* * "Return of the Revenge." Subtitled: Even more stuff to use in our insanity plea bargain! * * */*/*/*/* "First off, we need an objective to seek for." Darth said, as they returned to the hotel room they were using as a hideout. "Then we need to figure out who's going to lead, what we do with our prisoner, and short term plans." "I think I should be the leader, since I have the most combat experience." Proclaimed Outlaw. "Want to lose the other eye, cyclops?" threatened Andrew menacingly, as Chibi-Slacker asked "You really want that frontal lobotomy, don't you?" "Calm down, everyone. Outlaw, while I normally would agree with you, we are dealing with Thrawn here. I want as many random elements as possible, so we'll just dice for who is leader and for how many days, ok?" Suggested Darth. "I can see the reason in that," announced Outlaw, "what about you, Andrew?" "Okay with me, Slacker?" Agreed Andrew. "Good idea as any I've heard so far." Grumbled Chibi-Slacker. A few rolls of the dice later and Darth was leader for a day. "Now, why do we need a goal to seek for? I thought we were trying to return to our home universe?" Queried Outlaw. "If we return home they will follow us, or at least Cy will. I, for one, don't want my home as a war zone." Darth replied. "What would you suggest? Killing them all?" Countered Andrew. "That's what I was planing on doing anyway." Outlaw announced. "Those sons of bitches must pay for doing this to me." Chibi-Slacker added as he slammed a magazine into his Desert Eagle. "Okay, next item on the list," continued Darth, "what do we do with our prisoner?" "He knows too much, kill him." Outlaw stated. "And how are you going to get rid of the body?" Andrew asked. "Am I the only one who has a problem with killing? Anyway if you kill him then just bring him to some dark ally in the bad part of town. Give him a drug overdose, then make it look like he bashed his head in or something. Just make sure the brain is destroyed or else Cy will just find what information he wants there." Declared Darth. "Have him take a header from a tall building. Maybe a construction site? An impact onto a stack of steel I-beams should take care of his head pretty well." Chibi-Slacker added. "And you're the one that has a problem with killing?" Andrew asked with a slightly sick look on his face. "We should just put him in a crate with some food and put him on a ship to somewhere." "That's a better plan." Darth remarked. "So let's do it." Muttered Outlaw. "So after that what do we do after that?" Darth queried. Outlaw then suggested "Why don't you I go to a doctor to see if Cy changed something besides teaching you Japanese?" "I think that Cy would have us only discover what he wants us to discover, but . . . " Darth said not able to express his worst fears. "Sounds like a plan to me. Let's do it." Chibi-Slacker expressed. However Outlaw suggested with a nasty grin "Let's ask the prisoner some questions, first." *** In the other room of the hotel suite Outlaw drugged up the prisoner and started the interrogation. "Why were you carrying so many weapons?" Asked Outlaw, starting the interrogation. "To ward off attackers." Replied the drugged-up captive. "What kind of attackers?" Probed Outlaw. "Any kind." Answered the tech. "Unless you expected an army of demons, you were carrying an awful lot of weapons." "Not demons, they stay clear of the warding on the city. The undead however don't care about the wards. At the moment there is only a vampire in the city." At this answer Outlaws eye widened, and he quickly questioned: "Are there more undead in this world?" "Yes." "What type?" Grilled the now concerned Outlaw. "Vampire, zombie, ghoul, various spirits, and more." "Any other mythical creatures?" Asked Outlaw with a feeling of dread. "Dragons, demons, hydras, chimeras, dwarves, giants, orcs, trolls, succuba, hell-spawn, minotaurs, werewolves ...." At that point Outlaw interrupted with "What types of weapons are effective against them?" "Depends on what you're fighting. Most things will be destroyed or harmed by thermal detonator. However red dragons, some demons, and some hell-spawn thrive on it. Similarly, silver will harm or kill most things but dragons and demons are immune to it-t. Blasters-s are pretty effective on some weaker types of vampires-s." The tech slurred, "Looookk prettyy colooorssss." Outlaw who knew further questioning was useless once the prisoner reached this state got up and left to tell the others. Afterwards they had a little victory party for the day