Announcers, like many other things in life, are often taken for granted. Nobody ever stops and thinks, "Hey. I wonder how they picked the announcers for this show? I wonder what the announcers are like? I wonder how the announcers got to where they are today?"

Let us track the adventures of two such announcers. We shall start...

Now.

On a planet named Earth, there is a continent named Asia, within with there is a country named China which houses a city named Hong Kong.

The city itself houses many things.

Hong Kong houses gang wars.

Hong Kong houses the Chinese Mafia.

Hong Kong houses crazy wackos that go about thwapping people with their mad kung-fu skeelz.

But the only thing that matters at the moment is the fact that Hong Kong houses a kawaii little assassin named Nemesis.

"But Taipan, why do *I* have to travel across the galaxy to the year 2500 to fight in a tournament against people that are most likely going to be *WAY* more powerful than me?"

"Because I said so."

What followed was some rather loud whining about how that was ALWAYS the reason.

"Don't worry, Nemesis dear. I'm sending some people with you."

"Erk?" she asked as the old man motioned to the door. Two men quietly entered and bowed to the Taipan. They were both incredibly attractive.

"Feng? Xiao? He's making you guys come with me?!"

"Yeah, isn't it killer?!" Feng said, his eyes lidded. He brushed a hand through his black hair, then pulled out a Black and Miles cigarette from nowhere, taking a long drag. "This is gonna kick ass, dude!"

She then looked to the other man. "...Don't look at me like that, Nemesis. It's not my choice."

Nemesis translated that from Xiao-speak into normal talk. Basically, he meant, "I don't wanna go but Taipan is forcing me! Wah!"

Suddenly, she felt something attach to her leg. Something short, skinny, and nine years old. "JZE-JZE!"

"Err, ni-hao Lung-Mei."

"Ni-hao ma! Ni xe bou xe xong go yur la?!"

"Yes, I missed you," Nemesis said as she smiled, putting her hand on the girls head. Lung-Mei cocked her head to the side and smiled, her pigtails bouncing cutely.

The Taipan smiled wickedly. "Now that we have the whole group, begone with you!"

Quickly and with an insane gleam in his eye, he pushed the SHINY RED [BUTTON]! Yes, the SHINY RED [BUTTON]! Not the [SHINY] RED BUTTON, or the SHINY [RED] BUTTON, but the SHINY RED [BUTTON]!

Suddenly, the group was engulfed by a shining white light, and ferried off to wherever it was they were going.

Far, far away, in a node completely seperate from and yet quite similar to the one our story takes place in, The One That They Call the MultiMediocre Knight sat behind a large wooden desk.

"It is from *here*," he said as he indicated the room, "that the Loon World Order will rule all of Dream City."

"Yep!" the MMK's comrade Burghy cherfully yepped, sitting in the seat in front of the desk.

"It is from *here*," MMK continued, "that the Loon World Order will spread."

"Yep yep!" Burghy added.

"*This*," said MMK, "is the Loon World Order's new *office*."

"Yep!" Burghy said, nodding cheerfully.

"My point, Burghy, is this. We do not *urinate* in the Loon World Order's new office."

Burghy looked thoughtful for a second.

"Oh," he said, his facial features forming an ^_^ face.

"Understood?"

"Well, I just thought that it could m-"

"*No*, Burghy, we do *not* urinate in the Loon World Order's new office. *Understood*?"

"...yes," Burghy pouted.

"Good." The MMK idly rolled a pencil off his desk. "Now, on to more pressing matters. Burghy?"

"Yes?"

"I want you to go out a..." MMK trailed off as a well-dressed businessman entered the room. The man appeared to not have noticed the MMK and Burghy upon entering. He put down the briefcase he was carrying, unzipped his fly, and began urinating.

"Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey!" the MMK barked, standing up and holding his hand out.

The man jumped, and moments later was extremely thankful he was wearing a dark suit.

"What are you *doing*?" the MMK asked.

The man picked up his briefcase and began backing towards the exit. "Well, I... it..."

