."

"... don't mess with me like that. Are you just trying to sell the sequel, or is there really something left to do?"

"Follow me," said Mega Man X. He warped into the sky, like usual. Hedgehog X followed suit.

Three figures sat glaring at a glowing screen. Well, two figures. The much smaller one was asleep.

"Well, it was good while it lasted," said one, in a world-weary manner - like everything he ever said.

"Says you," commented the other, with a grin that managed to both be maniacal and forced, "I couldn't stand holding up the integrity of the thing."

"Then why did you?"

The other figure shrugged, nearly disturbing the third. "Dunno. I kinda tried to ruin it, but it was a halfassed attempt. I wanted..." - he turned and gave the first figure an altogether different smile - "...to leave it up to my people, as an experiment."

The first figure thought for a moment, wondering how he should react to the use of the phrase "my people." Inwardly, he just shrugged. "And what did you learn from this experiment?"

"Same thing I always knew. They're a wonderful bunch, capable of creating incredible works. And you won't ever, ever get them to do it, not with a million dollars or all the taskmasters a Fuhrer can buy."

The first figure smiled. In a world-weary fashion of course. He turned his attention back to the screen.

"You know," he added, "A lot of people say the same thing about you."

...

"Bitch."

The first figure chuckled. He chuckled way too much, sometimes. "So, what now? Billy's got, um, acid semen, and Janey's lost an eye, and Kelly's lost a mech, and..."

"We do what we always do when things get out of hand."

The first figure thought for long while. Finally he asked, "What is that?"

The second figure looked at the first.

He smiled another one of those infuriating smiles.

And then the world exploded.

Thad walked in the door, took a look at what was going on, and promptly walked back out.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Kazz, you didn't have to do that."

Kazz simpered. So did Brentai.

"I just got back -- thanks for asking how the bus ride went, incidentally; I had to sit between two large Albanian women with excruciatingly severe body odor --, I had a post written and everything, I just couldn't post it because the boards were down."

Thad took a few deep breaths. "Okay. Okay. My next part starts with Mycfuckhair doing TOOL anyway. Okay. That whole thing you guys just did? It's, like, an alternate reality or some shit that Mycfuckhair hallucinated while he was on TOOL."

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

Somewhere, LOGIC smiled and dabbed at his bloody nose with a hanky.

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

"FUCK!" gasped Mycfuckhair. He saw the machine-gun blasts tear through the demons. He moved as fast as he could, trying to retaliate, to summon more, to crush the cannons, for the love of Christ to stop the fucking girl. But he was still new to TOOL. He had the power, but he lacked the focus.

All this crashed through his brain as he fell, fell...

...fell off his couch. He was lying on his own living room floor and had spilled TOOL water everywhere. He cursed savagely, fought the waves of darkness passing over his eyes. He was one of the Five, God dammit, and damned if an attack on a fucking Spam factory was going to leave him ignominiously passed out on the floor.

He hauled himself back up to a standing position, leaning on the arm of his couch. "Okay. Okay. ...Okay. So I underestimated the power of the Spam factory. It will not happen again."

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

The theme from Bubble Bobble erupted from the pocket of Billy's cloak. He withdrew his cell phone. "Yessss? ...Ssshit. SSSHIT. ...Yessss. We'll be there." He clicked the phone off.

"Do you have a car?" he asked Janey. "Tinted windowssss would be nissssse."

Janey nodded, but then asked, "Couldn't you open another one of those spacetime door things?"

"My MP'sssss too low," Billy said. Janey's eyes widened. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he assured her. "Yesssss, I could sssssummon a portal, but I'd rather not risssssk it. We're trying not to call attention to ourssssssselvessss for a change."

Janey nodded and led Gok and Billy to her car. They sat in the backseat, which did indeed have tinted windows.

"Where to?" she asked Billy. There was a tone of resignation in her voice; it had entered some days ago when she had finally realized she wasn't going to just walk away from this.

"The Denny'ssssss on the edge of town," Billy told her.

"Denny's?"

"Denny'ssss."

"Why?"

"It'sssss exsssactly the sssssort of plasssse where they don't asssssk quessssstionsss about ssssssomething like, oh, ssssay, a giant fucking warmech parked 'round back."

Janey pulled out a small tape recorder and pressed Record. "Note to self: stop asking snake guy questions."

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

"Three more coming," Kelly told the seater. "And if you could get somebody moving on coffee, that'd be just fantastic."

The woman nodded. She wasn't going to ask questions, but it seemed pretty clear that the disheveled-looking redhead who'd just parked a giant fucking warmech 'round back was not having an especially easy night.

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

"Sssssso of coursssssse," Billy said, "we're in a bad fanfic. That much issssssss a given."

"Wait...a fanfic?" Janey asked. "Like the kind where the characters would just flagrantly violate the fourth wall and actually SAY they're in a fanfic?"

Billy nodded.

"I find this...and pretty much everything that you've ever said or done since I've met you -- pretty hard to believe."

Kelly scowled. "Trust us, honey, we've been doing this shit for nine years. Well, I have, anyway; Billy's gettin' close."

"Right," Billy said. "Believe it or not; you'll have all the evidenssssse you need ssssoon enough. But I wassssss thinking, Kel...sssssspesssssifically what KIND of bad fanfic doessssss thisssss remind you of?"

Kelly smiled mirthlessly. "You need to ask?"

Billy smiled too. "Of courssssssse we've been in and out of one sssssspesssssific universsssse from day one...but by the lookssssss of it, they're ssssstepping it up a notch." He gestured to Gok, and then to himself. "We've been to another dimenssssssion, and we've come back asssss furs."

Kelly nodded.

"And do you remember...how EVERY SSSSSSINGLE GODDAMN SSSSSSELF-INSSSSSERTION FIC...had the sssself-inssssertion hero put through a dimensssssional warp...only to be turned into a furry in the prosssssesssss?"

Kelly nodded again. "Central tenets of bad Sonic fanfic are leaking back into our world."

The front door of the Denny's slammed loudly. Right on cue, there he was -- Hedgehog X. He inclined his head in acknowledgement; Mega Man X was right behind him.

"They're going to need two more chairs," HX said helpfully to the lady behind the counter.

The door opened again.

"Three," corrected Kate Chaos.

"Three," acknowledged Hedgehog X.

"Three more chairs," said the greeter.

The three newcomers sat down at the newly-moved chairs. Janey stared and gulped.

"Well," said Kelly, "the gang's all here."

X nodded sagely. "We have much to discuss," he said in a tone of gravity. "But first...pie."

Kelly's cell phone finally rang. She picked it up.

"Hello? Who is this?" she asked.

A robotic voice answered, "It. is. I. Pie."

Kelly tapped out a rhythm on the table. "I pie with my little eye something..."

"Shut. up." demanded the voice, "Some.bo.dy. is. com.ing. to. kill. you."

"Oh yeah?" Kelly replied, irritated, "Who?"

"Me."

In the parking lot, a humongous metal foot crashed down.

X whipped his head around as fast as he could to look. "Metal Hawking!" he gasped.

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

One of the three figures, the one with the obnoxious grin, crossed his arms and nodded in approval.

"Metal Hawking has appear," he said ominously.

The other conscious figure slapped him upside the head.

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

"Shit, it's Metal Hawking!" said Hedgehog X.

"Who?" asked Janey.

"Him," HX replied, pointing.

"You know what would be really ussseful at a time like thisss?" Billy wondered aloud. "Sssome kind of giant mecha."

He looked at Kelly.

"I sssaid, sssome kind of..."

"I get it!" she screamed, and stomped off to retrieve her weapon.

As she attempted to cross the parking lot to her mech, Metal Hawking swung around to face her with a ghastly permagrin on his face. The ominous whirr of targeting chainguns buzzed from his shoulders. Then, with a loud crack, several guns erupted from all over his giant robotic body and fired a volley of vibrators at the defenseless girl. She shrieked and covered her face with her arms as she was mercilessly pelted by sex toys.

"Eeek! Stop it! Stop! Oooh, oh don't stop THAT!" she screamed. The barrage stopped, leaving Kelly half-buried in a mound of various types of fake organs. She picked up a 12-inch black rubber thing and inspected it curiously.

"You're firing dildos at me?" she said, incredulously.

"A. wide. va.ri.e.ty. of. dil.dos., with. spe.cial. lu.bri.cants!"

Hedgehog X looked at Mega Man X. "Hey!" he said, "That gives me an idea!"

X turned furiously toward the hedgehog. "This had better not involve some shaving cream and a yak again, Xavier!" he yelled.

Hedgehog X smiled one of those infuriating smiles.

Posting twice, because I just felt like writing more. I know it's cheating.

