Okay, this should be the completely fixed version.
by 20X3 Lainer
The screen flickered for a second before turning to a white blank. Moments later the blank was replaced with the image of two Frou-frou bunnies nibbling on an electrical wire. Next to it was the pink text 'Currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please wait.'
"Piece of crap!" Nnirk barked from the hillside behind the riffers.
"Oh look, you're doing it wrong."
"Says the girl that *lost our tank*."
As the bickering turned into amateur wrestling, the riffers were using this opportunity to make good their escape; if by "escape" one were to mean sitting around and doing pretty much nothing. Brandt was watching the fight while eonsinger slept peacefully on his lap. Kao was looking through her hammerspace for space clips, Lainer was re-enacting the He-Man movie with some blocks of wood he had found in his coat, and t.ogre was attempting to get the grass stains out of his cape. Finally, Robbie was busy drawing diagrams in the grass. When he had finished, he looked up and addressed his companions.
"I think I have a plan to get us out of here."
All heads turned to look at Robbie, and most of them had a very skeptical expression on them. "But," he continued, "We're going to have to work together..." The heads then turned to regard each other. Most of them had some level of hostility towards the others from past theater experiences, and cooperation wasn't very high on their things-to-do-without-possibility-of-cash- reward list.
"Come on guys! It's this, or we wait for them to start up that fic again! And it's only a matter of time before *that* turns into tentacle dickgirl lesbian porn. Right Lainer?"
"Well, I can't remember everything from the summary, but I'm pretty sure he gets the Wood card next."
And then their minds were made up.
"So," t.ogre said while brushing his cape back over his shoulder, "What do we do?"
***
"Huh, looks like the captives are up to something," Ryukage said, looking up from her position straddling Nnirk.
"Really?" Nnirk asked, on his back and still keeping the TTD controller out of his accomplice's hands. He half rolled to the side, throwing Ryukage off of him, and stood up. His victims were indeed doing something. Something that required pulling oversized Barbie furniture out of Lainer's coat and pasting paper wings on eon's back.
"What are they doing?" Ryukage asked from a sitting position.
"Don't know, but it should be amusing. Or, at least, give me enough reason to test out the smite features on this thing."
***
"No t.ogre! Those lights need to be higher!"
"Makeup! Where's my makeup?"
"And where's my sandwich?"
"In three... two..."
"Damnit Robbie, we're not ready yet!"
"I could have sworn I put it down right here..."
"Action!"
The previously blank screen changed to a super deformed picture of eon's head along with the title 'eon-Chan Check!'. Kao, standing at the top of a ladder, pulled the screen up, revealing eon. He sat behind a bunny-sized table with a bunny-sized computer to his right. He waved cheerfully.
"Hi kids, how are you doing? Oh really? Well I'm sure they make medication for that. Now, in today's episode we met Shriker, and I'm sure you all have lots of questions about him, so I'm going to do my best to answer them. First let's see what a Google search will turn up." eon turned over to the computer and began typing on the keyboard.
"eon!" Robbie shouted in a stage whisper, "That's just a prop!"
"Well then what am I supposed to do out here?"
"Just improvise it!"
eon faced forward again and coughed, "Well, so... we should probably start at the beginning. Shriker was... er... raised by wolves... in the Congo Alps... in the fourteenth century. At he age of seven he was accepted as an apprentice to a... plastic flower company," eon said, now more sure of himself, "He soon learned the secret to life, the universe, and why men have nipples. Using this knowledge he won the Pulitzer Prize and went on to invent the common cold. After marrying a previously undiscovered species of newt, he moved to the Sea of Tranquility and..."
***
Lainer, unnoticed by Ryukage and Nnirk, had sneaked away from the show and closer to the Shoggoth Temple, who had been busying itself by crucifying snails. He moved toward the demon, creeping closer, and closer, and closer, and stepping on a twig, and snapping it loudly, and alerting the demon, and getting one of its tentacles wrapped around his neck.