and went to bed. *** After executing Andrews plan for getting rid of their prisoner, they went to a silversmith to coat some knives and Outlaws Katana in silver. Then they went to a doctor that Outlaw and Darth had dug up in the two week period were the authors were split up, anticipating the need for a good doctor that could keep quiet. *** At the doctor's office, Darth was about to undergo another test, however, as soon as the doctor activated the powerful magnets that were crucial to the scan, Outlaw was yanked aside by his katana and other metal weapons that suddenly decided that they wanted to be closer to that attractive magnet. There was also a CRASH as the window shattered, a CLANG as something penetrated the steel blinds and a TOCK as a nasty looking shaft embedded itself into the wall where Outlaw had been standing a moment before. Needles to say Chibi-Slacker and Andrew, who had been laughing at Outlaw immediately took cover behind some big transformer. Darth was slightly slower in reacting and almost got hit with another on of those darts, as it was he was going to have to get a new trench-coat. Outlaw had to wait until the machine got shut off, which didn't take long as the plasma bolt that destroyed Andrew's and Chibi-Slacker's hiding place also cut off the power. This caused Outlaw to drop quite suddenly, and just in time, because then the machine Outlaw was so attached to also got hit by a plasma bolt and exploded. The authors got showered by shrapnel but avoided any major injury, except for Darth's trench- coat which was a total loss. By now most of the cover in the room was destroyed, and the door was on the other side of the room. Lying on the floor, our heroes tried to crawl to the door, but that plan was abandoned when a grenade was thrown through the now open window. They made a break for it, narrowly avoiding a few more arrows as they barely outran the green gas from the grenade. As they ran out of the back door, Outlaw was hit in the arm by a shaft fired from above, causing him to drop his gun. Looking up they saw the descending form of a very large black predator. As it landed with a loud crash, Darth was so shocked to see Hunter that he forgot to defend himself as a punch sent him flying. Outlaw didn't have time to aim his shotgun before a kick broke it and sent him flying, as well. Chibi-Slacker managed to aim his Desert Eagle at Hunter before being booted away. Simultaneously, Hunter also struck Andrew, who managed to hit Hunter in the leg with his rifle as he flew. Outlaw being fairly used to suffering a major beating by now ignored the pain and used his pistol before he had stopped skidding across the pavement. Most of the shots went wide, but it distracted Hunter for a precious second in which Chibi-Slacker aimed his gun back on Hunter and fired. Hunter charges Chibi-Slacker in what appeared to be berserker rage, and spin kicked him towards Outlaw distracting the authors while he retreated. "Shit," exclaimed Outlaw, "he's getting away." "We have to get away, he undoubtedly called for re-enforcements already." Said Darth. And so the group fled with Outlaw carrying the unconscious Chibi-Slacker. The authors decided to take the car a person on the other side of the street was just opening, they threw that person out of the car as Nemesis and Hunter came after them in their monster truck with screeching tires. *** "Are they still after us?" Asked Outlaw who was driving in a way that most countries outlawed. "Yes." Andrew answered, discarding another rifle. "I never thought Nemesis was such a capable driver." "#@%$! How can he keep dodging those shots? Hey Andrew, do you have another clip for the plasma rifle?" Darth inquired. "No," Andrew answered, "here take this." "A rifle? You out of missile launchers or something?" "Yep. How can he keep teleporting the entire car?" "No clue, does the Spore have any weapons left?" Darth asked, a wording he would regret later. "Don't call me that!" The newly awakened Chibi-Slacker said, "Oh, my head hurts." "Hey, Slacker you have any heavy weapons? We need them." Andrew elucidated. "Oh sure here." He answered, handing Andrew a big GEP (Guided Explosive Projectile) launcher, "Who are we shooting at?" "Nemesis and Hunter." Answered Darth, "But we aren't hitting them, Nemesis keeps teleporting the entire car." Chibi-Slacker stared in wonderment for a moment when the monster-truck Hunter and Nemesis were using teleported 10 feet into the air allowing a GEP to pass harmlessly under it. Outlaw had to rely on more