"We do not *urinate* in the *Loon* *World* *Order*'s new *office*," the MMK said sternly.

"Nope!" Burghy added.

The man looked around the room. "But... this is a public washroom!"

"OUT," MMK said, pointing towards the door.

"But... but..."

"Burghy, show the man the door."

"Okay!" Burghy said. He got out of his chair, walked to the door, and pointed to it.

MMK tried desperately to keep himself from sporting a large sweatdrop on the back of his head.

"Out out out!" Burghy chirped.

"Yessir," the man said quickly as he ran through the door.

Burghy blinked. "Hmmm," he said. "That was very easy."

"See, Burghy?" MMK crowed. "I *told* you the best place to set up the lWo Office was in the Dream City Bank!"

Burghy smiled. "I'm going to go find that guy and tell him to go out again."

MMK let Burghy go out on that line. There was *no* responding to that.

MMK sat back down behind his big wooden desk, put his feet up, and idly wondered what he was going to do now that he had finished moving into the new office.

Fate jumped on that thought like a boy band on a fifteen-year-old girl.

And a blue portal opened in front of the MMK's desk.

"Well," MMK thought to himself. "That didn't take long."

"MAIL CALL," another MMK called as he popped out of the portal and dumped a large pile of mail on MMK's desk.

MMK sweatdropped.

"Enjoy," the other MMK grinned as he went back through the portal and closed it.

MMK looked at the large pile of mail on his desk that was completely covering his feet and sweatdropped again.

"Damn," MMK thought to himself. "When *was* the last time I checked my mail?"

He extracted his feet from the massive pile, pulled an envelope off the top and opened it.

"'Come one, come all to the Grand Merchandisable Clash of Authors! Node #667, Year 2500 A.D.'", he read aloud.

"*You're* an *author*?" MMK heard someone blurt out incredulously.

MMK pulled a strangely heavy plush doll that looked exactly like himself out of his right Interdimensional Hyperstorage Sleeve and glared at it.

"Quiet," he told it.

"An author? *You*?" MMK heard the voice blurt again. "I've met projectile attacks that have a better command of the English language than you do."

"Yeah? Yeah?" MMK said, glaring into the plush doll's eyes. "I'll show *you* a projectile attack!" And with that, he opened a blue portal to Node #667, Year 2500 and threw the doll through it, following through the portal shortly after.

The Granite Valley Sportsplex was a very technologically advanced place. A display of technological excellence at its very finest, it featured some of the biggest mechanical breakthroughs of all science since its creation around 2090.

The Sportsplex's bathrooms, however, were barely advanced by the standards of even the 20th century. The highest technological breakthrough in there was the little red lights that you held your hand in front of to get the tap to work.

It was inside the men's bathroom connected to the Sportsplex's main plaza that a blue portal opened.

And so it was that another breakthrough was made.

Specifically, the door was broken through by the MMK Doll, which was flying at Ludicrous Speed due to the centrifugal force of the portal.

Shortly following the doll was the MMK himself, who appeared with his back turned to the door and his arms outstretched.

"WELCOME TO! 2500 A.D.! IS! *EMMEMMKAY*!" he yelled, and turned around to see absolutely nobody.

Once again, the MMK sweatdropped.

"Well, *that* was certainly worth doing," MMK heard someone mutter dryly.

"Oh, shut up," MMK muttered as he pulled the MMK Doll out of the door's wreckage and tucked it under his arm.

"Nice place," MMK heard the MMK Doll remark.

MMK had to admit, this was a pretty nice layout they had here. Of course, this *was* the 26th century; he hadn't really expected anything else from this time period. MMK took in the sights of the Sportsplex's Plaza, stopping on a large rectangular machine near an exit.

The rectangular machine was pushed against the wall, with the side facing outward displaying several confectionaries through a transparent material. Next to the transparent material was a keypad for entering commands.

MMK may have been in the 26th century at the time, but he recognized a vending machine when he saw it. MMK went up to the vending machine and looked for the prices. He had just remembered that all nodes from #600 to #750 did not actually *use* any form of currency when he heard the sound of footsteps charging towards him, accompanied by a loud female yell.

