Boogeymen III: House Of 1000 Cliches Chapter 1: Man, Are We Doing This AGAIN?, a teen titans fanfic

Boogeymen III: House of 1000 Clichés

"Hollywood will keep trying until they get it wrong."

-Danny Devito

Part 1: Man, Are We Doing This AGAIN?

Length Matters Not. Only Content, Needed To Ensure That…Content…Is…Good…Oh Forget It, Ok, This Opening Is Way Too Long Again! I Need To Do A Lot of Establishing! It Won't Happen Again! Maybe! You Know Me! Shut Up! Just Read!

It's different on the other end.

And Robin paused, struck with a sudden sense of déjà vu. Well it is, I suppose…but what did that have to do with my current thought process? Was I thinking that while it's easy to take advice, giving it is another ball game? That's true but…really why did I have that thought? And why does it seem so familiar? Almost like I'm repeating myself…

…Must be imagining it. Strange.

Robin let the puzzlement settle on the back of his brain as he looked back at what he had been doing before he had been struck by his odd thought: standing before his team, the Teen Titans (all nine of them, plus friend), and giving them advice. Unlike a lot of meetings, which usually had some degree of chaos, this one was unusually solemn. And Robin knew why.

It was why he was talking.

"Paranoia is not a benevolent attribute to possess." Robin said, as he started slowly walking back the way he had come. He found that whenever he had to address the Titans while he was standing (instead of sitting) and the situation was calm, he moved around a lot. Perhaps it was a childish desire not to seem like a teacher, lecturing his class.

"To be alert of your surroundings, aware of them and their possibilities, those are fine mental qualities to have…but paranoia, their redheaded stepchild, is not. The former will keep you on your guard, give you an edge against danger…but paranoia does not strengthen your mind, it weakens it. If you sharpen a sword too much, you'll eventually make it brittle, and it will do you no good when it breaks. The same applies to anticipation, and preparation, of possible threats…especially when they seem to be an annual occurrence."

"So does that mean we should lock Noel in his room, considering he's so far on the edge of paranoia it's amazing he hasn't fallen off, even when we're NOT facing possible death and dismemberment?" Terra asked suddenly. Robin glanced over to the white garbed and haired Savior, the first of the new Titans after the core five had formed, as his own face knotted with displeasure at the mild accusation disguised as a mood lightener.

"Hey stow that shit right now Tara…" Savior replied tersely, before Robin coughed to get everyone's attention.

"Guys, really, bad time for this." Robin said. "This needs to be discussed. Even for you, Noel."

"Talk away." Savior said.

"Now, of course you know what I'm speaking of…two years ago, due to an unfortunate series of events, what we have hypothesized as a dimension of pure chaos magic…and I once again state this is just a theory, and if it is incorrect we are at a bit of a loss to what the truth is. In any case, this dimension, which was, in a sense, almost like clay, able to shaped if given the proper 'ingredients', if you will, WAS given a set form to inhabit…by us. And this set form, due to said series of unfortunate events, was the attributes of what we generally call 'horror films'. In layman's terms, we brought movie characters to life. And while technically that is not REALLY what happened, it is the easiest way to explain the events that followed, as the actual truth is so complicated Dr. Fate would have trouble puzzling it out." Robin said. "So, using the simple terms. Not only did we manifest these movie characters into our existence, we also caused what has been dubbed the 'atmosphere' of these films to invade and in some cases override the basic rules of reality we function under. This 'atmosphere', again in layman's terms, basically altered the area and the mindset of people in the infected vicinity so that they would look like and behave as people did in so many of these horror movies. This primarily was shown by causing people to act 'stupider' then they normally would, such as going off by themselves when they should be sticking together. And even when an effort was made to NOT act like this, the atmosphere has been observed to outright force people to behave in such a fashion. Including literally warping us around to get us separated. Basically, it needed us alone so it could kill us, and it did everything it could to keep us alone, or at least in as small groups as possible. On top of that, Noel has observed that longer term effects of the atmosphere's infection can include literally warping the structure of the building it has manifested in, as Noel told us in his description of the so called 'Hell Corridors' from his attempted infiltration of the Hive last year. It's a double dose of trouble all around: not only are these movie villains placed in our world with all the powers they seem to possess on film, but then fate stacks the deck against us even more by giving them greater means and opportunity to kill us. Then again, as said, these manifestations force us to try and survive under the concepts that these films present, and their main concept, of course, is to get as high a body count as possible."

"Not that they succeeded with us." Beast Boy said, looking pleased.

"Careful Gar. Don't assume that our perfect record two years ago was due to us being heroes. It was more luck then anything, I think. Luck and time." Savior said.

"Come on Noel, do you HAVE to be such a killjoy?" Sophie Mathews complained: the lone non-Titan, she was still in essence a part of the group by being the Titan Scalpel's girlfriend.

"He does have somewhat of a point guys. Noel so far is the only one to experience this effect twice. And what he spoke of bears weight."

"The longer it stays out, the stronger it gets." Savior helpfully added.

"Right. Our experience lasted no more then four hours: we were able to 'close the door' on this horror dimension we accessed/created, whichever it was, before it could muster any strength. But the Hive was infested for nearly twelve hours, three times as long as us, and as Savior reported, the atmosphere only grew fiercer and more malignant in its attacks and its manipulations. It did not go easily that time. And as the Hive demonstrated, this infestation is not unique in where it happens. Indeed, it seems that only thing needed is for the proper key. And we all know what that is."

"Control Freak's remote." Scalpel said.

"Which despite our best efforts we were unable to completely do away with." Cyborg added.

"Who would have thought a fat nerd could hide so well?" Savior mused to himself.

"Indeed, we were unable to locate Control Freak, and hence have to assume that wherever he is, he has one of his remotes. Which means that wherever he is, there is a chance of another manifestation…though, it is possible that horror films in the actual vicinity may be needed, as the past two experiences have demonstrated. If Control Freak is in hiding, then there is a chance he is nowhere near any actual horror films, whether in videotape, DVD, or projector reel form."