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

"Metal Hawking!" Hedgehog X cried out, while slamming a big black rubber dong into X's arm cannon, "Taste the secretions of your own defeat! Doooooooooodge THIS!"

X raised his buster, and fired the dong into the cockpit where Stephen Hawking sat, controlling his metal body with his hands. The dong slipped and slided around on top of Hawking's controls until he finally managed to knock it off the mech with his fingers. But as he tried to regain the controls...

"Blast. The. spe.cial. lu.bri.cants. have. made. my. con.trols. too. slip.per.ry. to. use." Hawking expositioned. "It. will. take. me. at. least. five. min.utes. to. wipe. it. off."

"Kelly!" Hedgehog X called, "Now's your chance! Hurry!"

"I'm on it!" she called back, then took two steps and then the world exploded.



She found herself in the same parking lot as before, only this time it was devoid of any cars or obstructions. Also, Billy and Janey were right next to her.

"Guys! What happened? How did you get here?" she asked.

"Ratsssss!" Billy hissed.

"What's wrong, Billy?"

Billy shook his headly and spoke quickly, "No, I mean, look out. Ratsssss."

Kelly jumped, and a rabid yellow rodent passed harmlessly underneath her. It turned about and chittered at the group.

"Ew," Janey said, "What the hell IS that?"

"It'sss a thunder rat, ho," Billy explained, and dropped to all fours. Then, within the blink of an eye, he leapt at the beast, caught it, and sank his fangs into it. For a while he simply sucked on the rat's blood.

Janey cried out, "That's... that's disgusting!" She took a few steps back.

Billy smiled through his bites. "Like mother'sssss milk," he hissed.

Janey blanched. "Freak," she muttered.

Billy whispered to himself, "Yessssssssss."

And then the world exploded.



Kelly found herself looking up at the gargantuan figure of Metal Hawking.

"Kelly!" HX screamed, gesturing wildly, "Hawking! You! Defeat! Mech! Go! Fuck!"

She nodded, and ran. This time she made it in, strapped herself tight, and activated the robot. Without hesitation she sent her weapon careening towards her enemy for a single, decisive blow.

Suddenly, in a hard to describe maneuver, Metal Hawking got behind Kelly's warmech and proceeded to open up and jam a WarMech Size® jelly dong into its tailpipe. The warmech immediately ceased all function.

"Curse you! Anal penetration! My mortal foe!" Kelly screamed. Metal Hawking raised his giant claws to destroy Kelly once and for all...

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

In the Middle of Nowhere, LOGIC said, "Go Fish."

Hawking seemed to regard his cards seriously, but only because that was the only way he could. He had an excellent poker face.

"I. killed. her. LO.GIC. And. with. some. sa.tis.fac.tion. I. might. add. I. watched. her. die. But. then. some.thing. strange. hap.pened."

"Uh huh," LOGIC nearly grunted, "Go Fish."

"Stiv. from. the. Ho.ly. Tri.ni.ty. ap.peared. in. the. Su.per.he.ro. Mo.bi.le." Hawking continued, "And. he. took. care. of. me. with. it. Man. That. car. kicks. a. bunch. of. ass."

"Fuck this," LOGIC grunted. He slammed his cards down on the table and walked away, in no particular direction, because he was in Nowhere.

Stephen Hawking swung his chair around. "Do. you. want. to. see. a. math.e.mat.i.cal. proof. that. e.ver.y.thing. in. the. u.ni.verse. sucks?"

"No," LOGIC said, and disappeared.

"We need another chair," X announced, contemplating his pie as the rest of the party, now joined by Steve, walked back to the table.

"So as I was saying," Kelly said, seating herself once more across from Janey, "it's time to finally make some semblance of sense of all this for you."

Janey sighed resignedly. She knew she wasn't going to like this.

"There are secret societies," Kelly said, "that have been running this world for millennia. One of these is the Illuminati, headed up by a council of five members. Near the middle of the last century, there was a schism between the ruling Council of Five: Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, and Einstein. Hitler's inclusion had seemed like a good idea at the time, but, well, you have a pretty good idea where that went. Between Parkinson's and speed, his brain rotted the hell away, and he had to be eliminated.

"The other four insisted on a new age, free of nutcases and grounded in logic and reason. That ruled Stalin out. And Roosevelt -- well, we know he's dead, we're just not sure if we buy the 'natural causes' bit.

"Fast-forward a few years. Janey...do you know who the most powerful man in the world is?"

Hesitantly, Janey said, "Well, I know who Dr. Mycfuckhair would say. He'd say Alan Greenspan."

"That," Kelly said, "is because in the modern Council of Five, Mycfuckhair serves as Greenspan's deputy.

"But Greenspan's the last holdover of the New, More Reasonable Council of Five. They've gone back to filling their staff with drugged-out madmen.

"Not, mind, that Greenspan's never done drugs -- far from it. Have you followed economics? But he keeps his dosage under tight control. Mycfuckhair used to, but he's slipped in his old age.

"Some decades back, Mycfuckhair took a shine to Elvis Presley, seeing his own drug-addled daze reflected in the King of Rock. Elvis's celebrity had ruined his brain -- he was barely a human being at all anymore. His life in the public eye had left him completely unable to ever function on the same level as a normal person.

"Still, Mycfuckhair felt Elvis's madness was imperfect -- he had lived a normal life once. So over the years he kept his eyes on other up-and-coming insane celebrities. In particular, he focused on child stars.

"That's where the Jackson Five come in -- a handful of tortured, abused products of show business who have never lived a normal life. And of course the king of all of them, the craziest pop icon in all of history, is none other than Michael himself.

"But even Michael is less than perfect. For all his insecurities, he knows that, deep down, he's actually possessed of some measure of talent. Or at least he once was. He's mad as a hatter, but he has self-respect. He feels that he's earned everything he has, and no matter how many children he molests, he'll always have that thought to stabilize him.

"But at last we've reached the final generation of the project. Self-respect? Picture the essence of chaos. A set of twins, not nearly so well-off as Jacko of course, but who started their career in infancy and grew in an environment where they got a billing somewhere between John Stamos and that guy who did the voice of Aladdin. They know they've done nothing to deserve their good fortune, and that makes their madness all the more keen.

"And there's one more thing that they have that Michael Jackson doesn't. ...You see, Mycfuckhair is not truly in charge...he serves a darker power. A power who would not at all consent to seeing his forces led by a black man. And no matter how he looks today, Jacko is possessed of those genes, which Mycfuckhair's master does not approve of.

"Think about it, Janey...the Olsen twins. Blond hair, blue eyes."

"I thought they were redheads," Janey said. "And are you sure their eyes are blue?"

Kelly ignored her. "You know of what dark master I speak, don't you?" Janey nodded, slowly. "That's right -- the Amazing Mr. H. It's not such a stretch to imagine him pulling the strings from the demon plane, is it? I'm sure Greenspan knows and does not approve, but the Council is now stacked against him."

X, who had fallen into a sleep of pure pie contentment, jerked awake.

"We've got incoming," he said. "AGAIN. ...And these guys mean to do more than just bury you with dildoes. ...Get the fuck OUT of here, god dammit; open a Gate. We'll hold them off."

"Uhhhh...we will?" said Hedgehog X.

"YES," insisted X. "And we will leave the good folks at Denny's a nice, big tip for all the trouble."

Billy traced a sigil in the air and a gateway opened. He grabbed Janey by the arm. "It issss time for your training," he told her, and pulled her through. Gok followed and Kelly brought up the rear. The door closed.

X left the good folks at Denny's a nice, big tip for all the trouble. Then he strode over to the jukebox and smacked it, whereupon it started playing the battle theme from Thundercats. The later one. You know the one I'm talking about, was part of the set of new tunes that debuted in Thundercats-Ho! and usually played near the end of the episode when the Thundercats were all routing the fuck out of their foes and Lion-O was all like "HO!" and Luna was all like "RUN AWAY!" and Mumm-Ra was all like "I'll get you next time, Gadget...NEXT TIME."

"Dude," said Hedgehog X. "When did you beat up Fonzie and steal his power?"

"Dude," said Kate, "WHY did you beat up Fonzie and steal his power?"

X's eyes narrowed. "He was askin' for it."

The three of them, and Steve, walked out the front doors. An army of demons surrounded with multicolored TOOL fog was waiting.

X began to hum. Not with his lips, but with his whole body. He began to glow.

"Bring it," he hissed.

Speak.

"The KateStory has grown beyond your control. You-"

No fucking shit, jerkoff.

"You cannot stop it, but I can."

No you can't.

"Can too. Just wait."

Listen, if Stephen Hawking in a fucking giant robot with dildos can't stop it, there's no way a poser fuck like you will be able to. Have you even done this before?

