From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov'd—I lov'd alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
- "Alone" by Edgar Allen Poe
WHAM! A gavel slammed on the wooden pedestal, and in a matter of seconds, the lucky bidder, a middle-aged brunette, was carrying his prize with both hands, a white ceramic vase that was decorated with the most elaborate emeralds, rubies, and diamonds across its base and side handles.
The ring man, a ginger in his mid 40s, dressed in a black suit, pointed at the next item available for the auction: a dozen gold bricks stacked into a pyramid sitting on a wheeled cart. In the midst of the sea of hands waving their numbered signs in the air, one hand aimed a silver pistol at the ceiling. In only a few simple shots, the crowd of bidders desperately fled to the nearest doors, leaving the shooter, Jack Knife, the only remaining soul left in the audience. After reducing the ring man to a blood-covered body riddled with bullets, Jack raced to the cart carrying the stacks of gold, and proceeded to push it toward a wooden double door with a red neon EXIT glowing above. Just as Jack was ready to embrace the sweet smell of gold and freedom with sneering eyes and a jagged-toothed smile, a very familiar robotic face popped out from the front of the tray. Its metal claws reached out from underneath the cart's front legs, and clasped onto the wheels tight, forcing the cart to come to an extremely abrupt halt. The impact sent Jack sailing across the room, screaming in terror. In the span of five seconds, he left a gaping hole on the double-doors that was shaped like his entire body. Then some more as he sailed past the doors, and flew through the wall of a men's restroom. Then, a painting gallery, from which a painting of a donkey was caught around his neck, his head sticking out between the butt-cheeks of the jackass's ass. Finally, after startling some elderly women flying through a ladies' restroom, even causing all of them to die of acute heart failures, Jack's escapade was broken by a white concrete wall. His entire body splatted like a human pancake, covered in bruises and lacerations across his entire body. The disoriented criminal pulled his flattened face off the wall, and turned around, first in a daze of spinning stars around his head, and then, suddenly, in sheer horror, of what would be the final insult to his immense injuries. The bricks of gold had flown off the tray as well, only half a second after Jack was sent flying, and were now making their crash-landing all over Jack's face, spinal column, rear end, and legs, finishing him off in a cruel, yet surprisingly appropriate, touch of bitter irony.
With a pained groan, Jack plopped on his back against the floor, too dizzy and beaten to carry on any farther. Jailbot promptly reassembled to his original form, and zipped through the gaping holes, knocking over and slicing innocent bystanders with his blade-hands without a trace of hesitation. He then activated the helicopter blades from his head, and proceeded to lift Jack off into the air, leaving an enormous hole of his own through the ceiling, and leaving several dozen, blood-soaked bodies of middle-aged and elderly men and women strewn in all the rooms that Jack had destroyed.
-
Much to Jack Knife's surprise, Jailbot carried him right over the roof of the Superjail cells, and out into the front courtyard, near the giant metal double doors that were shut tight. What was usually bare, gray, gravel ground was now lined with rows and rows of white folding chairs, divided by a long, red carpet down the center. The seats were filled with other inmates, all dressed in dapper, black suits instead of their typical orange jumpsuits. Jailbot flew Jack over the last remaining seat in the back row and pulled a new suit of his inventory. He then used his laser vision to disintegrate Jack's own clothes into ashes, and, sparing his eyes of the vision of seeing a naked Jack Knife, slipped the criminal into his new tuxedo, and placed him gently on his seat with his robot hands.
Whatever Superjail had planned for everyone, it sure seemed significant. No one had recognized the wooden stage sitting before them, no doubt another rush-order from the man-child upstairs. There was a wooden podium on the far left, similar to the one used at the live auction Jack had just tried to rob from, and nailed to its center was a large wreath decorated with pure white roses. Even farther down the left, just ten feet away from the stage, was the pipe organ that once served as the Warden's Dream Machine, now restored back to its original function to play melodic tunes instead of playing with one's subconscious. Gary and Bird were both at the seat, practicing "Chopin's Funeral March" in A minor, with Gary at the keys, and Bird pulling and pushing the necessary knobs and levers needed to play the song properly. As if that weren't already a dead giveaway as to what this arrangement was for, there was one elephant in the room that hit Jack Knife, well, as if an actual elephant had placed its gigantic rear end on top of his fragile face: a black coffin on a wheeled cart that Alice was pushing down the red carpet aisle.