conventional means to dodge another round of tranquilizer darts from Hunter. "Hey is it just me or is Mallet-space getting smaller?" Chibi-Slacker asked while taking out another missile launcher for himself and a third for Darth. "I'm feeling the same thing, but I thought it was just because I removed all those weapons." Andrew substantiated. "We're approaching the Slaying Ground. A mountain that various monsters always fight about because spirits, demons, and some other things can't or won't approach it. Teleportation, subspace, and telepathy don't work there and some types of magic are weakened or eliminated. Or at least that's what it says on this map." Darth explained while showing them the map he had found in the car. "Oh oh." Was what both Andrew and Chibi- Slacker thought of that. They could feel the things in subspace by now. Seeing that they had left city limits two hours ago they both threw everything they had at Nemesis and Hunter. Both due to the increase in shots and slower teleportation the truck got hit more. After a few hits Darth notices a shimmer that appears sometimes, he calls the others attention to it. A few shots at the shimmer and the holographic cloaking field dissolves. This greatly increases the accuracy of the three shooters, because now they actually know were to shoot. Of course Andrew and Slacker kept the best weapons in the car for later. *** As they approached the mountain, they could see a huge battle going on. Red dragons flew high above and swooped down spewing fire and attacking with claws. When the authors came even closer, they also see a ground battle. On closer inspection the ground battle could be seen to consist of orcs and trolls against various kinds of chimeras, most of the chimeras carried weapons and all of the orcs did, when one group gained superiority the other two ganged up on them to crush them. Of course one of our intrepid heros came up with a plan. "I bet we could lose our pursuers in there." Observed a very brave and very foolish Darth. "Are you crazy?" Andrew and Chibi-Slacker asked at the same time. "Would you rather face Nemesis and Hunter?" Darth inquired. "The battle it is." Outlaw uttered before dogging a few dragon claws, sadly this put them right in the line of fire from the chimeras shooting at the dragons. However the heavily damaged car didn't last long enough to drive them through the battle, a well placed shot from Hunter destroyed the engine more or less in the middle of it. Our heroic group tried to fight their way toward the other side of the feud, but shots coming from everywhere make retreat toward the mountain the only option. *** Hunter just tore into everything that moved, a ball of plasma taking out a troll there, his blades decapitating two dragons at a time, his discs were cutting down orcs like Yuri's bloody cards would do with people if their cruise time was longer and ever used in a crowd of 10'000+. Nemesis, somewhat weakened by the effects of the mountain, didn't kill quite as many things, were Hunter tore two chimeras apart with his bare hands, Nemesis only killed a small group of chimeras with some black lightening. Searing bolts of plasma shot by Andrew tore into the orcs who responded with a barrage of lasers, arrows, and bullets. Chibi-Slacker used a particle gun thrice her/his size to shoot at the dragons, their claws missed the puny author by scant millimeters. Outlaw was finishing off a group of Trolls that came to close with his sword, having used up all other ammunition a while ago. Darth was firing short bursts from an Uzi Andrew gave him, but because of the recoil he couldn't hit Nemesis or Hunter. "$#!^! Give me another weapon or more bullets, quick." Darth exclaimed. "Sorry, I'm all out." Andrew replied, fifing his last shot. "I only have my Dessert Eagle," Chibi- Slacker answered, "and I'm not giving that one away." "AAHHH!!" Outlaw screamed as a dragon hit him with a tail swipe, causing him to drop his sword. But before the dragon could have a snack, a few shots from some chimeras tore into it. The dragon redirected his attention to the chimeras when they suddenly both came under fire from some orcs. While this is happening Nemesis had finally caught up with the authors, yelling "Now you die!" While firing a huge Ki blast, barely missing the authors who drop to the ground. The Ki blast continued onward to blow a hole in the mountain. "A cave!" Darth yelled, "Retreat to the cave." Nemesis then had to defend himself against a dragon, while this was no challenge to him it