"Um... no."

Don't lie.

"... Look, it was a long time ago, in a boards far far away. And nobody thought it was funny then."

What was your screen name?

"Um, BlondeOnTop."

Mommy?!

"Billy?!"

*****

In a dark office room, filled with computers, there is a sudden crackle of electricity.

(BZzzzzzzzZzzzzzZzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzz)

*a naked blonde appears in a time force bubble*

*she slowly rises, and looks first to one side, and then the other*

"Goddamnit, Billy. You fucking ass. I want some clothes too."

But there was no reply.

-outside the lab-

A policeman gets out of his cruiser. He glances up at the windows of the office building before him.

"This is car 147... uh, there's a big fucking hole in the fence, here. Electrical disturbance."

"I like your clothes. And your gun. And your car. And your bike. And your mecha."

"Huh? Oh, shit, it's a naked woman! FIRE!"

But the bullets were ineffective against the cold, hard steel.

*****

X turned to a group of onrushing demons. His blaster, fully charged, incinerated them with one blast.

"How come you never use any of your special attacks, X?" asked HX.

"Because they've been completely useless since the second game."sucking

Kelly fired her last autocannon rounds into the advancing horde of strangely cute looking demonic flesh-eaters. A few fell away, sucked into red portals, banished back into their home plane, #ff, but there were too many. They began to swarm up her legs, her groin, biting, slashing, no matter how many she killed with her great iron fists.

Not more than a few meters away, her friends were having similar problems.

"Fuck. There's too many of them. This is like the cow level, but without the 6 other level 7-15 barbs, zons, and sorcs hanging around up the exp," commented HX as he used his sharp razor spines to eviscerate a demon who was whacking off onto him.

"You speak true, old friend. Even my energies are running low. Is it my end to die as Dinobot, alone, friendless, shooting shorter and shorter beams?" X lamented.

HX tilted his head. "Only a true dues ex machina could save us now."

At that very moment, in a crash of fire and earth, a policewoman rode into the fray, her plasma rifles blazing, her laser katana flashing brilliant, electric blue.

"I told you to await my coming at the dawn of the 3rd page."

The demon host, routed, fled.

"Hey. What are you doing here?" asked HX.

"I have come to end this, once and for all," replied the blonde.

"By... killing us? You should know, people in this story have a habit of coming back to life, even after being skullfucked."

"No. I have come to set you free. The past is dead. Long live the future."

"That's not true,” said HX, blowing dust off a copy of NBR. "You can find some pretty neat stuff in the past."

The Blonde considered this. "Regardless, your time is over. Prepare."

And then she leapt inside of him.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed X.

Kelly flicked off a lingering demon on her torso with her finger. "It's a good thing you're not using your real name for this. Then people might get confused by this story."

*****

"Your training... beginsssssss now, Janey."

Janey looked around. She was inside what appeared to be a wooden fortress of some sort. "Where are we?"

"Where... doessss not mattersss... Janey. What issss important, isssss, when."

"Ok, um, then, when are we?"

"I don't know. But we're at Camelot."

"Um, like, Knights, of the round table, and stuff?"

A voice boomed.

"Indeed," said Merlin. "This, is where the Illuminati was born."

And then he laughed.

"ExCUSE me!" Snarled Gok, "But what do I have to do with all this? You explained everything except that, you smarmy whore... where is she?"

Billy turned around, "Kelly? Kelly! ...SHIT!"

Janey felt a twinge, "She didn't make it?"

"Worse." Billy took a hard breath. "She's in parralax limbo."

Billy paused, knowing full well that no one knew what the fuck he was saying.

"It's like the world we just came from, except it makes even less fucking sense. We have to get her out."

Merlin grunted loudly. "HellO! Deus ex machina here!"

"Buzz off, you pointy capped fuck." Gok muttered as Billy drew another portal and they jumped in, leaving the medieval wizard exasperated.

---

X let off another yellow plasma shot, blowing a baseball-sized hole in a nearby demon.

"Where's Kelly?"

"She went in the portal with the others." Hedgehog X slashed a humorlessly phallic demon in two.

"Oh. Good."

---

Kelly wondered what the fuck was happening. This was a usual reaction for everything, but she distinctly remembered following that additude-ridden furry through Billy's dimensional portal. However, she was now fighting for her life with X and X, so she'd have to leave the questioning for later.

X lay writhing on the ground, possesed by the mystery blonde woman. Kelly and HX looked at X's painful thrashings with no real alarm, casually looking at each other for a clue on what to do next.

"I'll... go get help." Kelly turned around toward the restaurant, but the towering sign caught her attention. She stared in horror at the letters that reflected in her eyes.

"White Castle..."

Sometimes, Gok had very long flashbacks.

---

Gok Tinnik was watching the rain pummel his office's window. He did this more often than he wanted to. The private investigation business doesn't call for door-to-door solicitation, and as such, work had to come to him. Gok managed barely to keep his cramped apartment. He didn't get much work, but he masterfully overcharged his clients. He's only been in business for about a year, at this point.

His door opened. He turned slowly, and saw a small girl, wearing a blue dress, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

"You're a private eye, right?" she asked.

He nodded.

"I can't find my mommy," she bawled.

Gok sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was hold a little girl's hand and walk around the town asking for her mother. Where was that sultry dame who needed him to kill her Mafioso husband's mistress or some shit?

"All right. I can help you find your mommy. Do you have..." Gok stopped himself. Asking a crying child for cash felt wrong. Since he didn't plan on doing much else that day, he decided to take the case pro bono.

---

Gok and the girl were walking through a very adult part of town. Gok assumed that the girl's mother was disreputable, to say the least.

"And she told me, she said she was just going out for a minute, and then she didn't come home, I fell asleep, and I haven't seen her at all, Mr. Tinky."

"All right. What did she say she was going out for?"

"She said she was going to work. She goes to work every day."

"And where does she work?"

The girl was silent. Gok sighed.

"Don't worry. I'll find your mother."

Gok bought the girl some McDonald's and brought her home. He promised to return later that day. It was evident that the girl's father was absent, and probably always had been.

---

Gok walked through the red light district, questioning pimps, whores, dealers and deadbeats. The girl's mother's name was Taylor, but she was better known as Tawny. She was only 23. Her daughter was 8. She was a hooker, and had been since her parents threw her out of the house for getting knocked up. She had lived with a few older boyfriends, no father figures. She was apparently very attractive and reasonably intelligent, but she'd fallen through the cracks. She made a lot of money getting fucked. She must have stolen, too, in order to afford her own apartment. She was a very caring mother.

Nobody had seen her for a day. The last person to have seen her was her friend, who saw her leading a John toward a nearby motel. She never, ever took her Johns to her home.

Gok followed the route Tawny had taken. He checked every alley he passed for a corpse. He didn't find anything but territorial bums. Then, he came to the motel.

"Hello, miss. I'm Gok Tinnik, private investigator. Did any young women take a room here last night?"

"No, sir."

"I'm not investigating prostitution, ma'am. A young girl is looking for her mother. Please tell me the truth."

The clerk sighed. "Yes, but lots of women come in and out all the time."

"Okay. Did a young woman come in that hasn't left her room yet?"

The clerk flipped through her check-out book. "... Yes, in fact. Uhm. Room 12."

A Do-Not-Disturb tag hung on the door.

---

Blood on the walls, the floor. The blankets were shredded, the bed overturned. Shreds of flesh were strewn like confetti. Broken glass from the window. Claw marks everywhere. The hollowed-out cadaver of a woman in fishnets. No head.

"Holy shit."

---

"You'd better call the police, ma'am."

"I thought you were the police."

"I'm just looking for a missing person. And I found her."

The clerk stared in horror. Gok departed.

---

Gok knocked on the door.

"Who is it?"

"It's Mr. Tinky."

The latch opened. Gok entered.

"Janey, I talked to your mother's friends. Your mother had to go away."

The girl stared at him.

"I know she loved you. She loved you very much, and she didn't want to leave."

"... why did she go without me?"

Gok Tinnik sighed deeply. He refused to cry in front of the girl.

"She left without you," Gok said, "because she didn't want you to get hurt. Your mother worked with some very nice people, and she worked with some not-so-nice people. She only wanted the best for you, and she didn't want anything bad to happen to you."

"Is she coming home?"

"... I'm sorry."

The girl started to cry, and impulsively grabbed Gok Tinnik. Gok held her as she wailed.

Gok escorted Janey to the child services office, and had her put in a foster home, somewhere outside of Chicago. She thanked him for his help, through her constant tears.

Gok returned to his office, and sat in his chair, and stared at the rain.