It was a very peculiar notion to think that Superjail would ever hold funerals for anyone who worked or served time there. The place was a house of death in its own right, with their manager's antics resulting in mass casualties every day since the prison's inception. When did the staff ever acknowledge the loss of any single inmate, let alone the loss of hundreds? What kind of remorse, or even respect, have they ever shown for the numerous lives they had taken as result of their boss's carelessness? Never, pure and simple. Even some of the management's closest associates were secretly questioning the logic of this situation, or, more appropriately, the lack thereof. Alice had taken the courtesy to wear an elongated black gown to the ceremony, as opposed to the more scantily-clad attire she would've dressed into whenever she wasn't in her work uniform, and even wore a miniature black veil to drape over her glasses. However, Alice was not the type of person to complain about her boss's demands. She knew there wasn't the slightest bit of sense in how he ran his prison, but she seldom made her made her voice heard, unless it directly impacted her personally, such as the occasions where her job was affected because of her employer's shenanigans. For the most part, she simply shrugged off the mayhem and chaos surrounding her as if it didn't matter to her. As long as she remained happy with her position as a guard, and was respected as a female trying to escape her male body, nothing else bothered her in the slightest, no matter how much of the inmates' blood poured onto her.
If there was anyone at all willing to speak their voice of reason within this mad house, it was, undoubtedly, Jared.
The bottle-headed accountant was currently scanning through a stack of papers haphazardly attached to his clipboard, checking off the statements with his pen as he was muttering the notes to himself.
"Ok, uh, let's see...paid for the repairs for the organ, got the money for the flowers, set up the catering for the reception, and made our first down-payment for the coffin and tombstone bundle package at the funeral home! Looks like everything's in order."
Everything's in order. Even Jared couldn't fool himself with that kind of malarkey. The only time the word "order" was ever associated with Superjail was either to describe the complete lack of it, or whenever his boss felt like playing mock trial for the inmates, which was really more of an excuse for him to hit Jared with his gavel until he got his desired verdict. Asking the Warden to understand the legal system was like asking a two-year-old to perform perfect Calculus; it was an impossible expectation for someone with a mind that underdeveloped, or, in the Warden's case, ill.
At least Jared believed he had a good reason to smile in this particular situation. "I wasn't sure we were gonna get the right funds this time, but at least it's all for a very noble cause: remembering a good friend."
Just then, another funeral guest approached Jared: Charice of Ultraprison. She was currently wearing a black gown with a pair of black gloves, and a tiny black bonnet that rested on the top of her towering hairdo. In her right hand was a parchment scroll that rolled out five feet long, all filled with lines of cursive text. Charice was perfectly aware of the levity of an event as solemn as a funeral, but she maintained her usual friendliness and gracious demeanor with a smile that rounded the corners of her tiny lips.
"I'm looking forward to reciting our eulogy during the ceremony, Jared."
Charice frowned for a moment in somberness, but switched back to her grin when the more positive aspect of this scenario returned to her mind. "It's terribly sad that the Doctor committed suicide, but I'll always remember how knowing him has brought us closer together."
She then gave her boyfriend a petite peck on the cheek, and in return, Jared held her left hand and kissed her face. "Don't I know it, honey bunch?"
Charice eagerly took her seat on the fifth seat to the right in the front row as Jared climbed on top of a wooden barstool behind the podium so he could see the audience before him. The coffin had been placed horizontally at the front, between the stage and the first row of seats. Alice was standing at the left of the coffin, leaning back against the front of the stage.
Jared gently tapped a silver microphone that was sitting on the desk of the podium. "Ahem! M-May I have your attention please, everyone?"
All the inmates had their eyes on their manager's accountant now. Most of them kept an expression of complete disinterest, but a few displayed genuine reverence to the loss of the Doctor, such as Jean trying to comfort Paul, who was already weeping into a white handkerchief he'd pulled out from the pocket of his mourning gown. Ash, too, was already shedding his "steam works," accidentally setting his bouquet of lilies on fire in the middle of his crying fit.
Jared cleared his throat. "We are gathered here today to pay tribute to the life of a very dear employee among the Superjail staff. He served his duties in this prison with ambition and intelligence like no other, except the Warden, maybe. That man is none other than our dear friend…"
Upon this sentence, Alice opened up the front hatch of the coffin to reveal the face of the deceased.