"On the other hand, Control Freak is a giant geek." Savior noted: apparently his tone disagreed with Raven, who elbowed him in the side.

"Whatever the case is, we don't know for certain. Though as last year demonstrated, an Orb of Archetypal is not needed to trigger the effect…that's just a bonus. An activated Orb functions as a metahuman and magical power blocker, and sealing the powers of metahumans certainly helps when it comes to kill them…well, if you have powers to seal." Robin said, with a ghost of a smile. Various Titans booed him, and he smirked briefly once more before becoming serious. "The point is this. Whether we created it or accessed it the first time, it is very possible it could happen again. And as Noel's experience demonstrated, well…in theory it could happen anywhere. We're not sure if Control Freak's technosorcery constructions are the only ones which allow the manifestations: quite possibly any technosorcery construct will do…though those, as Raven tells me, are quite rare."

"It's a dangerous field. They're about as rare as legitimate Orbs of Archetypal: even the best of us have trouble finding them. Lucky for us." Raven said.

"But, even assuming that only Control Freak's remote can set it off…he's still out there somewhere. And for the last two years, this manifestation has happened. Third time's the charm. At least the last few times it manifested around people who had some idea on how to defend themselves, namely us, and the Hive…if it manifests around normal people this time I don't want to think of how bad it could get. What's worse is that we have no idea if it will materialize in a local area. Control Freak could be in Australia for all we know."

"I doubt it. He doesn't strike me as a long distance runner. In all aspects." Cyborg said.

"Right. This comes right back to what I was saying at first. There's a lot to consider. It's easy to get paranoid. But we have to try not to. The city, or some area in the world may need us tonight." Robin said. "So we have to alert, and prepared. Cyborg?"

"Defenses are primed. Not as high as last year, but still greater then the norm." Cyborg said.

"Raven?"

"Charms are laid, spells are prepared. I'm thoroughly ready." Raven said.

"And everyone else, like last year, has backup weaponry?"

"To the teeth." Savior said.

"Lock and load." Terra said, as she snapped back the chamber on her handgun.

"I have my stick again!" Scalpel said, waving around the table leg he had grown so fond off last year. This time several types of Blacktrinian bladed weaponry backed it up.

"Ok then. No need to be paranoid." Robin said.

"But Robin, just because I'm not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to not get me!" Gauntlet said.

Everyone stared.

"Well, if zombies manifest again this time, at least we'll have someone who can go after them without fear." Savior snarked in a nasty tone.

"Oh we don't have to worry about zombies."

"Why not?"

"Because I intentionally went to all the morgues in town and shotgunned the recently deceased." Gauntlet replied.

Silence. Robin arched an eyebrow.

"Dude, you did WHAT? Because that's BRILLIANT!" Beast Boy declared. Savior facevaulted.

"At least someone thinks so…those morticians are such whiners!" Gauntlet declared. Robin joined Savior in a facevault.

"Gauntlet's possibly illegal action against corpses aside…" Robin said as he got up. "Good. We're ready. So now we sit and wait. And hope all the trouble we have today and tomorrow is strictly of the norm…well, as normal as our lives get. But horror movie slashers and monsters coming to life is out of the ordinary even for us. If we're lucky, all we'll have to deal with is the usual immoral, illegal acts. Any questions?"

Terra raised her hand.

"Yes Tara?"

"Uh…I am curious, what's the difference between immoral and illegal?" Terra said.

"Well um…huh." Robin said, having to give the question some thought. The other Titans appeared to be pondering the question as well, with Beast Boy even turning into an owl.

"…Oh, I know! Hoot!" Beast Boy said. "Immoral is the act of doing bad things…uh…"

And then Beast Boy abruptly turned into a bald eagle.

"And illegal is me with a stomachache!"

A chorus of boos accompanied a storm of thrown objects at Beast Boy.

"HEY I DIDN'T WRITE IT!" Beast Boy yelled as he turned human again and tried to defend himself.

"OK. Hopefully, the worst thing tonight will be Beast Boy's puns. So everyone do what we discussed, and we'll keep an eye out for trouble. Even if all we do is spend two boring nights in the Tower sitting by computer monitors. Better that then wearing ourselves out traipsing around Jump City, or just sitting on our hands. Any other questions?"

Terra raised her hand again. Robin could tell from the look she had on her face this wasn't going to be legit, but he called on her anyway.

"Yes Tara?"

"How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?" Terra said.

"Ha ha ha! Brilliant quoting of Aliens Terra, I can do it too; all right you dogs you heard the man and you know the drill! Assholes and elbows!" Robin said in his best Sgt.Apone impression, as he did a waving hand gesture, indicating for the Titans to get out of his sight.

The Titans scattered…all but one. Robin wasn't surprised. She was the only one who hadn't spoken during the meeting. Last year, Starfire had been the most intensely apprehensive of the possibility of a repeat performance, and this year didn't look any different. Indeed, of all the Titans, she seemed the most bothered of what had happened, though Robin had never really been able to figure out why.

"We're as ready as we can be Star. If it happens…we'll handle it…like we always do."

"And if it happens elsewhere?" Starfire asked.

"Well, we're burn that bridge when and if we get to it." Robin said. "We really can't prepare the whole world…but besides Jump City, where else could it really happen?"

"It happened some distance from Jump last time. Robin, it did not repeat with us…but can that be said of elsewhere? Do you think…others might be prepared as well?"

Robin arched an eyebrow.

"Well…on one hand once bitten is twice shy…but on the other he was never the sharpest bulb in the socket…"

Somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean.

In the clouds, the gigantic HIVE Air Fortress, a floating citadel of high tech power and destruction. Brother Blood's greatest creation and his pride and joy.

The ironic thing was, the second encroaching of the chaos magic had probably allowed this floating juggernaut to be completed and launched. At the time of the infection, Savior had infiltrated the HIVE as a spy on their temporary base in an old abandoned school, hoping to learn the details of the 'Hiveathanas' (called thus as most of the students and staff on board, it referred to the levitating juggernaut as the 'Sathanas', a gigantic spaceship from the computer game Freespace 2) before it could be completed. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, Savior's cover had been blown, and he had been forced to retreat before learning anything substantial.