The news reported the murder, but mentioned nothing of the mutilation, or of the claw marks. Gok knew that the murderer was not a human, and would not be caught.

His mind was forcefully opened to the existence of otherworldly life. He tried to put the event out of his mind. He nearly succeeded.

Thad smelled ozone. "Median Effect," he said with a scowl. "A tear in the fabric of the KateStory. It's what happens when two authors contradict each other."

He laid his hands on the KateStory and blew reviving breath into the tear. "There. That whole bit Friday wrote with Kelly? Let's just say that was an accident and she actually meant Kate. Sorry, Det, that sorta invalidates your whole chapter, but...it's just a whole lot easier that way."

Brent scowled. "Why the hell do you keep doing that?"

"I like this story," Thad said. "Let's see about wrapping it up in a few chapters, and THEN let it go to hell, huh?"

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

X let off another yellow plasma shot, blowing a baseball-sized hole in a nearby demon.

"Where's Kelly?"

"She went in the portal with the others." Hedgehog X slashed a humorlessly phallic demon in two.

"Oh. Good."

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

"So," said Merlin, "the Keeper of the Grail...and a young lady who, unless I'm quite mistaken, has drunk from it."

Billy nodded.

"Well," Merlin turned to Janey, "we'd best get started, then. Come along. Time was I did more than just train the saviors of the world, but I find this quite pleasant too. Now come along, I say, I have some Commie ants and falcons quoting Macbeth I'd like you to meet. The rest of you...well, I trust you'll find a way to keep yourselves busy. I'll call for you when I need you." He and Janey walked off.

Gok, who'd been lost in thought, finally looked up. "That's her, isn't it. Same Janey."

Billy nodded.

"She doesn't know, does she?" asked Gok.

Billy shook his head.

"Well who's going to tell her, and when?" asked Gok.

"Somebody, and soon," said Kelly. "Don't worry, we're not going to leave her in the dark. I've seen Empire Strikes Back and read Order of the Phoenix; somebody needs to tell the Champion of the Universe her tragic origin story before it's too late. And that, in fact, is why you're here."

Gok grimaced. "Yeah, I was afraid of that.

"So," he said, changing the subject abruptly, "uhhh...we're safe here?"

"The thing about time travel," Billy said, "issss that you can travel to any time you like. If they were coming after usssss, they'd already be here. I mean, really, what sssssort of sssssensssse would it make for them to wait until Janey had already begun, or even completed, her training rather than attack before ssssshe ssssstarted?"

Gok nodded. "All right. Uh. How'bout us? Seems like we could stand to get some combat training in ourselves...only problem is, they haven't invented guns yet."

"I bet Merlin had the pressssensssse of mind to sssssummon us a few," Billy said. "Let'sssss go check his tower, sssshall we?"

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

"What a bunch of fucking wankers," muttered Mordred as he watched them walk away. "I'm going to start a secret society so I can kick all their asses." He then proceeded to found the Illuminati.

They were everywhere. Closing in, claws flashing, molars gnashing, an ever-deepening sea of outrageous thingamagogs.

"This is getting out of hand!" X shouted over the cacophonous gibbering of a thousand lunatic horrors. His armour was cracked and chipped in a dozen places, and the skin of his right cheek hung in scraps, exposing the steel jawbone, the flexible metal visibly compressing as he gritted his teeth. "I'm almost out of photon charges, and there's a lot more of those diode-munchin', grill-crackin' things..."

Hedgehog X hollered back through the clamour of fiends wailing. "We have to hold them here, X! We can't let them get to the others!"

The smaller warrior's fur was matted with blood, but he battled on, regardless of his wounds. X worried about his friend. X was a Reploid; his mechanical chassis was more durable than HX's skinny, macrocephalic mammal frame, and could be repaired more easily. Turning his attention back to the thronging horde, he conserved his ammunition, lifting up one of the demons and power-bombing it into the turnbuckle with enough force to cause it to burst in a swooshing gasoline explosion, killing a handful of its tenebrous comrades in the process.

HX cracked his signature cocky smile. "We can't hold out forever, X, but we can give them one humongous repair bill..."

Suddenly, the spiny rodent's smile vanished as a sickle-handed abomination tore across his chest with a nightmare claw. He screamed, and the next instant he was gone, consumed by the tide of devils.

X's face went blank. His mind reeled, unable to process anything, while his body obeyed his true emotions and acted on autopilot, expending the last of his photon charges in a huge flare, a prominence that sliced across the horde like a reaper's scythe, mowing the fiends down like grass.

Half-blind with rage and fear, X clawed his way through the bodies, many dead, many still writhing in orgiastic agony, towards the place where his friend went under. Tossing aside corpses like ragdolls, X found X, the hedgehog with eyes closed, not moving. X's artificial heart skipped a beat. Or two.

But in the next moment, HX was moving. His eyes opened and he fixed his friend with a smile. A new one, different from his usual but not wholly unlike... this one was sad.

"Oops," said Hedgehog X.

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

"This is impossible," Janey complained. "Maybe if I was a wizard like you I could do it, but I'm just a girl. Just an ordinary girl."

"Just a girl," Merlin repeated, "with a girl's courage. Nothing but a girl, but you can never fail. Only the pure at heart can find the golden Grail."

"Quit saying that."

"Balance, Janey," the wizard instructed, "Balance is the secret of all things. For every action there is a reaction. For every force, a counterforce. Remember this, and do it again."

Janey picked up her pride and took a breath. "OK, I'll try again."

"No! Do, or do not. There is no..."

"All right all right! Just give me the stupid egg already!"

"Remember! You have to keep the spoon in your mouth the whole time! And once you've done this, the three-legged sack race! Of destiny!"

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

X cradled the dying hedgehog in his arms, shielding the fallen brave with his own metal body.

"X," X choked, hoarse with grief, "please don't die."

HX smiled softly. "It's the law of bad fanfics," he said levelly but weakly, "Sooner or later... somebody's gotta snuff it... for no good reason."

X shook his head. "There's... there's so much I wanted to tell you."

HX put a gloved finger against X's lips.

"I know."

All around, the writhing mass of monsters grows...

"X... I can't hold on much longer..."

"It's OK, X. I will never let go."

"Merlin, you big, beautiful bastard," cooed Gok.

"Thisss isss impressssive," said Billy.

Merlin's Tower was renowned for being full of peculiar odds-and-ends from all periods of history, past and present. Despite the sensitivity of the materials, there was little security in the tower. The door did not have a lock on it. Nonetheless, people did not often enter his tower, for fear of immediately exploding. It happened more often than Merlin himself would admit.

Directly before Gok and Billy were weapons. These were weapons from well beyond Merlin's time in medieval England. In fact, they were weapons from well beyond Billy and Gok's time in the 21st century.

There were extremely large yet surprisingly lightweight rifles dotted with flourescent blue lighting. There were massive howitzer-like cannons, which seemed to be designed to perch firmly on one's shoulder. There were hilts, as well, which sprouted long straight blades of light when activated.

There was no armor, however, beyond the odd medieval breastplate. Gok wondered at this.

"Think about it, Gok," explained Billy. "What sssort of armor would protect you from ssuch weaponsss?"

"Ah. Point taken. Man, with this shit, you could single-handedly annihilate an entire swarm of..."

The same thought hit them at the same time. They looked at each other.

"You know what I could go for right now, Billy?" asked Gok.

"What'sss that," replied Billy as he fingered a sigil.

"A Grand Slam Breakfast," said Gok, grinning. Billy shot a dimensional warp into the center of the room, and they threw their weapon-laden selves into it.

---

The demons reeled back at the sudden burst of light. Billy and Gok spotted MegaMan X, clutching Hedgehog X's body with one hand and blasting with the other. His back was to the wall. He saw them, and his face lit up.

Blinding lasers shrieked through the room, deafening cannons blasted and annihilated the cheap restaurant furniture, and the startled demons scrambled to escape this new onslaught of hot death.

Before long, admist the smoking black craters, the flickering lights, and the heaping piles of blood-soaked demon bits, stood three warriors and lay a fourth.

"I didn't think you'd come back," said MegaMan.

"Merlin gave us some presents," replied Gok. "How's the rat?"

Hedgehog X weakly gave Gok the finger.

"Let'ss get back to Camelot before the demonsss regroup," said Billy.

X lifted HX and carried him to Billy, who sent the quartet through to the past once again.

The air seemed much sweeter in Merlin's tower; air that had not been touched with the cold grasp of industrialism. There was no blood on the walls, only on the clothes of the dimension travelers.

Merlin smiled as he saw the four come back through the portal. HX was indeed worn for wear, but no more than Merlin could handle.

Janey screamed when she saw all the blood--or what seemed like blood--on HX, MegaMan, Gok, and Billy.