"Urk."
"You don't bewong here. You should go bwack to YOUR SEAT, CURL!"
"Uck, I thought you might be, gah, lonely?"
"I'm not wonwy. I have THE THOUSANDS OF SOULS WHICH I HAVE DEVOURED to keep me cwompany."
"Ack, I have a, urk, present for you?"
"A pwesent?!" it exclaimed as it dropped Lainer and began jumping from leg to leg in excitement, "WILL IT ALLOW ME TO HARVEST THE FIELDS OF INNOCENT SOULS WITH SUCH TERROR NOT SEEN SINCE THE ELDERS DECENDED UPON THE LAND?!"
"Uh," Lainer stalled while digging through his coat pockets. He'd never really bothered to ever get anything useful out of it, but right now his life was depending on it. His life, and that Nike shoe transformer that Robbie had promised him. Goddamn Lainer wanted that transformer. He continued to search though his pockets when suddenly his hand grazed something fuzzy and doll- shaped. Not taking any further time to examine it he took it out and presented it to the demon.
It was fuzzy, and doll-shaped, but that completely ignored its other characteristics. For example, its cartoonishly oversized cat-shaped head; its four long tentacles in place of arms; and the soulless, bottomless pits where its eyes should have been. Upon seeing it the demon squealed in delight and ripped it from Lainer's hand.
"A Hewwo Cthulhu! I've aways wanted one of these!" The demon then began giggling uncontrollably at the geysers of blood that shot out of the doll's eyes when its torso was squeezed. Two of the doll's arms twitched, and without warning shot up and wrapped around the demon's head; not phasing the demon in the slightest. Lainer started to back up, but a third tentacle shot out and attached itself to his cheek.
"Auuuhhhh! It's melting off my skin! It burns!" he then paused and said, in a completely calm voice, "But it's doing *wonders* for my pores!" He then resumed flailing about helplessly.
***
"... and about this full empty aura of his, just what exactly *is* in it? Some have suggested that the souls of the people he is avenging are trapped inside, others have suggested an otherworldly being that grants him great power. I, however, think it contains a fruit bowl."
eon reached under the table and brought up a bunny-sized fruit bowl. "That's what I always keep in *my* aura. Because you should always be prepared." He pushed the bowl forward. "Banana? Oh really? I hope that's not contagious."
***
"I don't get it."
"We agree on this much at least. I think it's high time to start the smiting."
Ryukage got up and peered over Nnirk's shoulder at the control, "Are there any Wrath of God options on there?"
"Locusts, frogs, or giant man-eating leeches?"
Ryukage's choice had to be delayed, however, as Robbie had suddenly leapt up from behind and grabbed her. Nnirk too had been nabbed, but by t.ogre, and in his surprise he had dropped the TTD control. It rolled down the small hill until finding a resting place at its bottom. "Kao! Quick!" Robbie shouted, "Get the control!"
"Huh?" Kao responded from her position at the top of the ladder. She started climbing down the ladder, but quickly lunged forward, attempting to catch the canvas she just let go of. She couldn't stop it though, and the floating screen swung down, hitting eon in mid lecture. The force of the hit propelled the small bunny across the field and straight into t.ogre's face. With the Rube Goldberg sequence almost completed, t.ogre attempted to pull the spazing eonbunny off his face, and, in turn, let go of Nnirk, who made a beeline for the control. They only had one hope left.
"Brandt! The control!"
Brandt, who had been quietly watching eon's performance, reached over and picked up the control. "Great!" Robbie shouted, "Now open up another portal so we can all get out of here!"
"And why the fuck would I want to do that, Quimlad?"
Every noise in the field stopped dead. And, although it wasn't audible, one could clearly hear the phrase 'Oh. Fuck.' thought by all present.