If anything, Brother Blood should be thankful for the magical manifestation of horror films that had attacked his temporary base and nearly killed everyone…including him. But Blood didn't stay dead long as the chaos magic incursion was finally sent back and sealed away again, reversing the effects of its reality manipulations, including the deaths it had caused. And even if he wasn't, he shouldn't be afraid. The Hiveathanas was far better secured and defended then a partially rebuild old high school, and this time Blood and the students knew what could happen. He shouldn't have been afraid.

Gizmo certainly wasn't (he was ready with weapons just in case), but considering what he was looking at, combined with the orders Blood had given, it appeared some didn't share his lack of fear. Blood had ordered all the students to their rooms, on a Class A alert: that meant the students were to stay and wait until an assemble or an all clear order was given. While useful if a combat situation arose, as the students could be gathered swiftly, it was dreadfully boring, and Gizmo had a fair idea why Blood had called the order and thought it was for the most part asinine. So he'd disobeyed the order to try and convince Blood to revoke or at the least alter it.

But much to Gizmo's surprise, he found that Blood's main office/room had been sealed, from the outside and in. Blood had literally locked himself in his room.

For a moment, Gizmo wasn't sure if he should throw up his hands or begin working on his resume for a new job position, but in the end he tried to contact Blood through the intercom.

"Sir…"

"I HAVE ORDERED A CLASS A ALERT! DISOBEYING MY ORDERS WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES!"

"I know sir…but I must say this is not a good face to show the troops."

"What? What's wrong with it?"

"Well, you tell us all to be ready…and then you lock yourself in your room. Some would say you were hiding."

"Um, I'm not hiding. Really. I just felt like... building a fort. But I didn't have any pillows around, so, I barricaded my room with this handy ablative armor plate I had lying around. And the separate air supply, food supply and plumbing that don't need the ship's main systems to work... I just don't like sharing. THAT'S ALL!"

Gizmo rolled his eyes. If Blood wasn't careful he was going to be overthrown by someone who had a little more steel in their spine (even though Blood quite literally HAD steel in his spine. It didn't seem to help him).

"Um, sir, it is clear that the fissure that allowed such dark magic into the area in the first place requires a technosorcery construct, such as Control Freak's remote, to successfully punch through the barriers between realities. We have no such creations on board, sir, so if you're worried about a repeat from last year…"

"SHUT UP OR I'LL FLUNK YOU!"

Gizmo sighed.

"Yessir." He replied, and flew off. Looked like his Nintendo DS and PSP would be getting a workout tonight.

In his room, Blood sat in his chair. He did not rock back and forth…but one got the sense he was a few more frayed nerves away from doing so, as he stared at the blank televisions before him. Normally he'd be watching the events of the Hiveathanas on them, but not now. Now…the blank screens seemed more menacing then anything they could announce, including a full-scale hero attack.

It was strange: Blood had experienced very little of the event, having been stuck under tons of rubble for almost the whole thing and dying very quickly after he'd finally freed himself. It was his students who had endured the true horror. But in the odd way such things reversed, what students were worried were keeping far better grace under fire then their leader.

Lucky for him. In more then one way.

"No no, this time I'll be perfectly safe. Just me, my teddy bear, and a base that I threw out ALLLLLL the DVD's from. Every last one... Nothing's going to come for me." Blood said to himself. "Nothing's going to come... for me, at least. Not for me."

"And besides us and there, where else could it happen?" Robin asked.

If you were the average person, it would seem to you to be the average dark alleyway, a narrow space between buildings on nondescript streets bearing nothing special: the usual apartment buildings with small stores sometimes at their bases. It was strewn with the average trash, and was as silent and abandoned as any average space that existed in cities all over the world.

But, if you were more aware then most, you might have noticed a few things.

Like the lack of animals, no rats or dogs digging through the trash.

Or the fact that for all the garbage, there was no smell at all. No stink, no pleasant scent, nothing. Like the air was sterile.

But even if you noticed these unusual facts, you most likely would have been unable to make anything of them.

Indeed…this alleyway would only reveal its secrets if you know where…and how to look.

Then perhaps you might see the door, set against the stone. The name is carved into the door, and the lack of light makes it immensely hard to read, but if one had brought a flashlight, one would see the name clearly. Moriarty's.

The man standing in front of the door had been told several conflicting accounts on how to get in. If you were worthy, that would be enough. You needed a password. You needed an acquaintance inside to vouch for you. He'd ever heard that to get in you would need to present yourself with freshly bloody hands and, in perhaps the most ridiculous account, the heart of a freshly killed virgin male.

He really had no idea what to believe, so he'd decided to just try and find the place. And amazingly, he had, without much difficulty.

So he decided, lacking any other idea, to knock.

And much to his surprise, the door swung open.

"…Hello?" He said, as he poked his head in, mindful of a possible attack. Nothing.

The door opened to a very dark room: indeed, the only light came from below, spilling from the bottom of a set of stairs that sank into the floor. He slowly stepped into the dim light, looking around. Nothing, which was very strange: he had heard there was some kind of door guardian, bouncer types. But there was no one.

What there was was another door on his left leading to…something: beyond the door was utter pitch blackness, and he did not have any way of illuminating it.

"Is someone there?" He asked.

Nothing.

He turned his eyes towards the stairs.

Motion in the darkness.

The skin split on his arm, as a dull white sword of bone shot through and clamped onto his wrist, a two-foot dagger speckled with sharp barb segments to rip flesh even as it stabbed. His face grimaced as the sword emerged, but that was his only sign of discomfort, as he stepped back, settling his legs into a combat position.

"I'm sorry if I have trespassed, but you will not find me an easy target." He said in a warning tone.

Whatever lay beyond the shadows did not react, as he tried to see what it was…

And then, much to his surprise, there was a slight motion. Hard to tell just what made it, but the body language was clear: go on in.

A bit confused, he looked at the blackness beyond the door, but there was no more movement. He looked back at the stairs.