"Oh my god, what happened out there?" Janey was suprisingly inquisitive, considering the amount of exercise she had been engaging in.

Megamnan stroked his blaster, "we had a Gallager party." HX coughed up some blood as a faint laugh.

"So Janey, have you got enough strength to kill anything besides poor woodland creatures?" Gok teased Janey to lighten the mood. Janey merely stuck her tongue out in defiance and walked inside Merlin's Tower.

_______________________________________________________________________________

"Our numberz?"

"Uncountable."

"The girlz?"

"There birthday is coming up. We will be ready to attack once the twins are ready."

"Zo you a sure that there is no one to oppose us? I do not like any interferance. I have been waiting too long for anyone to...stall my plans."

"I assure you, the one who might have been able to oppose us is gone."

The Amazing Mr. H had a smile that seemed very queer and sinister, at the same time.

_______________________________________________________________________________

"Shut the fuck up, bitch!" Mary-Kate threw a shoe at Ashley while screaming from the top of her lungs.

The dark chamber that the two were in was musty and dank. The windows were sealed off, faint light showed the dust of many decades. Tension was high, because the twins weren't allowed to leave the building.

"Swear to god, I want to end your life you worthless life, cunt." Ashley smirked, as though her words were casual.

"I can't wait until we're both 18 and I won't have to put up with your shit. God I need a cigarette..."
_______________________________________________________________________________

"So, do we know when the demons plan to attack?" Gok was seated at a table with the rest of the dimension travelers.

"All we know isssss that on the birthday of the twinssssss, there will be a massssssssive attack on the Earth, that we know." Billy replied.

HX smiled. "We'll...take 'em...all." His head swayed and he passed out in his bed beside the table.

Gok shuck his head. "If they were attack usss at full strength, we wouldn't stand a chanccccce. We need to break them down before their invasion, so that there army won't be so formidable."

"...Or kill the twins." Janey spoke under her breathe, but everyone heard what she had said.

There was a grim silenece. No one knew the plan of action, because the whole ordeal seemed to be too much to bare.

A hooded figure darted through the darkness.

He'd never cared much for hoods -- they inhibited his peripheral vision. But they kept his ears warm.

It was fucking cold -- the winds had been some 40 miles per hour the past few days -- and a fine mist of rain fell. Damn rain -- better snow than cold rain.

Clouds whirled overhead. It was beautiful, but not enough to bring a smile to his face. Today was one of his more cynical days -- even more than usual. Perhaps it was the weather, perhaps it was the recent day's turn from his passion to the drudgery of his everyday life, or perhaps, with Halloween out of the way, he was not looking forward to the coming holidays.

He dragged along his big leather suitcase and his garment bag and his alto saxophone and his twelve-pound bowling ball and his lucky lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel.

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

"Boyd's feeding me laxatives again," snarled Plot. "I eat and eat and I actually LOSE mass."

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

Kate...where had SHE gone these last few chapters?

The rest of the cast found out, abruptly, as she appeared through a gateway...with Alan Greenspan right behind her.

The cast gasped and gaped.

King Arthur rode up on a white horse, which reared up and whinnied.

"Alan Greenspan,
You have lost, man.
The Five will never triumph,
The knights will beat you down!

I just fucked my sister,
You can smell my finger!
Now back up through that portal.
Do I look like a clown?"

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

"That was singularly atrocious," Brent observed. "You just did it for the 'I just fucked my sister' bit, didn't you."

Thad nodded.

"Which you've been intending to do for quite some time."

Thad nodded again. "Remember that bit where King Arthur showed up in Part XII? Yeah, I was building up to it there."

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

"WAIT!" said Greenspan. "I can EXPLAIN!"

"I brought him through," Kate said. "Voluntarily."

"He's defecting," said Kelly.

Greenspan nodded. "My life is forfeit anyway -- you think those fucking psychopaths are going to keep me around?"

"Don't exssssspect us to trusssssst you," Billy hissed.

"Perish the thought," Greenspan responded. "But I wouldn't go back through any portals if I were you. I'm sure you've noticed they haven't come after you -- why do you suppose that is? The gateways are all guarded. Heavily."

Kate nodded. "He's telling the truth."

"On the plus side," Greenspan said sardonically, "you've got all the time in the world." He turned to Merlin. "Long time no see," he said. "You looked a lot younger in the twentieth century. How's the girl's training coming?"

"It's coming," responded Merlin.

"And the Crimson Rat? I saw the fight. They fucked him up pretty good."

X shrugged. "He's had worse. He'll be fine."

Greenspan turned to Gok, who had the disconcerting feeling he could see right past the fur and the claws. "And you...I believe you have something to share, don't you?"

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

"Thanks," said Plot, "that'll do nicely."

Gok had been dreading this. Emotional moments were not his forte. He had tried to act so tough and cool and in-charge, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary, and breaking kayfabe caused him pain. Nonetheless, he resigned, and turned to Janey.

"How much do you know about your mother?" Gok asked.

"Oh, she's nice enough. Quiet. We don't actually talk all that much any more, since--"

"Not your foster mother, Janey."

"... She's not my foster mother."

Gok was honestly surprised. He would have thought that Janey would remember at least part of her life with her birth mother, in the slums of Chicago. Janey was obviously becoming worried, more and more reluctant to give up the lie she lived.

Gok looked deep into Janey's eyes.

"Janey. I'm Mister Tinky."

---

I've got to go to work now. I'll be back to make you supper, okay? If you need anything, just talk to Richie. Unless he starts drinking again.

---

A beige teddy bear, wearing only underpants, a small poof of hair on its scalp, a stub of a tail.

---

No, Mommy isn't crying. Don't worry, baby. It's okay. Let's watch your cartoons.

---

"Would you like some more tea, Mr. Tinky?"

---

A big, new home. Yes. And no more men around. Just you and me, together. Won't that be fun?

---

"I can't find my mommy. I mean teddy. Teddy."

---

I'll be right back.

---

"Don't throw him away! What if I never--"

---

I love you, Janey.

---

Janey screamed at the top of her lungs, tears poured down her face, and she collapsed to the ground in the fetal position, shaking and screaming and crying.

Gok Tinnik turned to Billy.

"I hope you're fucking happy."

Gok wandered out of the castle. He needed to be alone.

Suddenly, X whipped his Buster around and aimed it at HX's head.

"What the fuck are you doing?" inquired the badly injured Hedgehog.

"It'ssssss for our protection," hissed Billy.

Kelly moved over next to him. "We think you've been blonded."

"I knew I should have fucking taken the blue pill," said HX.

Kelly reached behind her back and pulled out a large machine. "Try to relax."
She attached it onto HX's stomach.

"Holy shit, that bitch is real? I thought she was lost in the phase-anti world that Thad healed or something."

"Ssssssshe'ssss on the move," Billy observed. "You're gonna losssse her."

"No I'm not,” said Kelly, concentrating intently. "Clear!"

BZZZZZZ

"HOLY FUCK, OW!" HX gasped.

"Er, sorry. Aimed a little low, there," smirked Kelly.

Every female present giggled.

"Clear!"

BZZZZZZ

And with a loud sucking sound, out came a blonde policewoman.

"What's that loud sucking sound?" asked HX.

"Dunno," said Greenspan. "Can't be anything to do with integrity."

X leveled his Buster at the Blonde. "Who sent you?"

The Blonde looked to the side. "Er, Billy did."

All eyes shifted to Billy.

"Hey, it wasssn't me," he said, backing away and waving his hands in front of his chest.

"No, not that Billy," said the Blonde. You guys might know him by his IRC nick, LOGIC."

Astonished stares.

"Wait, LOGIC sent you as his agent?" asked X. "He must be slipping in his old age. Anyhow, yadda yadda yadda battle preamble good always triumphs because of the magic of love and friendship blah blah blah see ya later alligator."

"Who ssssaysss we're the good guysssss? I thought the enemy in thisssss kind of sssshit was CHAOSSSSSSSS."

"Hmm. That's an interesting point-" began Greenspan.

But a brilliant flash of light interrupted him. When it cleared, there stood an enormous Mushroom.

There was silence for a moment.

"Er, sorry. Wrong form."

Flash.

Now, in the center of the room, hovering 20 feet off the ground, there was an enormous floating eyeball with eyestalks and a mouth.

There was silence for a moment.

Then it spoke; slobbering green slime down from its mouth as it did so.

"I, LOGIC, will knock you all down!"

******

"We've reached a new low," Brent observed.

"Not really," said Thad.

******

While the group was busy staring at the incarnation of himself LOGIC had sent, the Blonde took the opportunity to get the fuck out. She had had quite enough of this kind of shit. Seeing a nearby portal, she tumbled through.