"The Good Doct-"
Jared gasped, and the rest of the crowd immediately followed. The coffin was completely empty!
Rivers of sweat ran down Jared's gigantic forehead, and his eyes looked as though they could burst out of its sockets from the immense anxiety. "WHERE'S THE DOCTOR'S BODY?!"
-
The corpse of Herr Doctor lay unceremoniously on one of his metal patient tables, in the middle of what was a very ceremoniously decorated version of one of his old laboratories, the area where he once did experiments with gene splicing and combining dismembered body parts into whole grotesque creatures. However, where his beakers, toolbox, knives, and other equipment lay on the shelves and tables of the lab, there were, instead, an array of purple candles on each tabletop. The tables, desks, cots, and wheeled trays on which the candles sat were arranged in such a way that they formed the closest shape resembling a circle that an array of rectangular trays would allow, as though one were trying to make a ring out of twigs.
Behind the ring of flickering candlelights, a pair of yellow, shifting eyes appeared up in the darkness, a mere 20 inches away from the Doctor's bald, bumpy head. An ecstatic, yet focused Warden slithered up to the Doctor's body, his own torso and limbs noodling under the tables and trays like a snake, and then propping himself on his feet as if said snake had grown its own pair of limbs. With a wide, gap-toothed smile, the Warden rolled up his purple sleeves, and pulled up with his left hand a vintage book with the words "Spells of Satan" embossed in red metal against the black leather cover.
Warden opened up the middle section of the book, his right pointer finger scanning down the lines of text.
"Let's see here. A bit of of the victim's brain…"
A smile grew across the Warden's face as gave the Doctor's skull a hearty smash with a work hammer, reducing his cranium to shattered fragments of bone sprinkled across his grey matter. Warden then slipped on a pair of yellow, rubber gloves into his already-gloved hands, and used a pair of safety scissors to snip off a square-inch of gummy, grey tissue from the Doctor's cerebral cortex. Stretching his right leg five feet long, the Warden took a giant step toward a black cauldron planted the same distance southwest from the Doctor's body. It was already bubbling the standard green ooze that one would normally expect in a sort of witch's brew (or maniacal wizard in the Warden's case), but the moment the fragment of brain entered the concoction, the boiling goo began to turn a shining pink-purple. The Warden's eyes nearly popped with excitement, and with an overjoyed chuckle, he raced back to the Doctor's body, and opened up the book pages again.
"All righty. Next up…a single vein from his heart…"
The Warden pulled out a clean shiv from his right pocket. This time, his smile switched from child-like giddiness to that of a much more sinister nature. Warden always felt a personal sense of might when he'd gotten hold of a deadly weapon, and with that newfound vigor coursing through his veins, Warden plunged the blade into the Doctor's abs with all his might, sending splatters of blood flying across his face and suit. He then ripped the flesh open to a three-inch gash, revealing internal organs such as the Doctor's windpipe, lungs, stomach, and even his heart.
The Warden's eyes and smile widened. He was about to reach the fingers of his rubber-gloved hand into the narrow openings of the Doctor's rib cage, but they were too big to grab the heart. The Warden whined and grunted in frustration as he tried reaching his hand through the opening near the clavicle, and then up through the bottom of the cage, where his stomach, liver and lungs were blocking him from reaching the heart.
"C'mon…stupid organs…Aha!"
Warden snapped his fingers, and grabbed a bone saw that was lying on the floor. He pressed one hand down against the rib cage while the other rubbed the jagged blade across the ringed bones. He had succeeded in slicing off three ribs, but, in the process, he'd accidentally stabbed the blade into the heart as well.
"Oops."
Warden pulled the saw out with the heart still inserted into the top of the blade, blood pooling from the organ onto the floor. His lips flattened with disgust as well as embarrassment for needlessly skewering the heart. Fortunately for him, he could see one of the arteries sticking out of it like a twig, and with another snip of the safety scissors, he had an inch of the vein in the palm of his gloved hand. Satisfied with his success, the Warden shoved the heart back through the hole he'd made from slicing off part of the ribs, not even bothering to remove the saw that was still stuck inside. He then held the vein three feet over the cauldron, and watched with wide eyes as it plunked into the boiling ooze. With the two ingredients now in the mix, the liquid changed from purplish-pink to a glowing red-orange.
The Warden pumped his left fist. "Yes!"
He then zipped back to the Doctor's body, opening the book once more.