And arched an eyebrow. They were gone. Now the light spilled from another door across from the one he had entered from. What was that? A spell of concealment, to lead someone down the wrong path? He'd heard of the forces that supposedly ran this area: such a setup would be simple for them.

But he seemed to have been approved, as he grimaced, the bone sword shifting back into his arm, as he headed for the door. And opening it…

A complete 180-degree turnaround.

As he went through them, the door he had entered through closed, and an immensely faint noise of annoyance issued from the darkness. Then it was quiet.

The room he had entered was huge, a sprawling setup that seemed to take up most of the building the place was hidden in. At one end of the setup lay a large bar, at another a stage that seemed to be closed at the moment, and several other doors and hallways lead off from the other walls, leading to other rooms and stairways. Tables were placed across the room and against the walls, another room for a few hundred people to be comfortably entertained, though there was maybe 1/10th of that number there.

Not that the small numbers mattered, because they were very noticeable people.

Those that WERE people, anyway.

For this was a location for what some would term 'villains'; those with greater powers in some shape or form beyond the average man, without the endless and painful desire to try and use it for the good of the species and the world. Though the people here had desires as varied as snow in the sky, it all came down to one central core: they were out for themselves. They were, as the saying went, the bad guys: virtually all had warrants for their arrest and crime sheets as long as your arm (for some it was as long as the average human's height).

Which meant that he'd found the right place, for he didn't exactly play on the side of the angels either. Well, he'd tried…but no more. They'd made his choice for him.

Let us briefly leave this man as we look around this unusual place…

As we head to the bar, past a lovely young woman who is made even more striking by the color of her skin…and the bartender, striking for her skin color and for many other reasons as she tries, without much success to clean a glass with clawed hands and a single eye, the other covered by a patch. Indeed, lacking an eye seems to be a trend, as we pass her and come to a group of three people. Two are missing an eye: the older man, his mask removed to reveal a face with white hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and on his left a young woman, also lovely, her hair almost an identical white, and her face also lacking an eye, the left socket covered with a patch to mirror the patch on the right eye of the older man. On his right is the only one with both eyes, a young Japanese man with spiky hair and features that could be called handsome if they weren't so doggedly serious. Indeed, the young man's face was as serious as the discussion seemed to be. Oh wait, there is someone between the group of three and the striking girl as well, dressed in red, a boot with a bladed spur pressed up against the edge of the bar, as a pair of very strange hands (are they made of some kind of energy?) slam down a glass and demand more of whatever he was drinking, his large mane of spiky red hair, almost like a lion's, drifting slightly as he makes his request to the annoyed looking bartender. He returns her look with a wicked grin.

Yet somehow his face, for all the viciousness gleaming in his eyes, can't match the look on the face of the man sitting slightly away from the bar, at a solitary table. The blank look on his heavy boned face does not conceal the terrible coldness in the features, as he sits calmly, drinking from a small glass…and playing dominoes. A strange contrast…

Perhaps as strange as the last figure at the bar, sitting at the very end, slim and clad entirely in black…and wearing a motorcycle helmet (it looked like one anyway) that completely concealed the face of the wearer.

Then again, maybe not so strange of a choice of costume, as we pan away from the man and pass through the building, through the tables, at which sit so many contrasting characters: tattooed punks sit with blue skinned long nosed magicians, while nearby red haired men wearing black suits and speaking with English accents play cards with orange robots and strange creatures that seem to be made of paper, while we pass by a closed door that apparently leads into an office (with a large DO NOT DISTURB sign on it) and also swing past a small man seemingly made of wood as he runs back and forth delivering food and drinks (and apparently not being very happy about it), as we go by a booth where a man with a backwards head is arguing with a man who seems to have stumbled out of a small time home improvement show, and by another booth where a large gorilla sits with a normal looking woman and a skull container holding a brain, past a wall of various knick-knacks and doodads set up to either impress people or remind them of where they were, and then past a table where a man dressed in black and white (with a light bulb on his chest) furiously scribbles on a sheet of paper, as if trying to decide something, as a young man with spiky white hair, pieced ears, large lips and unpleasant looking eyes dressed up as a waiter walked away from his table and past another one where a man wearing green and with his brain clearly exposed in a glass dome that had seemingly replaced his skull sat and drank his choice of poison with a contented smugness.

And even then that did not describe them all, as we finally return to the man who entered this room of strangeness…as he walked into the bar.

No, no like the joke. Give me SOME credit.

This new man was about six feet tall and had a powerful build, as if he had spent some time working out, either casually or not. By 'or not', what was meant was that he seemed to be wearing military fatigues and a combat vest, which suggested that perhaps he was part of the army, though this could not be proven one way or another. As we move up the body and to the face, we see two items indicative to a particular trade: latex gloves and a mask that covered the mouth and nose.

"Name?" Came a sudden voice, and the masked man turned to see someone he had missed before: a gigantic robot, or rather a man wearing a robotic battle suit, holding a clipboard in his mechanical fingers.

"Ah…Doctor Westminster." The masked man said.

"Right." Adonis replied, marking it down and heading off. Dr. Westminster raised an eye.

"…Hmmmmm." Dr. Westminster murmured. The title of 'Doctor' alongside the fatigues meant nothing. As a villain, one tends to lie. Perhaps it simply came with the white full-face mask that covered his face. That was topped off with a white fedora. The kind of hat you'd expect on a gangster. A bit of a contrast, but not exceptionally so.

Unless you were some people.

"Hey, mate."

Dr. Westminster turned again to see the red-haired man who had been sitting at the bar (he DID have hands of red energy, emerging from the healed stumps where normal hands had once been) standing near him. Too near him. He spoke with a clear Australian accent, and his eyes and shoulders indicated he wouldn't mind some trouble.

"Can't say I've seen you around this place." He challenged.

"Jack, drop it." The strange barwoman warned. What was so strange about her? Well she WAS missing an eye. And she was nearly seven feet tall. Heavily muscled. With gray skin. And long pointed ears. And two-fingered hands covered with metal claws. The fact that she was wearing a normal barmaid's outfit made her look even more ludicrous, but it didn't take away from the looking of warning she could give, and was giving to the red haired man named Jack.