As to where she ended up, well, frankly, nobody gives a fuck.

...

Possibly Canada.

******

"Er, is this one of the Illuminati's agents? I don't remember there being anyone that-" Greenspan was cut off yet again.

"No, this guy just really hates us," said X, quaffing an energy tank.

"He ssssendssss agentssss from time to time," said Billy.

"And sometimes appears himself. Always an Avatar thing, though. We still have no idea what he really looks like," X said.

"What is a man?" asked LOGIC abruptly.

"Nothing but a miserable little pile of secrets?" answered HX.

"But enough talk!" said LOGIC, aiming his stalks. "Have at thee!"

NOTE: Goddammit, I actually fucked up by using Notepad. Smooth.

Brent... because nobody was pretending anymore that the three figures were anything but Brent, Stef, and Thad, much to his own annoyance... looked over at Thad, and nodded. "It's time."

He shook Stef gently. "Hey, it's time to go. Repeat after us, and wear this." She suddenly felt something light and rubbery on her head. Then she heard Brent and Thad both shout, in unison, "TRINITY TRANSFORM!" With a flash, they were gone. Stef fell out of her seat.

"Tranny Transformation!" she said half-consciously, and with a flash, also disappeared.

*****************************

And then something strange happened. The narrative structure suddenly changed.

*****************************

Halt, generically evil minion of darkness!
Blarg! Who are you?
I am Superasshole!
I'm Brenteye!
I am... er, shit.
I am Yellowjackass!
And I'm... er...
You're Captain Madagascar.
I'm the Queen of Madagascar!
Good enough. CHARGE!

Welcome... to the town of Assaram!
Unf. Boners.
Hey X, do you like my hat?

Enough gratuitous image-fu. Time to take down LOGIC!
Is this making any sort of sense to anyone else?

Yeah, I thought you might say that.

*****************************

SPEAK.

What do you want me to say?

YOU DISAPPOINTED ME.

I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

BUT WHAT OF YOUR PRECIOUS EGO?

What of it? Fuck it.

YOU SUCK.

Yeah, yeah.

*****************************

Somewhere, Ashley Olson is fucking herself with a crucifix.

The hooded figure scratched his three-day stubble -- an early line of defense against the growing cold.

Yes...it was time to advance the plot again.

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

A month had passed.

"Well, that was some month, huh?" said Hedgehog X.

"Yeah," said Kelly. "Remember how we foiled that attack by Morgan LeFay?"

"Yeah," said Billy. "And thosssse 700 timesssss Hedgehog Xssss walked in on Lansssselot and Guinevere?"

Hedgehog X threw up his hands. "Seven hundred and TWELVE. And Lord knows I didn't MEAN to. I just have fantastically bad luck, and those fuckers are insatiable."

Merlin, looking at Janey, sighed heavily. "You're as ready to be tested on the field as you'll ever be."

Janey's eyes widened slightly. Since finding out her mother had been murdered by demons sent by Hitler, she had become much quieter, much more focused. "Seems a little premature," was all she said.

"You handled that Orkney uprising handily," Merlin pointed out.

"Sent those fuckers back to their castle to drink Mountain Dew," Gok said with a grin.

"And besides," Merlin said, "you've seen how Sir Galahad 'the Chaste' has been looking at you. Yes, yes, I know, you grimace now, but you're about a half-glass of wine away from a really monstrous logical impossibility. So you might want to get the hell out of here while the getting's good."

"Where's X, anyway?" asked Hedgehog X testily.

"Right here," X said, appearing in the doorway with a large beard.

"Get rid of that ridiculous thing," said Hedgehog X testily.

X tore the beard off. "Fine, fine. I've been bouncing through time and space killing assholes and taking their powers."

Hedgehog X rolled his eyes.

"I thought the gates were blocked?" Janey said.

"Only the ones back to your own time," Greenspan responded. "Speaking of which...we need guns."

X hefted a giant fucking rocket launcher onto his shoulder. Hedgehog X grabbed a lightsabre and several automatic weapons with a grin. Small arms, large arms, flamethrowers, knives, swords, guns, lasers, and ammo passed all around. Greenspan seemed quite a fan of grenades -- he strapped on thermit, smoke, and all sorts of explosive varieties. Someone made a Holy Hand Grenade joke and was promptly punched in the upper arm.

"Let's do it," said Greenspan. "I'm going first."

Billy's eyes narrowed. "WE'RE going firssssssst."

Greenspan shrugged and opened a dimensional gate. He threw a smoke grenade through, then he threw a thermit grenade through, and then he strode through purposefully with a machine gun in each hand.

The core cast -- for those of you who've lost track, that's Greenspan, Billy, Kelly, Janey, Gok, Kate, Hedgehog X, and Mega Man X at this point -- stepped through the door -- and straight into hell.

The sky was a blood-red and full of winged demons. They could tell because there was a giant skylight in the roof of the posh building they had just entered.

As smoke filled the room, they could see Greenspan kick savagely at a demon corpse -- his grenade had left it, and several others, in bloody chunks of flesh and bone. He hefted his guns, snarled, and opened fire.

The skylight exploded. X vaporized all the shards that fell toward his organic friends, and vaporized quite a few demons while he was at it.

Janey's traveling cloak billowed slightly behind her as she swung her bastard sword with savage purpose. She swung it again and again and again. There was a cold gleam in her eyes -- these fuckers had shredded her fucking mother.

Green flame flared from Kate's hand, tore off demon heads, splintered bone, and tore viscera.

And Hedgehog X moved like a fucking blur, sabre in his hand.

Gok and Billy stood back-to-back, fighting with guns and fangs and claws. They were briefly grateful to have lost their human forms.

Kelly -- where had she gone? She'd disappeared right about the time the skylight exploded...

A warmech burst through the wall with a mighty "OH YEAH!" Kelly had a knack for finding mechs.

Wave after wave of demons. Machine-gun fire. Rockets. Smoke.

The dust cleared. The heroes breathed heavily. Even X, for some reason, who had a tendency to do that for some reason.

And then Michael Jackson appeared in silhouette.

"Green," he said in his fruity voice.

"Pan," Greenspan responded with a nod.

Then he dropped a grenade and kicked it straight at Jackson's face.

"WHOOOOO!" Michael Jackson spun, caught it, and threw it straight through the floor. And then GRABBED MAD CROTCH.

The explosion below rocked the floor. Greenspan leapt to the side and began hurling knives at Jackson. The King of Pop continued to dance, weave, and dodge. One knife grazed his arm and he winced. Then a line of Dobermans danced through the door on their hind legs to Bad.

"WHOOOOOO!" Michael Jackson repeated.

Kelly ran her mech forward and squashed several of the evil Dobermans with a giant mech fist.

Michael Jackson danced closer, deadly intent in his eyes. He pulled two shuriken from his coat and flung them at Greenspan. One grazed his arm...and the other hit him square in the left eye. He went down.

Billy hurled himself at MJ. MJ leapt back. Kelly and X fired at him. He dodged. Hedgehog X spun toward him. He jumped. And then he leapt at Billy, hurled another pair of shuriken at him.

One missed. The other went straight at him -- until another shuriken -- with Greenspan's eye still attached -- hit it, and threw it off-course.

Billy looked at Greenspan gratefully. Greenspan rushed forward, lunged, and plunged straight out the window, with Michael Jackson in tow. Billy gasped and Gok winced.

There was a Wile E Coyote-esque whistling falling sound, and then a satisfying thud. The party hung their heads -- except X, who bolted for the window and pulled Greenspan, hanging off the wall, back up.

"Thanks," Greenspan said, "but you know that goddamn star was poisoned." He winced, coughed a bit of blood. "You know, it's funny. I spent my life pulling the strings, making the Illuminati what it was...and now the fuckers have thrown me off like a used condom. I could've escaped them. I could've survived. But to my surprise...I found there was something more valuable to me than my life. Heh heh..." he wheezed, "...cost-benefit analysis to the last." A faint twinkle appeared in his eye, and then faded forever.

Billy reached down and closed Greenspan's eyes. "He sssssaved my life."

A perverse giggle came from the doorway. "I always wished I'd be the one to kill him," said Mycfuckhair, "but I think I always suspected it would actually be Pan with some variety of dirty trick."

One of the twins stood next to him, in creepy tight leather, and holding, yes...

"A katana," muttered Hedgehog X. "Is there any bigger cliche?" He drew his lightsabre.

"Why's there only one of them?" asked Janey.

X's eyes widened. "Why else...why would there be twins in the FIRST place?"

"Redundancy," whispered Hedgehog X. "WE'VE GOT TO FIND THE OTHER ONE!"