"And finally, a pint of blood to serve as fuel for his life…"
The Warden scoffed. "As if I didn't get a ton of blood already just from getting the first two body parts! Now the question is, where do I pour it into?"
Warden searched across the lab looking for some sort of container until a flash of yellow light glistened from the southwest corner of the room. The Warden's eyes inflated into foot-tall ovals, his pupils taking up half the white space inside them. "Oooooh!"
A single metal barrel sat isolated from the trays, tables, and other equipment in the lab. It was coated with yellow-orange chrome, and gave off enough bright-yellow light to attract a hundred mosquitoes, if given the chance. There was also a foreboding, black trefoil symbol that had been spray-painted on the front and back side of the barrel's cylindrical base.
The Warden raced up to the drum of radioactive waste, admiring his reflection against the chrome. "Shiny and sturdy, two of my favorite things!"
In a puff purple smoke, the Warden shapeshifted into a three-foot-tall, purple crowbar, his face and top hat placed on the top handle while the curved end pried the lid open. The minute it was tipped off the rim and sent down to the floor, Warden noticed the bright-green sludge stewing inside the barrel, and winced in repugnance. With another poof, Warden returned to his human form, but was now wearing a purple hazmat suit, complete with a rectangular plastic mask that shielded his entire face. Breathing in a Darth Vader-esque fashion, Warden grabbed the barrel's base with both hands, and poured all the green goo down a nearby sewage drain on the floor. The poison from the radiation disintegrated the drain's metal grid until it was reduced to a thin ring circling the edge of the now-open sewer hole.
As usual, the Warden was not one to focus on small details. He gave the barrel one last shake over the drain, letting out the last few drips of waste. "That takes care of that."
Sadly, the Warden was undeniably wrong. Because he'd neglected to look inside the barrel to see if it was truly empty, he failed to notice the tiny, yet visible, glowing smudges of green goop dotted at the bottom, still sticking to the metal surface despite the Warden's forceful shaking and leaning the barrel forward.
With that seemingly minor detail overlooked, the Warden poofed out of his radiation suit, back to his purple tuxedo and top hat, and grabbed the Doctor's shoulders with both hands, yanking him off the table to look as though he was standing on his own two feet. After a quick cracking of his gloved knuckles, the Warden took the Doctor's arms, and with a few strained groans, forced the forearms out of position so that they looked like a round handle made of two hands holding each other. The Warden ignored the humerus and radius bones protruding out of the Doctor's flesh, and ever-so-lightly tipped the the Doctor's body over the barrel. The Doctor's jaw then dropped open, and a waterfall of blood streamed out from his mouth into the container. Essentially, the Warden had obtained the ingredient for his formula by treating the corpse of his dear friend like a human pitcher.
Warden waited until the barrel was filled to the brim with blood. He then leaned the Doctor's body back toward the table, still keeping a smile on his face. "I think that's enough blood for now."
Warden hastily pulled the Doctor's arms out of their handle shape, and simply allowed them to flop on top of his belly, not paying the least bit of attention to the bones and strings of muscle tissue still sticking out of them. With another zip across the room, Warden carried the barrel back toward the cauldron, and poured every last drop of blood and radioactive sludge into the mixture, resting the heavy barrel on top of the pot's black rim. Warden then tossed the empty barrel over his shoulder, and watched with intense anticipation as every single inch of the mixture's liquid surface was coated with frothing bubbles.
"Yes...yes...c'mon..."
The cauldron then began to shake and tremble, which quickly escalated into violent thrashing and jerking, prompting the Warden to take a few steps back. Finally, the cauldron's entire body squatted down against the floor, then violently stretched back up, spewing out the red-orange concoction with an ear-jerking "BURP!"
With astonishingly precise aim, the gallon of liquid spouted clean out of the cauldron, and splashed on top of the Doctor's mangled corpse, soaking every inch of his skin, bones, and organs with a coat of vermillion. A mere two seconds later, the Doctor began to levitate two feet off the table, floating into the air with his back still flat. The Warden bit his lower lip hard, shaking his fists together and jumping up and down like an overly elated fangirl. The Doctor's body stopped for a moment, now hovering seven feet above the table. Then, all of a sudden, it began to jerk and convulse on its own, very quickly changing into a multitude of bizarre positions and facial expressions. His hands jerked and clawed in the air as the rest of him wiggled and writhed in a violent, yet cartoonish, fashion. Suddenly, at the last second, the Doctor, still in midair, froze into one position, where his eyes were bulging straight upward, and his fatty arms, chest, and legs constricted with tension. Then, two rings of boiling, green, radioactive waste rose from the Doctor's body, one at the soles of his shoes, the other from the top of his head. They both made their way across the Doctor's corpse, reducing all the bones, flesh, organs, and clothing that they passed through into a shower of falling dust.