"Hey now…just wanna make sure no one's INFILTRATING us, Becky." Jack replied.

"This isn't the HIVE Jack. No one gets in unless the boss lets them in. And even that has its failings." 'Becky' replied, her lone eye harshly examining Jack as she said the last line. "And call me 'Becky' one more time, and I'll stick my hand up your ass and feed you your lower intestine."

"Just try it." Jack snarled back, as he raised one of his energy hands, and the energy reformed into a set of claws far crueler then the ones the bartender hand. Her eye narrowed.

"Wait, no!" Came a voice, and Jack looked down at the little wooden man, who had once been the Puppet King…now little more then a puppet. "You KNOW the master hates fighting! You KNOW there will be consequences."

"…Shah, whatever." Jack replied, and then in one swift movement he lashed out a leg, kicking the Puppet King across the bar.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The Puppet King crashed into one of the walls and fell to the floor, stunned. None of the other villains in the restaurant/bar seemed to pay much attention to this fact.

"Heh. Goal." Jack said, and turned back to Dr. Westminster. "I'm watching you, newbie. Don't think you've escaped an ass stomping." Jack said as he turned again and headed back to his seat, as Puppet King got up and walked off miserably. Once he'd had the power, the magic, and then the Titans had beaten him and it had all been downhill from there, ending up as a slave/punching bag to the patrons of this café. One day though…if he ever escaped the clutches of those who owned the place…

"Ignore him. This is a place for all of our stripe, no matter the color, to gather for whatever reason." The barwoman said. "What are you drinking?"

"Water." Dr. Westminster said.

"Right, water…" The bartender said as she turned back to the myriad of bottles behind her, showing alcohol of all stripes, including a few drinks you wouldn't find in average bars, mainly due to the fact they didn't exist anywhere else on earth. "Water, where is water…"

"The sink perhaps?" Dr. Westminster offered. The bar girl stiffened as she realized yes, water was not an alcoholic beverage.

"Izuna, I hate my job…" 'Becky' said as she walked off. Dr. Westminster stared for a bit, and then reached inside his coat.

"Such a strange group…" He said, as he removed several bottles of pills. Anyone with medical knowledge might have recognized them all as powerful painkillers. Perhaps understandable when part of your power seemed to be bones forcibly emerging from beneath the skin.

"Hey! Bartender! Freshen my drink?" The figure at the very end, clad in black and wearing the motorcycle helmet (if it was one) asked as 'Becky' found the sink and began filling a glass with water.

"Yeah yeah yeah, keep your pants on you breast-taping weirdo…"

"Hey, I heard that!"

"Well it's true!" The bartender said as she stood up straight. "We all know the truth now, 'Nightwalker', so why are you bothering to keep the helmet on?"

Brief silence, and then Nightwalker reached up beneath the side of the helmet and carefully pressed a button. In a sudden whirring of hidden gears, the helmet split apart and slid down to attach itself to the shoulders and upper back of the costume Nightwalker was wearing…revealing HER as a lovely girl with wholesome features and deep red hair that she undid from a carefully tied knot placed at the back of her neck.

"I have my reasons." Nightwalker said. "Can I have my drink refreshed, or are you just going to stand there and call me names?"

"How can I? You just have one. Sine." 'Becky' said.

"Don't call me by my real name, or Becky will become YOUR nom de jour, White Hole." Nightwalker said.

"Yeah yeah yeah…" The White Hole said as she went back to give Dr. Westminster his water.

"Such odd behavior." Said the Japanese teen with spiky hair as the White Hole walked past him. "From what I heard, the White Hole was savagery and bloodlust personified. Trying to comprehend her working here is hard enough, but hearing her talk like that…"

"Not so odd, Kurai." Said the man next to him, a man VERY familiar to Teen Titans fans. "The owners of this place have great power at their disposal, even in their recovering states: it is most likely in their abilities to keep the alien under control and not attack everyone who looks at her the wrong way. In the same way they avoid fights."

"Hai, Slade-sama, but that poses another question…why does this place exist in the first place? It makes no sense at all!"

"That's why it's not canon, stupid." The white haired girl said.

CRASH!

The loud noise echoed through the bar, and a moment later the door with 'Do not Disturb' written on it opened up.

A young woman, standing in at about five foot, five inches and a quarter (if one wants to be specific) emerged. She was by all accounts nearly anorexic, thin not only in body but in bones. She had long hair completely pulled from her face: brushed backwards, the hair itself reached to her knees (it was rather excessive). The face was rather nondescript due to its pale nature albeit for it being framed by dark blue veins streaking her cheeks. In the same vein – pun not intended – her eyes were also framed by dark rings beneath them. Her clothes were relatively simple, a long gray dress that reached beyond the floor. Patches covered this dress, metallic in nature, symmetrical in style. There is no real way that the patches could stay on, yet they remained firmly attached.

And one last thing. She was floating about a foot and a half off the ground. She blinked with red eyes.

"What the hell is going on in my bar!"

"Err…the fourth wall has been broken again, Mistress Sorceress." Puppet King said as he popped out of nowhere.

"Ugh." The Sorceress muttered. "I bet the bloody author…"

CRASH!

"…is going to keep pulling this…"

CRASH!

"…due to the nature of the story…"

CRASH!

"YOU MAY WANNA STOP WHILE YOU STILL HAVE A BAR ITHLIAN!" The White Hole called. The floating master of all magic, the grandmistress of grimiores, the Ayatollah of Abracadabra…

"Enough, a person can only take so much dribble."

CRASH!

"…Right. Puppet King, go fix the damage. And White Hole, my name is the Sorceress. Remember that Styles: you may be able be able to rend flesh with the best of them, but I have your soul in my grasp. So keep that in mind before you choose how to address me." The Sorceress said., not happy about being called by her real name, as she disappeared back into her office.

"And she once held the whole world in a grip of terror?" Kurai commented.