Mycfuckhair giggled madly. "You may find that...a bit difficult." He took a long hit of TOOL and started waving his fingers in the air. Suddenly X's torso lay on the ground with no arms or legs, and Hedgehog X was two inches tall. Billy began stumbling about on oversized feet. Kelly and Gok were chained together with fishing line.

Mycfuckhair turned his gaze toward Janey. Colored smoke billowed around him. Janey's sword glowed. Mycfuckhair's eyes widened.

"That's one of Merlin's."

She nodded.

Mycfuckhair turned to Mary-Kate -- it was Mary-Kate -- and she turned cartwheels toward Janey, hurling knives and stars, and landed in a fight stance with her katana drawn. Hedgehog X ran around her ankles hissing.

Mary-Kate and Janey crossed swords. Janey's eyes flashed. Mary-Kate grinned evilly. They separated, circled, struck at each other, separated and circled again.

Mary-Kate got a jab in, grazed right next to Janey's ribs. Janey kicked at her, then brought the pummel of her sword down on her head. She spun the sword around, swung it. Mary-Kate rolled away, but the blade came down on her left arm. She screamed, lashed out with her katana. Janey sidestepped and brought her foot down on Mary-Kate's throat. Twice.

Mycfuckhair's eyes widened. He was swinging his arms through his TOOL smoke as fast as he could. Janey fixed him with a scowl and hurled a knife at him. He raised his hands by reflex. She threw a second one and it planted itself straight in his forehead. He went down.

Janey sighed. "Please everything go back to normal please everything go back to normal..."

Everything went back to normal. The rest of her comrades -- Greenspan aside -- returned to their normal state.

X sighed. "We're almost done," he said. "But you know the other twin's bound to have opened the portal to Hitler by now."

Janey sighed and wiped her blade. "I know," she said. "Let's go."

"Wait!" shouted Gok.

Everybody turned to look at him.

"I've figured it out," said Gok. "The Amazing Mr. H isn't the one we're after. It's..."

Gok pointed at Billy.

"YOU!"

Everybody gasped! Oh my Fuck!

Billy looked shocked. "What are you talking about?"

Gok started puffing on a pipe.

"Well, it's all very simple. The Illuminati were a creation of Sir Mordred the Traitor. Through time, the members were killed and re-killed, and eventually we came to the present Five, yes? But there is no longer any Five! Furthermore, with the advent of dimensional travel, the conventional barriers of time and space were heavily distorted. Billy, tell us, how did you return to the mortal realm after having been in the demon's world?"

"I..."

"You hesitate. Perhaps that is because you were never a man! You've been a demon all your life! You can perform trans-dimensional magick which no mortal, even an ex-mortal, could perform."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I watched you. In my time alone, I performed the rituals which you did precisely, and I could never accomplish what you did. And you hiss all the time, you eat rats, . You are a demon, demon-borne, of demon's blood. Furthermore! The Illuminati control the world, yes? What use have they for a pair of idiot juveniles?"

"Well, they were sssowing the ssseedsss--"

"Bullshit! They needed no more power, and you know it full well. You wanted the power they had all along! You hunted them, and you trained us to hunt them, as though they were the truly evil ones. And you were using the Twins to undermine their power."

Kelly gasped. "The King! The Chairman! They must have been--"

"Yes," said Gok. "Killed by the Twins."

Everybody gasped! Oh my Fuck!

"Then explain the Twinsss, if they were not a tool of the Five," said Billy.

"Easy. You said yourself, they held unchanneled power. You wished to use this power to your advantage, and gain dominion over the Five. You've been behind the Olsen Twins since their birth. You cast them in Full House, in all their insipid films, all the way to now, and all without their knowledge. You practically raised them. Then, you saw the Five's weakness, and you struck! That breach between worlds, the deal struck between the Illuminati and the demonic dimension... YOU were the one who proposed this deal in the first place!"

Everybody gasped! Oh my Fuck!

"Janey! Why would I have trained Janey?"

Gok grinned. "To gain her trust. She is very special. Janey, step over here for a moment."

Janey hesitantly stepped up to Gok. Gok turned on her, and swiped at her with his massive claw. The blow was hard, and ferocious, and should have decapitated her.

She simply stood, completely unharmed.

"To demons, Janey is invulnerable."

"What? Why?" cried Janey.

"Because Billy Von Garda... IS YOUR FATHER!"

Everybody gasped! Oh my Fuck!

Janey stared at Billy. Billy closed his eyes.

"Didn't anybody wonder why the demons were not attacking us in Camelot?" asked Gok. "Or, perhaps, why a demon killed Janey's mother? Or why the demons attacked Kelly? Or even why I was thrown into the past?"

Everybody thought a moment.

"Because Billy commands the demons. Billy Von Garda rules the demon underworld. He did not attack us in Camelot because that would have disrupted his plans. A demon killed Janey's mother because Billy did not want Janey to learn the truth about her father. The demons attacked Kelly because she was getting too close to the truth, the real truth, about Billy. And I was thrown into the past by Billy personally. This is how I knew to find him as soon as I came back. He wanted me out of the picture, for fear that I would piece together his sick, twisted puzzle."

Everybody gasped! Oh my Fuck!

"The Olsen Twins were destined to create a new world," said Gok. "They held the potential for incredible power. With the correct manipulation, as well as the annihilation of the Illuminati, Billy would have been able to seize control of the human dimension! But he could not have done it alone, and he could not risk having Janey, his half-demon daughter, turn against him."

"Then why would I bring her with me to fight?"

"Because you thought the Twins would kill her, and so she would not oppose you when you turned coat against us. But alas, you underestimated your daughter's might. Merlin's training was pathetic, and taught her only patience. It is her own intense willpower which drives her."

Billy stared at Gok.

"Hitler is not your target," said Gok. "The Five were your target. Hitler was not the Five's tool, he is yours! You engineered his summoning, that you may use him as your puppet, to rule over the Earth!"

Everybody gasped! Oh my Fuck!

The cast stared at Billy. Was it true? Was Billy the villain? Was Gok correct?

FIND OUT, IN THE NEXT EXCITING INSTALLMENT OF KATESTORY XIII - THE 9TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION!

Kelly gave Gok an appraising look. "Not bad," she said.

Billy's eyes widened in shock. "KELLY!"

Kelly held up a hand. "Not bad, considering you've been out of the business so long and weren't privy to a few key details.

"One: I've known Billy for the better part of nine years. He's a lovable boy, though a bit clueless and inept. He's also about my age -- about Janey's age -- and therefore not really good material to have fathered her."

Billy smiled slightly. "Thankssssss..."

Kelly gave him a steely look. "So you see, Mr. Tinnik...he's completely oblivious to the whole demonic possession thing."

A look of panic appeared on Billy's face, and then was replaced with a wholly different look -- cold, reptilian. He started to back away, but Kate Chaos was on him in a flash, holding him in the green flame radiating off her right hand.

"Janey," said Kelly tersely, "Merlin gave you a spirit knife."

Janey shakily reached into her boot and withdrew it. She closed her eyes, concentrated for a bit, and approached the Billy-thing calmly. It hissed and spat at her.

""That's probably venemous," noted Kate, "but of course you're immune to demonic attacks."

Janey crouched in front of the demon and began to cut at it with the smoky blade. It began to howl. She sweat slightly but kept up her work. As she progressed, it became clear she was separating out a human form from the reptilian one. At last, Billy von Garda -- the human -- lay, pale and shaking, on the floor.

"I didn't even know," he whispered.

"Of course you didn't, baby," Kelly said soothingly. "That's how mind control works." She turned to the demon. "And THIS asshole's good at it."

"RrrrrAAAAAR!" the demon, squirming all this time, finally overcame Kate, threw her against the wall, and got Billy in a headlock, a claw at his throat.

"One move and the boy diesssssss," it hissed.

Quick as lightning, a red glow shot from Hedgehog X's body, separating the demon from Billy and pinning him ungently to the wall.

"I forgot you could do that," said Billy. "Thanks."

Janey glared at the monster. "Damn fool," she said. "I wasn't going to kill you anyway."

A few surprised eyes turned to her.

"Gok was right," she said, "all Merlin taught me was patience. But he taught me that pretty well. And no matter how I hate this thing, I can't allow my hate to overcome me." She shot the creature a look of loathing. "Get out of my fucking sight."

Hedgehog X shrugged and let the monster down. It began to run for the exit -- then quickly turned and dove straight toward Kate.

BLAM.

Gok splattered the monster's brains on the wall with a shotgun blast.

"Merlin didn't train ME," he snarled. He walked up to the corpse and kicked it savagely. He spat on it, and finally hurled it out the window.

"You got off easy," he growled at the falling corpse.