The Warden's expression quickly switched from utter delight to intense dismay. "NO! NO NO NO NO NO!"
The Warden watched with dread as the corpse of his dear friend was being consumed by the rings of green waste. They made their way down his head, up his legs, and then both came together at the middle of his torso. The second they reached physical contact, the two rings formed together into one large handful of goop, plunged back to the ground, and splashed all over the Doctor's ashy remains. He was now reduced to clumps of green sludge coated with dust.
The Warden poofed back into his radiation suit, and rushed to the scene of the disaster. He tried picking up the bits of dust and sludge on the floor and mashing them together, hoping that would somehow bring his old pal back. Tears and drops of sweat sprinkled against the plastic shield that blocked his face. "NO! NO NO NO! PLEASE, NO!"
Having no success with his hasty attempts of reversing his grave mistake, the Warden smashed both fists onto the ground, and let out a devastated, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Just then, in a moment of impeccable timing, Jared arrived at the scene, riding a white shuttle service trolley on the metal pathway around the gaping entry of the lab. He was driving the cart at full throttle, and then slammed the brakes to a screeching halt the second he spotted the weeping Warden.
The panicked accountant shimmied down a metal ladder to the lower level of the lab to meet up with his boss. "Sir, there's a terrible problem at the funeral! The Doctor's body is GONE!"
Warden sniffled, arched his back upwards, and removed the entire helmet and mask portion of his suit off his shoulders, revealing his despondent face. "Yes it is, Jared. I tried to bring him back with this old spell book I thought for sure would work!" Warden slammed his fists on the floor again, sending blots of waste flying onto Jared's face, but, surprisingly, not a drop on his own. "And now, his body's been reduced to a just pile of disgusting mush..."
At that very instant, the splotches of green slime on Jared's face began to sprout its own mutations! Now Jared had a snapping lobster claw growing out of his forehead, and a new set of beetle pincers the size of hedge sheers coming out of his his left cheek. Jared shrieked, and tried to wipe the waste off his face, but it had no affect on his newfound appendages. To make matters worse, the goop that was now coating his entire right hand started bubbling as well, and a two-foot-long, purple octopus tentacle, complete with an array of suction cups, protruded out of where his right hand used to be!
Jared screamed in terror. "SIR, THIS 'MUSH' IS RADIOACTIVE WASTE!"
Warden rolled his eyes, completely overlooking Jared's hideous mutations. "Well, duh, Jared! Why else would I be wearing this tacky-looking, rubber suit that itches like crazy?!" He groaned, scratching his back and armpits.
Jared's eyebrows narrowed. "You tried to resurrect the Doctor's body with poisonous radiation?!"
Warden scoffed and waved his right hand down in dismissal. "Of course, not, Jared! I didn't mean for that radioacti-whatever to get on him! Must've been left over from the barrel I used to store his blood." Warden pointed to said barrel where Jared could get a good look at it.
At this point, Jared was so perturbed that he couldn't even articulate complete sentences. "B-B-BUT YOU...A-AND THE FUNERAL...F-FOR THE DOCTOR-"
The Warden stood back up, and proceeded to give another one of his passionate speeches. "Yeah, the funeral idea seemed like a good one at the time of the Doctor's suicide, but then I remembered how dreary and boring those stupid ceremonies really are." On the second half of that sentence, Warden turned his radiation suit into a black tuxedo, and, with a couple more poofs, made a church pew simultaneously appear under his rear end, and a bouquet of white lilies in the grip of his left hand. He leaned backward against the pew, resting the back of his right hand on his forehead with exasperation. He then switched back to his hazmat suit, and continued preaching, this time in a more menacing tone of voice.
"So I decided to liven things up a bit, pardon the pun, and use a much more fun tactic to try and bring him back from the dead!" The Warden showed Jared the section of the book where he had found the spell. Jared tried to hold it as best as his normal left hand, and tentacle right hand would allow, which was quite difficult considering his tentacle was four times longer than his human hand. The lobster claw on his forehead scanned down the words and turned the pages.