"Now, you see, I think I've been a fairly good sport." Thief started in a calm tone of voice, " I've had to sit through three different theater showings of shitty, sappy, and incredibly boring fanfics in less then the span of a day. And not just that, but I've had to spend it with a collection of the most inane, idiotic, righteous, and, again, *boring* people that I have ever met. *And* I've had to deal with people that want to *encourage* the little freak living in my skull. And once I FINALLY get things together, and things start going my way, I GET STUCK BACK IN A GODAMN THEATER. I am, right now, kind of mad."
Thief took a deep breath. He turned to the Shoggoth Temple. "So, first of all. You. Dead." He pointed the control at the demon and pressed a button. Shoggoth Temple, still giggling and hugging the Hello Cthulhu, exploded into a gooey mess that covered the now comatose Lainer. Lainer blinked, muttered something about getting slimed, and fainted. Thief then turned to t.ogre, who was standing next to Ryukage and Nnirk. Robbie and eon had long ago fled to Kao's hiding place behind the screen. "You three. Dead." He pushed another button on the control.
***
In another universe, one vastly different than this one, there were Phils. And they were fixing.
The tank's wave of destruction had thrown the Phil's normal schedule of sitting around watching daytime television into total disarray. Most of them were working on rebuilding the several hundred banks and sheriffs offices that made up a majority of the buildings in this particular ghost town. A few were even building new tumbleweeds. In this particular part of town, more specifically the part that had been sandwiched by a modified M1-A1 Abrams tank, there were yet more Phils.
One was rearranging a cabinet of liquors in alphabetical order by poisons, another was painstakingly painting stains on the counter top, and a third was attempting to push said tank out of the ruins. He wasn't having much luck considering that the tank outclassed him by several thousand pounds.
"Would Phil like Phil to try pushing too?" The Phil near the bar asked in a condescending tone.
"Phil is doing fine, thank Phil very much."
Phil continued to push the tank for a few more moments before he got fed up and kicked the tank. And then the tank moved. Straight up. The three Phils all stared at the Tank as it began spinning around and shooting out laser lights on the remains of the bar's walls. And as soon as it had started, it stopped. The tank was gone.
"Um... Phil didn't do it..."
***
With a crash and a bang and a sound oddly akin to an accordion hooked up to an air pump, another portal opened in the meadow. The tank inside of it hovered for a moment before plummeting down and crushing t.ogre, Ryukage, and Nnirk.
"t.ogre!" eon shouted in his cute little bunny voice.
"All right fuckateers," Thief said in his still calm voice, "You're all going to sit down over there and enjoy another nice little fic of incomparable horror while I go and-"
"Fight him Brandt! Fight him!"
Thief flinched and turned back to face the tank. Pushing himself out of the tank's cramped interior was indeed the still living t.ogre.
"What the... how the... WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?" Thief screamed at the wrestler. His attention was then turned to the blinking LCD screen of the TTD controller.
>Looney Toons Physics
>Activated
"Son of a whoring, teenage, ecks popping BITCH!" Thief threw the controller to the ground in a huff and began charging up a giant psychic blast. He was distracted, however, by the tank, which had started to... change. The turret had begun to fold over the top of the vehicle, the treads had slid inside of the chassis, and the entire tank was leaning forward. t.ogre wisely pushed himself the rest of the way out and jumped off. Thief watched the monstrosity for a little while before picking up the control and reading its display.
>Plan B
>Activated
The tank, now fully transformed, resembled a large metallic man. A large metallic man with a cannon coming out of his chest and an obscene number of missile bays covering his body. The machine surveyed the meadow before speaking, "Attention squishy humans. You will be destroyed. That is all." And then it started shooting.
"We have to get out of here," Robbie said from his hiding place behind the floating screen which, as it so happened, was equipped with a chaff deployment system.
"But how are we supposed to get through THAT?"
"And I'm not leaving without Brandt," t.ogre said forcefully. The psychic in question was doing an admirable job of avoiding mini-sidewinders.