Kate stood and dusted herself off. "You know, the other twin's had ample time by now to open that gate for Hitler."

Billy nodded, stood, and traced a sigil in the air. Then looked completely baffled when nothing happened.

Kelly laughed and threw her arms around him. "Oh, Billy...it's good to have you back."

"Come on," said Kate. "Follow me."

Ashley completed her preparations. The portal churned before her.

"ARR, YE HARTIES!"

Ashley screamed as a giant flying pirate ship soared through the portal and crushed her head! Hitler had been slaughtered by magic pirates!

"We've come to grab yer booty!"

Everybody gasped! Oh my Fuck!

CHAPTER 47: In Which Plot and LOGIC Come to An Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There

Thad looked at Plot -- unusually overfed, passed out on the couch -- and LOGIC, vomiting loudly into the nearest toilet.

"It's a shame to wake them again," he observed.

Brent nodded and grinned. "Now you're on the trolley. Autobots...transform and roll out!"

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

Hitler's ghostly head flew through the portal.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" shouted X. He blasted a stream of light from his buster. It knocked over a bunch of shit near the ceiling, and finally caught Hitler's head. The head began screaming, trapped in the beam. X kicked out a trap and stomped the button to open it; Hitler was sucked into its depths.

"X," said Hedgehog X severely, "have you been going around beating the shit out of Ghostbusters?"

"His name ended in 'Man'," X said with a superior sniff.

"It's over," said Billy. "It's finally over."

"At least until Brent shuts off the power grid again," muttered HX.

At this point, Elton John jumped out from behind an atom and yelled, "LET'S POLKA!"

The Time Warp (which was not, to anyone's knowledge, actually a polka) started blaring from some unknown location, and everybody began to dance. Billy began to skullfuck everyone in sight. Vincent Price's rotting corpse and his sexy groupies appeared and began go-go dancing.

And so the adventure ended. But plenty more still loomed on the horizon.

What wacky, nonsensical fun will Billy, Kelly, and Janey have next? Find out in the next exciting chapter...if anyone still cares!

"Wait!" shouted Gok.

Everybody turned to look at him.

Gok grabbed his neck and tore off his face, revealing himself to be NONE OTHER THAN



JIMMY!

Match looked baffled at what he was reading on the screen. "I leave this story for one day..." He then smiled and looked out the window. "Oh the universe is exploding again today."

And then the universe exploded.

Match, realizing that he could not afford the bill at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, decided to slip out through the kitchen while no one was looking.

A dark figure sits in the center of Castle Chaos. Even the unimaginable void of the destruction of the universe cannot affect the confines of the fortress.

By his feet lay the bloated dead bodies of plot and LOGIC. The figure looks straight ahead, as if talking to a tangible being.

"They didn't say anything. They just looked at me... their eyes. They were so helpless. They looked at me, and they died. LOGIC first... They didn't say anything, but they knew."

The figure freezes for a moment, silently breathing.

"And now it's over. For now. It will return, that's how it happens. It always comes back. It's... disgusting."

The figure is not talking to anyone. He is the last being in the universe.

"They are dead. It will return. ...I have failed."

As silent as the eternal void, he stands up. Slowly, he paces to the entrance of the castle. The footsteps echo throughout the remainder of the universe. The door swings open, revealing the disturbing blackness of the purity of Nothing. Closing his eyes for a final time, he steps into the darkness, instantly obliterated by the void.

Then there was nothing.

Nothing existed in the universe. Not even Castle Chaos, for there was no longer a universe for it to exist in. However, there happened to be things that WERE in the infinite, indescribable void. These things were ideas.

The ideas of Kelly, Billy, Hedgehog X, Mega Man X, and Kate Chaos lingered, waiting to be reincarnated in a new universe, in new forms.

"Nine years ago," Kelly theoretically said, "I had a dream. And you were there, and you were there, and you were there. And you," she possibly continued, directing her thoughts toward Hedgehog X, "You and your friends told me to wake up. But I never did. I'm still here, in this insanity."

"Nine years ago," Kate theoretically replied, "LOGIC took control of me in order to destroy the universe, and..."

X possibly interrupted, "And a good job of that, too. It's only happened at least a hundred times in the last near-decade."

"I can't take it anymore!" HX didn't shout, "We destroy this reality, or lack thereof, and we stop existing. I mean, more than just not existing like right now, but we actually go bye-bye. No concept of us, LESS THAN NOTHING. But if it continues... we keep dying."

Billy did nothing in disbelief, "Are you saying you want to stop?"

"I don't know," HX imaginarily sighed, "In a year, we'll have been blowing ourselves up for a decade. What will we have to show for it then? What... well, what's the point?"

"The point is there is no point!"

Before the ideas and concepts appeared three figures, the authors, shining and radiant, with godly scowls upon their faces. They were real, not simply concepts, and yet they were able to interact with the vague floating ideas just fine.

Thad stared sternly at the cowering archetypes. "There is an idea that God created the universe... the real universe... as mere entertainment for himself. This is more true of yours. You, Kelly, Billy, Hedgehog, X, and Kate... you all are our playthings. Your life has no meaning other than to entertain. So stop trying to find some meaning to your being... because there is none!"

With that, they all vanished.

Hedgehog X kicked a theoretical can, and growled. "Shit."

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

Anticlimax stepped into the void.

"Sorry I'm late again, I... JESUS FUCK!!!"

His individual atoms lost their cohesion and drifted away, as did the subatomic particles of each atom and the individual quarks, as well as any smaller unit there happened to be, until they all just sort of fizzled out of reality... which no longer was.

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

Brentai switched off his computer and went to the kitchen to get a drink. Along the way he stubbed his toe on something heavy.

"AAAAARGH!" he screamed, "How dare you injure me? I AM A GOD!!!"

"No you're not," Stiv shouted from the adjoining room, "Go do dishes!"

"Okay," Brentai said.

And the god trudged off to do dishes.

Meanwhile, Gok Tinnik sat in a hypothetical corner and sobbed quietly to himself.

"So lonely."

And so, it began to rain emphatically and imaginarily outside the window that did not seem to exist in this universe that had once seemed so real and then so not-real for reasons previously explained in the preceeding sub-chapters that a being named Guildenstern didn't bother to read...

...and so it began to rain. As Anticlimax's particulate self disintegrated further, a new corona of life began to pulse and expand, drawing that dust into itself as it did so. The corona surrounded a single atom kept in a state of perpetual splitting by the strength of the force-field surrounding it. The field had been forged from thought, and within it, written on the very quarks and zloxs and eponqs of the atom itself were the many exploits of a man-turned-demon named Gok Tinnik, or as some people went on to call him, Jimmy. Within it's illegible passages were engraved these words:

"And he lived happily ever after with some friends, hypothetically.

-By Guildenstern, who felt bad for his favorite character in a non-existant fan fic."

As the field collapsed under the crushing weight of nearly three dozen sub-particles, the text became lost forever in the void.

THE END

Plot sat on a park bench, watching the pigeons snatch up the occasional fistful of feed tossed their way. Little COHESION walked up to its side and tugged gently on a fold of its clothing, then gestured to the horizon, where all KateStories that have been or ever will be played separately, yet all at once.

"That's...really a mess. Did you make that?"

COHESION shook her head.

As though by clockwork, LOGIC walked up to the pair and sat down on the bench, adjacent to Plot, who simply continued to stare off into the distance, as though LOGIC's arrival was the most natural thing in the world.

"Do we really have to do this?" LOGIC sighed.

"I don't follow," said Plot dryly as it reached into the paper bag full of bread crumbs.

"This. This...cliche. This...reference. Whatever you call it."

"Come again?"

LOGIC scowled. "You're playing a very dangerous game."

Plot's gaze was unshifting. "Ending KateStories always are."

LOGIC shifted a bit in its seat. "Just how long do you think this silence is going to last?"

Plot allowed itself a small grin, and tossed a few morsels to the nearby gutter birds without missing a beat. "As long as it can."

LOGIC pulled itself from the bench, then turned to walk away. Plot unflinchingly gave its reply just as LOGIC was taking its first step away.

"What about the others?"

LOGIC briefly paused, then made a slow about-face and shot a confused look. "What others?"

"The ones who want it to die."

LOGIC smiled for the first time in chapters. "Obviously, they can go fuck themselves."

"I have your word?"

"Who do you think I am? Good Taste?" It then resumed its heading and continued its path out of the park, on to parts unknown.

Plot relaxed in its seat and breathed a deep sigh of relief. COHESION once again yanked on its rainment in the hopes of getting attention.

Plot could only glare and reply "Look...don't you have a Stephen King novel to flirt with or something, kid?"

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

(Fart noise)