"If I didn't get that stupid radiation stuff in the recipe, it would've worked!" On the word "worked," Warden kicked the barrel in frustration, but then quickly grabbed his right foot, jumping up and down on his other leg. "YEOW! Oooh ow ow ow ow ow ow!"
Warden sat down and took off his right shoe, revealing five swollen toes pulsing from the pain. "Hey, Jared, gimmie a few ice cubes or something, will ya, pal? Ooh, and a lollipop! I always like to treat myself when I get a boo-boo."
Jared had endured a plethora of bizarre situations during his time in Superjail. From the moment he first saw Superjail, he could tell it didn't run on the slightest bit of logic or reason that he had seen from civilian jails (and not just because this prison existed in an alternate dimension miles from reality.) However, in ways that even he himself couldn't explain, Jared had somehow been able to survive every single catastrophe caused by the Warden's antics. From growing into a monstrous Jared-Hulk, to temporarily living with a body made of random limbs, to having his office destroyed by race cars, even to the day Ash and Warden set Superjail on fire, and, literally, allowed all Hell to break loose. No matter what disaster occurred as a result of the Warden's selfish, hasty, utterly irrational decisions, there was always some way in which he and his colleagues would miraculously solve each crisis, and eventually restore Superjail back to the amount of chaos it was accustomed to.
Today, however, was completely different. The amount of insanity and depravity Jared was seeing from his boss now was far beyond any he'd ever experienced before.
Jared's bulbous cranium turned a fiery shade of red. Streams of sweat were flowing down from his scalp to the bottom of his chin, where they dripped to the ground like rain down a gutter. He gritted his teeth so hard that cracks were starting to form around the enamel, and his glaring, bloodshot eyes were bulging out so wide that even the veins coating each eyeball became visible on the outside.
For better or worse, the Warden kept his back turned as his assistant was fuming with fury. He was massaging his bruised toes with a puppy-dog pout on his face, which then promptly switched to an expression of annoyance. "Hello? I don't see a lollipop in my hand, Jared!"
"I...DON'T...BELIEVE YOU!"
As Jared screamed the last word of his sentence, his entire scalp, brown hair and all, popped off his head like a lid, releasing a gaping cloud of steam from his rattled brain. When his "lid" plopped back down on his head, Jared stood face-to-face with his boss, now that the Warden was sitting low enough for him to meet his assistant's glaring eyes.
"I CAN UNDERSTAND HAVING NO SYMPATHY FOR THE DEATHS OF HUNDREDS OF MURDERERS AND RAPISTS, BUT THE DOCTOR?! ONE OF YOUR MOST TRUSTED EMPLOYEES, WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE BECAUSE OF ANOTHER DISASTER THAT YOU CAUSED?! I'D THINK YOU'D HAVE THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF RESPECT FOR THOSE WHO LOOKED UP TO YOU THE MOST!"
The Warden sneered, slipped his shoe back on, and rose up on two feet so he could, literally and figuratively, look down on Jared. "Are you saying that it's MY fault that the Doctor's dead?!"
"YES!" Jared screeched. "YES, GOD DAMMIT, IT IS! AND TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE, YOU DEMANDED THAT I MAKE ALL THESE EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE, LAST-MINUTE PREPARATIONS FOR A HASTILY PUT-TOGETHER FUNERAL, WHICH NOW WE CAN'T EVEN PUT ON BECAUSE YOU DESTROYED THE BODY OF THE DECEASED!"
In another ironic hint of comedic timing, a small breeze blew away what little dust remained from the disintegrated Doctor.
"WE JUST WASTED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS AND THE BODY OF OUR DEAD FRIEND JUST BECAUSE YOU GOT BORED! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A VIOLENT, SELFISH, IMMATURE, OUT-OF-CONTROL MAD MAN!"
Warden pressed his glaring eyes against Jared's face. "Oh, I'm mad, all right! Mad at you for spouting such blasphemy!"
"IT WAS YOUR CARELESSNESS THAT CAUSED YOU TO SCREW UP YOUR OWN MAGIC SPELL! YOU CAN'T BLAME ME FOR THAT ONE!"