"Don't judge by appearances Rose. She may be in hiding for now, but one false assumption does not a defeat make." Slade said. "Besides, that wall of bric-a-brac isn't there for nothing. Most of them are powerful magical artifacts. She's probably using them to regain her power. This location can make sense, as a place for villains to regroup and plan. After all, we all have a single goal here."

"Plus, as I said, the story isn't canon. So the author can do ridiculous things like having her villains running and dining in a café." Rose said.

There was one final crash, and Puppet King groaned under the wreckage of the fourth wall.

"Rose, please cease these comments, this…occurrence is lacking enough grounding points as it is." Slade said.

"As you wish da…father." Rose said. Kurai frowned.

"Hey, Punk Rocket! Drinks at Table 4!" The White Hole called as he presented the music-crazed madman with a tray loaded with filled glasses. "And watch where you're going this time!"

"Hey! My feet are as skilled as my hands…that came out wrong, bye!" Punk Rocket said as he whirled and ran off with the drinks.

"Don't run human!" The White Hole yelled.

Punk Rocket didn't listen, as he slipped past the man with the face of such stark coldness: Killjoy, the mythical assassin…who was trying to build a little building of dominoes.

…We will assume this has some purpose.

What purpose?

You tell me. It was just one of the many odds sights around Moriarty's, better known as the Villain Café, where the bad guys acted like normal people, as much as they could. Hence why it was rather exclusive.

Unfortunately, some people were too stupid to understand the meaning of 'exclusive.'

As we go back out the door Doctor Westminster had entered through, into the very dark room…as a pounding noise suddenly sounded at the front door, a very loud banging. The door was firmly shut this time however, and hence did not swing open.

He would have normally ignored it entirely, but he was in the middle of something and didn't want to be interrupted, as a form stepped from the shadows of the doorway and opened up the hatch to give a very brief comment on the noise.

The shotgun blast blew his head to pieces.

The boom was fairly muffled downstairs in the actual bar, but it was loud enough for several of the villains to look up from what they were doing. And even if they hadn't heard it, it wasn't like the ones who had fired the blast were trying to be subtle, as the door to the bar was suddenly smashed open via a powerful (and way too enthusiastic) kick.

"ALL RIGHT NOBODY MOVE OR YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!" The leader of the masked men yelled as he and his buddies stormed in. It was hard to really tell what they looked like with any detail: they were all wearing disguises, in the form of two sky masks, one stocking over the head, and one battered hockey mask who eye holes had been enlarged and whose bottom half had been removed to aid with breathing (why bring the hockey mask when it now covered less then half the face overall was a question lost on the robbers, who as you might have guessed haven't yet demonstrated much intelligence…wait a sec, a hockey mask?) Two of them were thin: Hockey Mask had red hair and (exposed by the removal of the bottom half) bad teeth. Stocking was even thinner, a real stick, and seemed to have blonde hair beneath his stocking mask. Ski Mask 1, the leader, was the only one with any real muscle on him, while Ski Mask 2 had started running to fat at least a decade ago. Their clothing was the usual mix of jeans and shirts with faded colors: Stocking wore a vest, and both Ski Masks wore work boots instead of shoes. All in all, without the masks, guns, and aggressive attitudes, they were just like any men you could pass in the street. Even with the masks and aggressive attitudes, they were pretty much nothing to the right crowd, which happened to be the crowd they were currently threatening.

But they did have guns. Stocking and Ski Mask 2 had shotguns, Hockey Mask had a sub machine gun, and Ski Mask 1 had a heavy machine gun that you couldn't just go into a store and buy, which denoted that either he knew was he was going into or he had issues with his manhood. They also had a few handguns stuffed in their pants as backup weapons. Armed and dangerous.

Though NOWHERE near the level of danger of the people whose bar they had invaded. What the hell they were thinking?

Well, one, this was a group of men to whom thinking didn't exactly come well in the first place. In any efficient sense of the word anyway.

Two, there was alcohol involved. You probably have guessed that anyway. Unfortunately, in a lot of aspects of this case, it wasn't enough.

Three, they had been given somewhat inaccurate information of the place and what (and WHO) lay within it. The thing that they had listened to was 'no security for the night', when there was a few things they should have listened to instead, like 'place where supervillains relaxed'.

Four, and this was perhaps the biggest one, none of the men who seemed to be thinking of robbing the villain café really had the proper superstition about such a place. Now, as detailed before, yes, the concept of such a place was ridiculous, but having extended the reasoning that as silly as it may seem, it did still exist, one would think that normal men of the wrong side of the moral scale would want to avoid it like the plague. Villains often sought out their human minions, not the other way around, and any postulating at such a place would most likely incur severe consequences. But those were the thoughts of smart men who gave warnings and rumors weight. Other men, not so much. And can you blame them? Supervillains do not kiss and tell, and the idea that they would gather together…well, who would believe that? Except anyone who was smart enough to.

With this lack of belief, plus the alcohol, plus the weapons, plus the idea they could make money, plus a burning desire to prove they were worth something, all these had driven the men down into the bar.

But, you say, once they realized just what they had stumbled into, even if it took them some time, why would they not turn and flee immediately?

For the answer to that, dear viewer, read on…

"I swear, anyone even twitches and I'll put a fucking hole in them the size of the fucking moon!" Ski Mask 1, the apparent leader, growled as he swung his machine gun back and forth: the weapon certainly looked powerful enough to make said hole. Of course, that was operating under the assumption that the would-be robbers were facing other humans beings, and in a lot of cases, that was anything but. "And believe me, I fucking mean it!"

Foul language every forth word, a bastion long held by those who are trying to seem tough. Of course, those who were truly tough knew it wasn't the words that made the man, but the deeds.

So why did the villains not rise up immediately and show these robbers just how wrong an error they had made?

Once again, there were several reasons. Some believed that this wasn't worth any effort on their parts and hence did nothing. Others were annoyed at the sudden interruption, but preferred to wait and see who would act first before acting in turn. A few others had realized just what was going on, but were waiting to see just what would happen next, for their own amusement. And some thought that the concept of men with weapons was so far beyond their notice that it didn't warrant an iota of their attention.