distracted him from the authors.. With the authors in no immediate combat, and Hunter and Nemesis effectively blocking the other creatures from advancing and vice versa the authors managed to flee into the cave. "What now?" Andrew asked. "You die." Nemesis answered and shot into the cave, however because of poor aim the shot hit the cave ceiling which collapsed, blocking the authors off from the outside. *** "I assume my holographic-projector and my teleport-enhancer worked?" Came the voice of Cy over the radio of the monster truck. "Yes, are you now going to tell us why you wanted them in the mountain?" Hunter inquired in a threatening manner. "I want something that is in the mountain," replied Cy, "and I am going to get it." "And what is that, and why is it so important? Why did I need to interrupt them when they were at the doctor? Why couldn't we just go in and get it? Well?" Hunter growled getting increasingly agitated. "Sore wa himitsu desu." Cy rebutted and disconnected. "What the hell does that mean?" Hunter yelled, frustrated about not being able to hunt. "That's a secret." Nemesis stated. In a flash Hunters clawlike hands were almost around Nemesis' throat, held back only by Nemesis' much smaller hands. "I don't care if it's a secret, tell me." "Calm yourself. I already told you sore wa himitsu desu means that's a secret." "Cy will pay for playing games with me!" Swore Hunter. "Anger clouds the mind and that's an advantage for your enemy ." Nemesis said, sounding bored. "I need to hunt." Hunter returned. *** "Where were you?" Nemesis asked a few hours later, as Hunter returned a few hours later, a large haunch of meat thrown over his shoulder. "Found some dragons, had some fun." Hunter replied, in a much better mood, but worse shape, than when he left. "Hungry?" *** Warily, the group went further into the cave, they were even more on their guard when the walls, floor and ceiling were suddenly made of a smooth and shiny material. At the same time the hallway started to slope upward a little. After ten minutes of walking they saw a light around the corner ahead. They tried to sneak closer to it, but then they heard the terrifying yell that shook them to their core: "INTRUDERS! Yaj, bring me some matches." Barely was the command spoken then the group of fearful authors heard someone empty a bottle of something. A few seconds later, that turned out to be some kind of combustible liquid as it was ignited. Due to the downward slope of the hallway that liquid was approaching the authors. "We can't go back, let's see if this stuff is really fireproof." And fitting actions to words Darth led the way, covering his face with his arms and hoping that the salesman had told the truth about these clothes being fireproof. However Andrews long green hair was not fireproof. "AAAHH, FIRE, FIRE." and other such yells could be heard as Andrew ran around in circles trying to extinguish the fire in his hair. The room Andrew was running around in still had the same black material for walls, and for the tables and benches in the large circular room that looked a lot like a chemistry lab with two doors, out of which the authors were running, and one on the other side of the lab. In addition to the authors there were two other people in the room, one was about the size of Chibi-Slacker, and looked like a normal black-haired boy, with the exception that he had a beard. The other thing was also black-haired and was about 1.5 m tall, this one was female, but with long fangs, her hands almost claws, and instead of eyeballs she had flames. When the female one started to speak, it was a voice worse than Naga's laugh, and the same one that had screamed 'intruders' last time. "Oh my, I didn't expect that you would return lady Pluto, but now I must kill you as you have ordered me to. Yaj, give me the Aide-mallet." Yaj took a harmless looking baton and passed it to the female and then he attacked. "Here, catch!" He said to Darth as he threw some test-tubes with liquids which Darth narrowly dodged, letting them fly towards Chibi-Slacker. He/she evaded most of it, but a drop fell on her/his shoe and that shoe promptly dissolved. The female wasn't sitting still during that time, after she caught the aide-mallet, she attacked Outlaw who was fatigued, but nonetheless careful of the impotent seeming weapon. He was far more nimble after a missed strike made a large crater in one of the walls. Chibi-Slacker, the only one with a weapon other than a knife, tried to shoot Yaj with his Desert Eagle, but kept