The Warden stuck his pointer finger up in the air, ready to fire back at his argument. "Well, I...I, uh..." Alas, his finger quickly recoiled. The Warden searched desperately in his mind for some way to successfully counter-argue Jared's furious accusations, but looking around at his environment, the empty cauldron, the barrel of radioactive waste, and even Jared's new mutations, he couldn't deny that the evidence was overwhelmingly against him.
After a moment of struggling, the Warden snapped his fingers, and a snarky smirk grew across his face. "Doesn't matter! I didn't need that old doctor anyways! I can just hire a NEW doctor!" The Warden pointed his finger against Jared's nose. "A-HA! Take that, Smart Ass!"
Unfortunately for him, Jared was still fully loaded. "We CAN'T! You just wasted a ton of money for the funeral preparations, which means we're now gonna have to cut costs to make up for the lost revenue, which includes NOT hiring anymore new employees!"
The Warden now had both hands on his hips. "We can always make up for it selling more dismembered limbs!"
"We cut all ties with that market months ago, on your orders!"
Warden's heart sank. He tried to maintain what little vigor remained in his voice, but at this point, even he knew that his efforts were futile. "Well, there's always, umm...w-we can always just, uhh...I..."
Jared smiled. Winning so successfully against his boss in a heated argument was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he wasn't going to waste a single second of this moment of glory. Jared walked closer and closer toward the Warden as he made his final verbal strike. The frightened Warden backed farther and farther away until Jared had his back against the wall. "YA SEE?! YA CAN'T PIN THIS MESS ON ME FOR ONCE! YOU'VE GOT NOBODY TO BLAME BUT YOURSELF! ALL OF THIS AND PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING THAT EVER GOES WRONG IN SUPERJAIL IS BECAUSE...OF...YOU!"
Jared stuck his left pointer finger toward the Warden's face, finally allowing himself a few moments to catch his breath while he continued glaring and smiling with triumph. At first, the Warden's bit his lower lip, and his eyes welled up with more tears, but before he could show anymore emotional weakness, Warden promptly shook his head to try to shake off his sadness. He then gritted his teeth in anger, growling and shaking his right fist into the air, but just when it looked like he was going to strike Jared down...
POOF! The Warden shapeshifted into a purple rocket, equipped with an extremely short fuse that burned out the entire string in the span of two seconds. With a deafening boom, the Warden shot himself straight up through the ceiling, sending chunks of rubble and debris raining around Jared. One piece of drywall as heavy and large as a medicine ball landed flat on top of Jared's cranium, knocking the accountant out cold with a puddle of blood forming around his head and neck.
The Warden rocket continued blasting upward, leaving more holes in the floor and ceilings of the lab, followed by the back courtyard (not to be mistaken for the area where the funeral would've been held), the cafeteria, the laundry room, and finally, to his own bedroom, at the top of the tower that was shaped like the Warden's head and top hat. The second he was inside, he burst into a fiery mushroom cloud, sending five feet of smoke blowing the double doors and windows wide open, and causing the top hat of the roof to leap into the air for a moment, and land right back in its place. The eyeball-shaped windows also appeared be glowing red from a distance, making the Warden-shaped building look as angry as the genuine article. As the raging inferno flew across the room, it also set engulfed every single object in its path in flames. His bed, nightstand, carpet, paintings, even his sentient alarm clock caught fire, the clock screaming and ringing its bells in pain until the fire quickly reduced him to ash.
However, it seemed that the explosion didn't get all of the Warden's anger out of his system. As soon as the mushroom cloud had dissipated, he immediately transformed into a raging purple gorilla, his jaws frothing with fury. Despite his belongings still aflame, he destroyed them even farther by tearing them apart with his gnarled teeth and beefy arms and legs, reducing what little was left of his furniture and decor into scattered fragments of torn fabric, wood chips, feathers from his pillow and mattress, and shreds of canvas and photographs with gaping claw marks. After the Warden proceeded to throw his sofa against the wall, the impact of the blow caused a large crack to grow upward, and form a jagged circle on the ceiling that was the size of a yoga mat. The circular chunk of ceiling collapsed, and landed on top of the ape Warden with a CRASH! The single piece of the ceiling had now been reduced to a scattered array of boulders and rubble. The Warden was standing in the center of it, his body wobbling back and forth in his daze, and his pupils continuously growing and shrinking in his eyeballs. Once he'd regained his balance, the Warden changed back into his human form, groaning and holding his head up in pain.