Unfortunately, when all these reasons were combined, that meant none of the villains sprang to answer the threats Ski Mask 1 was making…and more unfortunately (I'll leave you to decide for who), it meant the robbers actually thought they had gotten the drop on the villains and that the situation was in their favor.

Though it was clear that everyone beside Ski Mask 1 was nervous (whether it was because they had never done this or because they were just beginning to get an inkling of what they had walked into was unknown), the way they swung their weapons about, trying to cover every angle at once. Proper training for a group with weapons, it wasn't.

"Now, produce the fucking money now, bitch!" Ski Mask 1 said as he stalked up the bar, aiming the shotgun at the White Hole. Ski Mask 2 and Hockey Mask followed up closely, their guns still darting around, their body language starting to take on the heightened tone of panicked realization: Stocking was a bit farther behind them…as he abruptly stiffened.

The last part of their failure to flee was coming into play.

"Excuse me?" The White Hole said, not looking scared in the slightest: indeed she looked incredibly aggravated. Now, perhaps this would have broken through Ski Mask 1's initial yelling bravado…except the final part of the failure initiated itself at that time for him, as well.

At one of the tables, a smirk came over the face of a man. Now THIS would be properly entertaining.

"Give me the fucking money bitch! I know you have it!" Ski Mask 1 threatened. Meanwhile, Hockey Mask found his attention drawn to the three people seated nearby, all of them watching him with guarded interest. Something about them struck him, even with the outside force that had begun to act on his mind. If he'd truly known who he was eyeballing, chances are he would have lost control of his bladder. And possibly his bowels.

Nightwalker was a bit more on the alert then most of the bar seemed to be: Killjoy was still setting up his dominoes, as if nothing had changed from five minutes ago, and the newcomer, Dr. Westminster, seemed to be busy counting something. Jack was watching with a brutal glean in his eye: Nightwalker didn't have to know anything about him to know what that meant. Everyone else was either ignoring them or looking at them with annoyance…except the White Hole of course, who was very clearly becoming pissed off at having a gun stuck in her face. Her species, the Blacktrinians, if Nightwalker recalled correctly, had a weakness to firearms, which meant that the White Hole should have been at a distinct disadvantage, but on the other hand, she was the White Hole. If you didn't know what that meant, let's just say once that she had been the terror of two galaxies. And just because she was acting as a barmaid now didn't change that.

"Money? You think I just have a cash register I can open up? Who in the inferno gave you your information?" The White Hole replied.

"STOP FUCKING AROUND FREAK! GIVE ME THE MONEY NOW!"

"Yeah, now!" Ski Mask 2 echoed, in a tone he never would have used in real life, much less when faced with what he currently was…but as I've said, none of the robbers were really themselves any more.

"Oh are you talking too? Best be careful, you look ready to keel over without any help from me. I wonder, how much crackling would you make, pig?" The White Hole retorted, the venom in her voice only increasing. The gun in her face was only barely holding her back from doing more then talking: if it was moved…Nightwalker didn't like the possibilities.

Odd choice of words too: crackling was roasted pig skin, but much less known. Why that, instead of bacon? Strange.

Hockey Mask was looking past Slade, Rose, and Kurai at her, Nightwalker realized, and tried to keep her body movement neutral, not wanting to tip off she had a gauntlet-weapon armed and ready if it became necessary. However, it was somewhat difficult to tell from the eyes just where they lay, and to Rose Wilson (who was already suffering from a bit of trouble regarding vision, as you might have guessed) thought the man was oogling her, as her lone eye widened at this (erroneous) realization, and then narrowed in offended rage.

"Shut up!" Ski Mask 2 was yelling at the White Hole.

"Shut up? Or you'll what? Sit on me? You think you're threatening with that attempt to ignore the failing of your actual equipment?" White Hole said, assumingly referring to the idea (which could be wrong) that men with small penises try to fix it by buying guns. "You need to go back to school! Wait, maybe not…how did that chant go…fatty fatty two by four, can't fit through the bathroom door!" White Hole chanted. Nightwalker raised an eyebrow. The White Hole's current frustration to not cut loose was coming out in some odd ways.

White Hole didn't get to make any more grade school chants because Ski Mask 1 cut her off.

"SHUT UP! GIVE ME THE FUCKING MONEY OR YOU'RE DEAD!" Ski Mask 1 yelled.

Stocking, Nightwalker had noticed, had slightly separated from his companions, and as Nightwalker's eyes followed his movements, she realized he was approaching Killjoy. Apparently Killjoy's continued careful placement of dominoes was bothering him, most likely because it violated the no movement rule. Killjoy kept laying them down anyway, seemingly oblivious to it all.

"Oh please." The White Hole sneered.

"I WILL KILL YOU YOU FUCKING BITCH!" Ski Mask 1 yelled, his mindset seemingly stuck in a permanent loop. Was that due to personal failings, or outside influences? Who knew?

And so it went, as the Ski Masks yelled at the White Hole while gesturing with their weapons, and Hockey Mask (unfortunately) kept watch in the direction of Slade's group, as Slade noticed the fixed vision himself and began drawing his own conclusions, and Stocking slowly walked up to Killjoy, who had with smooth precision laid out a group of dominoes in a perfectly balanced array.

"GIVE ME THE MONEY! OR I'LL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT!"

"Fuck your mother." White Hole retorted.

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"Fuck your grandmother."

"YOU FUCKING FREAK!"

"Fuck your sister." White Hole said, clearly ready to go through every relation she could think of.

And even as this back and forth 'discussion' played out, Stocking finally got to his destination.

"Hey! We said don't move!" Stocking said as he finally got close to Killjoy, sticking his shotgun in his face.

Killjoy ignored him, as he placed another domino down.

"Stop fucking with the fucking dominoes!" Stocking yelled, gesturing…as his leg bumped the table.

With a very light clatter, the domino structure fell apart.