missing because Yaj would stand and run on walls, the ceiling or even thin air as easily as he moved on the floor. And since Yaj kept throwing chemicals at them and avoided close combat with the already tired fighters they couldn't help Outlaw. Then Yaj was hit by some burning substance, thrown by the recovering Andrew, and started burning a bright blue. Yaj ignored this completely, however this distracted the exhausted Darth long enough to be hit by some burning paste with powder in it. Darth tried to rub it off, but he just spread it out, then suddenly the paste exploded knocking Darth in a shelf with chemicals. Luckily nothing exploded, but some things caught fire. Darth, not wanting to repeat Andrews experience, jumped out of the burning pile, mixing more chemicals together. The resulting explosion threw him into Yaj, burning Darth badly, but this gave Andrew time to help Outlaw with his attacker. Throwing some acid on her to catch her attention Andrew called out: "Who are you? What are you?" "I'm called Shulmainia, and I'm an eversoul." She responded while swinging her weapon at Andrew. "And you're not Pluto; She would know this. Who are you?" "Curiosity is a distraction, so why should I take away my advantage?" Answered Andrew. In the meantime, Outlaw had been trying to see if he could find a weapon at the other side of the lab, but as soon as he came near the doorway, both Yaj and Shulmainia attacked him. Concluding from this behavior that there was something important on the other side of the doorway the authors tried to get in. They succeeded after five minutes of heavy fighting. While Andrew hit Shulmainia with a bucket of acid. Chibi-Slacker hit Yaj with a shot right in the eye. Of course Shulmainia wasn't injured much by the acid and Yaj just jumped back into battle none the worse for wear, but it had given Darth and Outlaw enough time to exit the lab and look around in this new room. The first thing Outlaw noticed in the small square room was a corpse slumped against the wall. The deceased man was dressed in Samurai armor and propped in his hand was a sheathed Katana. Outlaw 1 made a beeline for the dead warrior and halted at a respectful distance. Bowing low he said, "Please forgive me for this, but I need your sword to kill a demon." Quickly yet reverently Outlaw retrieved the weapon from its owner's grasp. He then bowed to the sword before him. "Please lend me your strength." So saying he swiftly slid the sword out of its sheath and ran for the door. Darth was momentarily distracted by Outlaw's actions. "I had no idea he could move like that." Darth said as he watched Outlaw seem to blur from pure speed as he ran from the room to rejoin the battle. With a new sense of determination Outlaw left the room again to help Andrew and Chibi- Slacker. To everyone's amazement he could hold his own against both Yaj and Shulmainia for a short time in which Andrew carried Chibi-Slacker into the room. Meanwhile Darth had examined a long metallic-gray staff with a curved blade at each end, balanced on a small green pen stuck in a rock wall with lots of weird symbols. "Hmm," Darth thought, "Where have I seen this design before?" Then it hit him, the pen was a senshi transformation pen, Pluto's pen to be exact. "Here Andrew, catch." Yelled Darth as he took the transformation pen and threw it to Andrew while at the same time taking the staff in the other hand. At this moment several things happened, one Andrew caught the transformation pen, the staff turned pitch black with blood red images and symbols on the blades, Outlaw was forced into the room, and a dark shadow came out of the staff and followed the transformation pen. After reaching the transformation pen the shadow hurled itself into Chibi-Slacker. They might have expected this had they known that those symbols on the wall were to contain or banish demons, specifically a more powerful version of the spell normally used to banish a minor hell. It was this spell which also caused the unique properties of the region. This caused Chibi-Slacker to grow into Black Lady, all his/her wounds to be healed, the rabbit-ear hairstyle to come back in all of its pink glory and it initiated a battle of wills between Chibi- Slacker and the shadow. *** Darkness, absolute sensory depravation. The unbearable silence is shattered by Slacker. "Where am I?" Then he noticed that he was back in his own body, and that he was not alone. Two glowing red eyes were steadily advancing toward him. Slacker felt fear, and a need to defend