"t.ogre, there are more important matters to address right now," eon said from his perch on Robbie's head, "Besides, the way things are going, I'm sure we'll run into him again."
t.ogre only grunted, resigning himself to leaving Brandt behind.
"But we still have to get by that robot. If only we had a distraction or a-"
(Cutie bishie boy!)
The riffers all blinked and turned as one to see the small blur in the shape of the Magical Wrench Fairy. It quickly shot across the battle-wracked field and attached itself to the robot's head. The missile barrage stopped abruptly as it attempted to pull the tiny fairy from itself.
"That looks like a distraction," Kao said, still slightly stunned.
"Robbie, you get eon," t.ogre said, taking command, "I'll pick up Lainer. Everyone run for that portal!"
"Awww," Kao whined while running beside t.ogre, "Can't we just leave him here?"
"No Kao. That would be wrong."
"So?"
t.ogre quickly picked up Lainer's body and dashed to the portal's side with Kao. The only problem was that the portal was a good forty feet higher then it had looked from the screen.
"Damn this dimension's irregular physics," t.ogre said under his breath. They might be able to climb up the robot, but it was doubtful that they could all get up there without being noticed. If only there were some other way, if only there were... t.ogre's eyes and attention drifted down to the body in his arms. Or, more correctly, the coat that he was wearing. Well, he thought, it's so stupid it just might work. He submerged his free hand into the coat's bottomless pockets and pulled out the first thing he found.
What he found was large, puffy, and red with white spots. It would have looked like an especially poisonous mushroom if not for the large black eyes staring up at him from its base. It blinked and attempted to crawl out of t.ogre's hand. "I am so going to regret this in the morning." t. took a bite out of the mushroom, tossed it away, and grabbed Kao with his free arm. Robbie, having since caught up to the wrestler, grabbed onto his neck with eon sandwiched under his arm. Throwing caution and several rules of physics to the wind, t.ogre jumped up and easily cleared the forty or so vertical feet separating the portal from the ground.
(I'll love you, and hug you, and dress you up pretty, and...), the jubilant Wrench Fairy babbled. The tank finally managed to pull the sprite off of itself and flicked it into the portal as well. Unnoticed by the tank, Thief had climbed the robot with the TTD in hand.
"Those were my captives you oversized vibrator!" he shouted while working over the robot's head with the TTD. He managed to get two good hits in before metallic tendrils came out of the machine's head and wrestled the TTD away from him. Thief tried to grab it back, but the machine had already pulled it in and integrated the part into its head.
"Crisis adverted," the machine reported in its flat monotone, "Shutting down."
All right, okay, this is still salvageable. He just had to get some more hapless fools and the day might not be a complete waste. But to do that he had to figure out how the new TTD worked. Say, it *did* look at good deal like a VCR.
As if on queue, a slot next to the TTD opened and revealed a small selection of videos. Thief skimmed through it before picking out a tape with _Slayers Try_/_End of Evangelion_ written on the side. Well, this should be interesting. Thief popped in the tape, flipped the TKRS switch, and waited for the machine to do its thing.
***
A few minutes passed before any thing happened. And then the first portal opened in one of the larger craters, and then another followed it, and another, until there were six portals forming a circle inside the crater. Simultaneously they shot out their contents, five humanoid shapes and a colony of hamsters, and dissipated. The first to dig herself out of the hamster pile was a young girl wearing lots of jewelry and a t-shirt that read 'I got sucked through a temporal warp hole and all I got was this stupid t-shirt'. She was followed by a twenty something man and a much younger boy wearing a tuxedo and a large bastard sword.
"Why the fuck am I here, who the fuck are you, and which one of you fuckers brought me here?" the girl demanded of her companions.
"Hold on, just calm down and I'm sure we can find a reasonable explanation for this," the only one of the three that had passed puberty said, "My name's Jake."
"Charandra," The girl grudgingly admitted.