"CHOCOLATE!"

Oh, bugger.

Dumbass portal. Couldn't even transport them all to the same place.

Really, she was going to have to talk to Taipan about this when they got back.

Poking around the insanely huge sports complex, Nemesis kept her guards up. Never knew what kind of psychos would just pop out of the shadows and rape you. Or pop out of the shadows and keep you away from vending machines housing much chocolate, caffeine, and sugar.

Nemesis decided that she wouldn't feel safe until she found Xiao. Feng was probably too stoned to even realize there was anything wrong, and Lung-Mei had probably already found something to torture. Really, they were nice but they were... to put it lightly, odd.

Sure! Lung-Mei was possessed by a sadistic Chinese legend called the Dragon Lady! And it wasn't really Feng's fault he was addicted to seventy-five different drugs and counting! Nemesis twitched inwardly. Okay, maybe it was.

Xiao was normal. Kind of. He was a little bit shy, but he was HOT!

Nemesis smacked herself in the side of the head. BAD! Don't think of Xiao like that!

Anyways, back to poking. Nemesis continued to poke around the sports complex. And then she saw it.

A vending machine.

With candy, and sugar, and stuff.

"CHOCOLATE!!!"

MMK backed against the vending machine and looked around to see who was charging towards him.

He took stock of the situation. He'd been here all of five minutes, and already somebody was trying to take his food away from him.

This would not do at all.

MMK finally saw the approaching girl, heading straight for him. He got ready to defend himself (and his newfound food, of course).

"You know, there's plenty," he heard a dry voice pipe up.

"Quiet," he whispered sharply.

"You *could* share it," the voice continued.

"Shut *up*," he whispered.

"I mean, *look* at her! She's *hot*!"

MMK pulled the MMK Doll out of his sleeve and glared at it. "I am *trying* to protect my *food* here, you lu-"

"Oh! Hou ka ai!"

MMK suddenly found himself holding nothing. He looked up to see Nemesis clutching the MMK Doll to her chest.

"Hou ka *what*?" he thought to himself.

"It's so CUUUUUUUUUTE!" she chirped.

"Gleep," MMK heard the Doll mutter happily.

MMK raised an eyebrow at the MMK Doll.

"I'm in heaven," he heard the Doll comment.

"GIVE me that!" MMK yelled, grabbing for the MMK Doll.

"No!" Nemesis snapped, hopping away from the MMK, a possessive gleam in her eye. "It's mine now!"

"Mine!" MMK yelled, reaching for the Doll again.

"Mine!" Nemesis hissed, again hopping out of the MMK's reach after batting his hand down with a crescent kick.

"Yeah. Hers," MMK heard the Doll gloat.

MMK's eye twitched.

"Give that back!" MMK yelled, pointing angrily at the Doll.

"No!" Nemesis hissed again, narrowing her eyes at the offending person.

"I'm hers now!" MMK heard the Doll squeal. "I'm gonna be hers forever and ever and ever a-"

MMK held his forehead. "SHUT UP!" he screamed.

"DON'T TELL ME TO SHUT UP!" Nemesis screamed.

Lunging forward, MMK once again grabbed for the doll.

Nemesis once again pulled the doll away.

MMK ended up grabbing something else entirely.

And there was silence as the two travellers stared at each other.

MMK blinked.

"Well, I... uhm... *this* is unexpected. Not necessarily *worse*, but..."

Contorting her face slightly, Nemesis growled quietly, then began to chant. "Hentai in the twilight, Ecchi overflow, H is always where it's at, Sukebe always-- Aw, Fuck it."

"My thoughts exactly," MMK suggested.

"HENTAIIIIIIIIII... SLAAAAAAAAAVE!"

MMK blinked, then shrugged. "Well, we hardly even know each other, but if you really *want* me to be your hentai slave I can't tu-"

Seconds later, the MMK had been reduced to a small pile of his former self, with a chibi H-chan bouncing on top of his remains.