himself. "I gave you back your body aren't you going to thank me?" It asked in a voice that sounded like the yowls of things being devoured alive. "W-w-who are you? W-what are you?" Slacker asked, unable to keep the fear from his voice. It still advanced on Slacker, not even slowing. Then it struck. In less time than it took to blink it had a hand, claw, whatever on Slackers throat. Small tentacles came off and started wrapping around Slackers head. Suddenly Slacker was engulfed by a bright light and turned into Chibi-Slacker again. The Ginzousho was hovering before her/him, bathing all in a bright pinkish withe. "AAAAHHH!" The thing screamed in agony as it got burned by the Ginzousho's light. The tentacles that didn't sink into Slacker fast enough were burned off by the light. Then Slacker felt something odd, it felt as if most of the bits and pieces of the tentacles in him started to flow to his hair. *** Banished from Slackers body, but leaving some of its energy behind. It reached for the one carrying its staff, unfortunately Darth didn't have any super-powered magical items beside the demon's staff. *** |Darth:\cy\core\antintrd.exec| "What is going on?" Darth asked himself. |Executing, please wait...| "Wait for what, why?" |Attempting trace...| |Intruder located : Darth:\demon\slayer.prsn| |Attempting delete...| |Failed, retry...| *Who dares?!?* A voice screamed and echoed in Darth's head. |Failed, execute : Darth:\cy\core\sleeper.prsn| |Insufficient memory, terminating Darth:\I_Darth.prsn| "Why do I suddenly feel so sleepy? No, must fight it." |Failed, retry...| "YAWN, man I should really sleYAWNep more." |Failed, terminating: Darth:\cy\sub\*.*| *This is no normal human mind.* |Success, execute : Darth:\cy\core\sleeper.prsn| *I have control now.* |Sleeper online| *** "I AM SLAYER AND I WILL SLAY ALL AND THE WORLD SHALL DROWN IN BLOOD!" Bellowed Darth, which kind of hinted to the other authors that Darth wasn't in control. "All must serve Cy!" Similarly explained to the others that neither Darth nor Slayer were in control at that point. This went on for quite a while, during which Outlaw closed the door after some bolts of black lightning, courtesy of Slacker, drove Yaj and Shulmainia slightly back. As Slacker tried to fry Darth for releasing the demon and giving her the dreaded hairstyle back noticed however was that it also cost him most of the 'useful' energy. "Outlaw, could you cut off these . . . Things with that sword of yours?" Slacker asked gesturing to her ponytails. "Sure." Outlaw replied, but when he tried to cut the odangos off the hair regrew. "What, how?" Slacker asked bewildered. "My guess is that the Ginzousho put a part of that demon's energy into regrowing your hair." Andrew guessed. "AAAAHHHH!!!!" Slacker cried. *** Outlaw suggested that they sleep in here, the small room next to the lab, before going out again, Darth's yells have subsided almost two hours ago, and his mumblings had finally stopped about half an hour ago. That's why when Darth suddenly speaking everyone was shocked. "I am Darth!" He said with conviction, "I'm also Slayer." There was a trace of uncertainty in his voice but he continued on, "And I'm Sleeper too." The doubt was now clear in his voice, "We must slay Thrawn and his armies, but protect Cy." He was back to totally confident at that. "This is our weapon," he said swinging his staff around, "and any who seek to take it from us shall be slain by it. We are Darth." He stated one last time as if to reassure himself. "What's wrong, partner?"Asked Outlaw who was having watch duty at the moment. "Nothing? Yes, no, maybe so. We'll pull through." Darth replied. By now the others were awake too. "What do you mean, give me a straight answer! Or else..." Shrieked Slacker. "We did." Darth answered. "Ooookay, do you feel ready to crush our enemies?" Asked Andrew. "Our blades shall slay all, one blade to darkness, one blade to light." Was the cryptic reply from Darth. "What do you mean?" Slacker inquired, more angry than normal because of the hair. "One blade shall slay all creatures of darkness, for its blade is enchanted with holy, fire, lightning, earth, and light. The other blade shall slay those of the light for it is enchanted with water, wind, darkness, death(1), and soul pulverize." Explained Darth, still totally, and unreasonably, calm. Deceptive calm, for in Darth's mind the torrent still raged and, while muffled, it was an uneasy balance at best. *** (1) death is more against spirits, angels, and other such bodiless type beings.