That did it. The Warden's temper had finally cooled down, and his outfit now looked as ragged and tired as the rest of him. His stylish tuxedo had been reduced to a purple vest with the bottom of half of his yellow blouse ripped clean off the torso, leaving only the sleeves and the portions that covered his chest. The top half of his top hat had fried, leaving nothing but a charred bottom half, and the rim that rested around his forehead. His fuchsia bow tie and cummerbund had come apart, and were how hanging off his neck and torso as loose lines of fabric. The legs of his pants had been scorched, and now looked more like a pair of shorts that went down to his kneecaps. All that remained of his grey gloves were a pair of cuffs on his wrists, and the vamps and toe boxes of his shoes had completely curled backward, resembling a pair of leather snail shells resting on his feet.
Once he'd fully regained his bearings, the Warden covered his mouth in shock when he saw his bedroom completely demolished and still smoldering in fire. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen worse damage done to Superjail before; it was a mere dent compared to the other acts of violence he'd caused. However, what made this particular scene so horrifying was realizing who the culprit was. In the past, Warden usually had some sort of distraction or scapegoat that allowed him to shirk responsibility for his own actions. He'd blamed smokers for setting the prison on fire, and all the inmates and employees were so desperate for their cigarettes back, none of them told him that he and Ash were the ones who burned Superjail to the ground. The Warden willingly disregarded the deaths of the handicapped inmates once hundreds more had become cripples themselves, much to Warden's delight. He'd allowed the prisoners wearing wolf suits to turn into werewolves and maul each other, but never once perceived it as a tragedy since their innards made for such delectable "mystery meat." And, probably the most shocking of all, not a single soul in Superjail held the Warden accountable when his literal inner demon aided in the death of an innocent four-year-old cancer patient. It was unfathomable how the Warden was able to get away with such violence and cruelty, but, no matter how heinous his actions were, he and the rest of Superjail were able to overlook his behavior and move on, almost as if those travesties never happened.
Here, the circumstances were entirely different. The Warden had no way of shaking the blame off of him. There wasn't a single inmate within sight of his room, as they were all still attending a funeral that they weren't aware had been jeopardized. Jailbot was keeping watch over said inmates, so he couldn't have done it. Jared was still unconscious in the Doctor's old lab, and Alice was still helping Jailbot watch over the prisoners. There weren't any cigarettes, flaming logs in his fireplace, or any other flammable objects he could blame for it, only the fire that was smoldering his living space. And, probably the most damning fact of all, the Warden remembered his fit of rage perfectly. He couldn't say he didn't know he'd set his bedroom on fire, or that he'd forgotten his violent episode so quickly. He knew it all too well. Now, thanks to his sociopathic behavior, he'd lost the Doctor, hundreds of thousands of dollars (and probably much more with the sudden need of repairs), his living quarters, and all the belongings within. Yet, despite losing all of this, it seemed that, for the very first time in his life, the Warden realized he'd lost something far more critical to his well being than even his most prized possessions and playthings: he'd lost his mind.
After staring at the ruins for a few seconds more, the Warden fell to his knees, his eyes and jaws still gaping at the destruction. He then gazed down at his trembling, bare hands, which were dirtied with debris and scratched from heavy use of his fists. Just before he could throw himself on the floor and cry, Alice entered the room through what was left of the main door.
"Hey, Warden. We gonna do the damn funeral or-whoa!" Alice's eyes widened when she saw the mess in front of her. "What the F happened in here?"
Warden sniffed back a tear. "I happened in here, Alice. I...had another temper tantrum."
Alice blew her lips in disinterest. "What else is new? Anyways, are we gonna do the stupid funeral or what?"
"What else is new?" That was Alice's more polite version of what she really wanted to say: "No shit, moron. You do this kind of crap all the time." Alice sure as hell knew the hard truth that the Warden had just now come to grasp, and she wasn't sugarcoating it in the least, but at the moment, she was more focused on getting her boring duties over with than the distraught Warden kneeling on the floor in front of her with his back turned. However, her comment was the straw the broke the Warden's proverbial back. He sprang to his feet, grabbed a handful of his hair on the left and right sides of his head, and ripped them clean off, wailing to the heavens, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!"
Unable to stand it a moment longer, the Warden shoved Alice out of his path as he raced down the grey hallway, his left arm covering his tear-soaked glasses.
Alice, now sitting on the floor, raised an eyebrow. "Where the crap do I begin?"