And, some would say, deservedly so.

"Pah! I've had worse," the MMK's ashes piped.

"Hmph!" Nemesis hmphed, turning and walking away.

"Very well then," the MMK's ashes said in their best British accent, "we'll call it a draw."

Ten minutes later, the laws of cartoon physics had resurrected the MMK and he, finished brushing the last of his ashes off of himself, was busy looting the vending machine for all it had.

"Take him away from me, will she?" he muttered to himself, punching buttons at random on the vending machine's keypad. "Burn me to a crisp and have a chibified hentai goddess sit on me, will she? Take away the offer to be her hentai slave, will she? Kill me before I get to eat anything, will she? Why, I'm gonna..."

Nemesis happily skipped along, clutching her new doll to her chest and looking around the Sportsplex for her travel companions.

Nemesis hummed softly to herself as she walked along.

She briefly wondered where everyone was, than remembered that her it was Saturday and her briefing had told her that nobody had any reason to be here today.

Except for that guy she ran into a while back.

She stopped.

"Wait. Who was *that*?" she asked herself.

She thought back to the phrase she had heard her Taipan say once: "You ask them. You don't *shoot* them." (Notably, and unbeknownst to her, her Taipan had stolen this advice from a Joe Don Baker movie.)

Good advice, she reflected, but that didn't help her figure out who she had run into before.

She blinked as the connection hit her.

Why didn't she know?

Because she didn't ask him. She shot him.

Oops.

Running back to where she had originally met the strange man with the doll, Nemesis looked around feverishly.

Suddenly, two men pounced on her and pinned her to the ground.

"EEP!"

Struggling out of their grasp, she looked at them and her gaze softened.

"Oh, it's only you two," she said as she smiled. "What happened to you guys?"

"Nothing really, dude," Feng swooned. "Just chillin', man."

Xiao nodded his consent.

"Good, now all we need to do is find Lung-Me--"

Nemesis' sentence was cut off by the explosion of a small orange sphere and her realization that she and her two friends were completely covered in... in...

In cheese.

Lung-Mei hopped out from the shadows, equally doused. "Bou whe! Zigga cheese!"

All four Chinese Mafia people looked up into the stands to see the MMK doing what some would describe as the "Super" Stevie Richards Powerpose.

"HA! TAKE *THAT!" the MMK crowed triumphantly. "I GOT MY *REVENGE*, YOU RED-HAIRED FILTHY DIRTY SKANKY DISGUSTING SMELLY BRUTAL BOTTOM-FEEDING TRASHBAG *HO*!"

When he finally stopped to take a breath, he noticed that he was surrounded by four powerful and angry assassins.

Once again, there was silence.

"Eep," the MMK noted.

"Look, sir, if there are too many to keep track of, we're going to be in a lot of trouble," Charnel told the Master through the scrying-spell-with-audio they used to communicate across planets. "I don't think we'll need that many of them. Like you said yourself, all it takes is one universe we can use, and we'll have what we're after."

The Master considered it. If they lost track of just one of the more sickeningly powerful competitors, they could easily lose everything they had put into this plan.

"All right," he answered finally. "Stop bringing them in now. Eight two-fighter teams will be enough, and with so many of them dragging others along who won't be competing, I can imagine how much chaos could start up there."

Charnel worked up the nerve to mention one complication.

"Two more came in earlier today..." he began. "One of them seriously doesn't want to be left out, and the other... well, he was in another multiversially broadcast tournament, and might be a ratings draw."

"Hmm! That might turn out to be useful. Well, make them into announcers. That will keep them busy and get them to every match." The Master realized one potential problem. "They will be interesting enough to be announcers?"

It wasn't really meant as a question.

Charnel looked anywhere but at him. "Oh... they're pretty memorable..."

"Gin!" Nemesis piped.

"Damn." MMK threw his cards down on the Announcer's Table. "Let's play something else. You want to play Ooey Gooey Battleship?"

"Sure! What's Ooey Gooey Battleship?"

The MMK grinned evilly.