"My name's Brian," the third one said, "But you can call me The General!"
This was followed by a confused stare from his audience.
"Or Brian or Gen or something, that works too..."
"Lovely," Thief said from his perch atop the robot, "Now that the introductions are over, I'd appreciate i-"
"And who the fuck are *you*?" Charandra demanded, cutting Thief off.
"And where did you get that My Size Megatron?" The Brian asked.
"None of that really matters. All you need to know is that I'm going to torture all of you, and if I get bored, I'm going to do to you what I did to the last group," Thief said while gesturing at the craters.
"Not again," Jake sighed to himself, "Don't you evil villains have anything better to do with your time? Whatever, I've got a job interview in two hours and I don't particularly feel like missing it because of some kid's junior mad scientist project." With this he raised his left hand, around which was a bracelet of glowing stones, and pointed it at Thief. "Good night."
From the tip of his index finger leapt an electric bolt heading straight for the bishounen. Before reaching its target, though, it was psychically bitch slapped into the upper stratosphere by said bishounen. This elicited a snicker and a comment about being pwned by his companions. Jake ignored them and drew a new selection of stones from a pouch tied to his belt, "Okay, let's try that again."
"Gather in the skies forces without forms."
The stones in his hands glowed with pale light as the previously clear sky started to become overcast
"Raze this lands with endless storms."
A light drizzle began, and thunder rolled in from the distance.
"In the name of Zeus, Thor, and Marduke."
"Show this fool my power's no-"
"Hey! What are you trying to pull?"
Jake blinked as he was pulled out of his spell and looked down at the accusatory finger of Charandra, "Wha?"
"I'm not being sacrificed for your little power struggle with robot boy!"
"No, no it's not-"
"*I*'m the one that does sacrificing around here!"
"Uh, guys?"
"No, I just needed something to rhyme."
"Guys?"
"What is it Gen?" Charandra spat out.
"Duck!"
Both Charandra and Jake looked up and saw what Gen was referring to. The focal point of Jake's spell; a gigantic pulsing lightning bolt making its way straight down into them. Jake franticly wove his arms at Thief and the bolt curved, missing them by inches. Thief just calmly watched the spell while pressing a button on the TTD labeled 'Countermeasures'. At once all parts of the robot not covered with missile launchers slid open, displaying a colony of large lizards that hung onto the robot's power cables. The bolt lasted a few more meters before vanishing into nothingness.
"Ah, *cough*, did I say endless storms? My bad."
Charandra shook her head in disappointment. Gen, however, was nearly frothing at the mouth.
"Hey! Those only work on the force! You cheated!"
Thief waved his hand dismissively," Now that that's over with, I'd really appreciate if you dug up your companions Oniko and Ice and watched a few little fics in quiet."
The three captives in the crater sighed and went to work on uncovering whoever was left in the pile. Jake and Gen uncovered the Japanese teenager with a striking resemblance to Shinji Ikari.
"You must be Oniko," Jake said.
"If I must, I must," Oniko replied, "Though all things considered, I'd rather be Segata Sanshiro. But then, wouldn't we all?"
On the other side of the massive hamster pile Charandra had dug up another body; this one grasping an empty tequila bottle.
"And you must be Ice."
"If I must, I must," Ice said as he slowly came to, "Though all-"
"If you don't mind we've already driven off that cliff once today."
"Children! Hurry it up or I go bang bang with the missiles!"
Both Oniko and Ice shot straight up and looked at Thief, "Thief! You bastard!" They then paused and looked at each other, "You know Thief?" Both gave another pause as an affirmative. "I guess this was going to happen eventually," Oniko said while scratching his neck.
"Yeah. Best to just get it over with," Ice said as they made their way to the screen.
"Those two are weird..." Gen stated as he followed the rest of the group to the floating movie screen.
Posted on Sep 2, 2003, 12:30 AM from IP address 66.126.168.136