Killjoy looked down at what he had been building, as if confused at what had happened.

"Are you deaf? I said…!" Stocking yelled as he leaned in a bit more, as if to push Killjoy back with his shotgun.

If Stocking had seen it clearly, as Killjoy looked up, he wouldn't have seen an ounce of rage in the man's eyes. Indeed, there was nothing in them at all. But even he didn't much care for it when annoyances started personally bothering him.

As he snapped his right hand out, a motion that almost seemed like a slap, far too quick for Stocking to react to, as he smacked the shotgun across the right barrel at a perfect angle and with the perfect amount of strength, as the shotgun spun, almost slowly, around, Stocking's inexperienced hands already slippery with sweat and unable to hold it properly and hence losing his grip, as the gun was pushed out of his hands and did a perfect 180 degree horizontal spin, even as Killjoy, with amazing reflexes, carefully adjusted his hand position…

And grabbed the barrel, his hand curling around the trigger, the positioning of the gun reversed and Stocking now staring down the blackness of the barrel.

"Uh?" Was all he could say.

And then with a resounding explosion of noise, that same blackness was all he knew, as clustered metal pellets fired at high speeds did what they did best to human heads.

Blood and worse splattered all over the area behind Stocking, including on the three remaining robbers, who jerked in surprise as one of their fellows abruptly became a corpse.

"…Heh heh heh heh heh…" White Hole cackled with an underside of a growl, as she licked what blood had sprayed far enough to land on her face off. "Fuck your cousin."

And with that, the man who had made sure that events had come to this withdrew his influence, even as the full realization of where they were and what was happening hit the would be robbers, and left them with only one thing: absolute panic.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Ski Mask screamed, as his finger jerked down on the trigger…

The White Hole was faster, as she snapped out her hand, grabbed the barrel of the gun, and jerked it slightly up and to her left, so the gun was positioned over her shoulder. A moment later the bar filled with even more fearsome noise as the machine gun began spewing hot lead into the bottles behind the White Hole. You'd think having a firing machine gun right next to your ear when they were as pronounced as they were on the White Hole would be uncomfortable to say the least, but if it was the White Hole seemed perfectly capable of ignoring it, as she grinned widely, showing fearsome teeth.

"Now what kind of a metaphor shall we apply to this situation, shall we? Premature ejaculation, or impotence?" The White Hole taunted, as Ski Mask found himself both unable to stop holding down the trigger nor move the gun so his bullets did something beside shoot bottles and a wall. It was like the gun was locked in place, as the White Hole completely ignored the heat of the barrel (metal hands probably helped), as she prepared to wait for the clip to finally run out so she could crush the barrel with her immense strength (which was why Ski Mask 1 couldn't move his gun at all) and then do far more interesting things to Ski Mask 1 himself. As for why she didn't just crush the barrel right then and there, well, crushing a gun while it was firing could sometimes lead to the abrupt detonation of said gun, and at that range it was possible that the shrapnel could actually do some damage to her…

Unfortunately, delaying crushing the gun allowed Ski Mask 2 to get a bead on her, and with a snorting groan of disgust she let go of the barrel and ducked behind the bar even as the shotgun boomed over her head, as Ski Mask 1 stumbled back, his balance interrupted by suddenly finding his gun free again.

And with a scream of utter terror, as the mental prodding within his mind was no longer there and keeping it repressed, Hockey Mask opened fire with his own submachine gun, even as Ski Mask 1 got his own gun back up and started firing it again, and the bar officially turned into The Wild Bunch.

Perhaps the villains should have made more of an effort then they had to subdue the men, as most of them (well, the ones that weren't bulletproof anyway) now found themselves needing to briefly dive for cover (or in Puppet King's case, just dive on the ground and cover your head, as if by doing so the problem would cease to exist). But they'd made their own beds.

Indeed, one of the few who didn't hit the ground or take cover behind something was Killjoy, and even as bullets began whizzing all around him he slowly transferred the shotgun he had 'borrowed' from the now deceased Stocking from his right hand to his left, as he grimaced, just a tad, and rotated his right shoulder even as he flexed the muscles on his right arm. Firing a shotgun one-handed wasn't exactly pleasant for the muscles.

And the sole other who didn't move was the man named Simon Jones, aka Psimon, as he sat in his chair and laughed in a low tone, a shield of telekinetic energy in front of him to block any bullets that went his way, power from his incredibly strong mind, the same mind that had reached into the mind of the robbers and subconsciously influenced them to act as they had, ignoring where they were and smarter moves like fleeing, until it had come to this.

It was one way to break the tedium of an otherwise boring October 30th, Psimon mused, as he sat back to watch the chaos.

Nightwalker ducked down behind the counter, as Slade, his daughter, and his apprentice pushed themselves away from it, all of them moving in an almost artful manner, as they dove for a nearby empty table, pushed it over, and positioned themselves behind in such a way that, while they were technically retreating, one certainly didn't get that impression.

"Ewwugh! Father! That piece of shit was staring at me!" Rose said, as she yanked her mask up and over her head (though unfortunately the sudden need to do this didn't let her tie up her hair properly, leaving it sticking out of the mask in a few places and really ruining the image of what Rose was: an assassin and warrior almost as deadly as her father, Slade, aka Deathstroke the Terminator), as she switched into the mindset of the Ravager and yanked her own personal gun free from her leg holder.

"Language Rose. Yes I noticed that myself. Something must be done about that." Slade said, as he snapped his produced from somewhere faceplate on, hiding his aged but strong features behind a mask of black and orange.

"Shall I reduce him to a fine mist, Slade-sama?" Kurai said, as red energy exploded on his hands. Unlike his master and his master's daughter, Kurai's powers lay in a generational talent of his family that allowed the harnessing of immensely destructive energy powers.

"Not just yet Kurai…" Slade replied, as bullets bit into the wood of the table. Good wood, to block the shots. Slade would have to make sure to compliment the owners.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Ski Mask 2 screamed, as he tried to aim down and shoot the White Hole, but he had no experience with guns and hence just fired into the counter, which didn't do much good as he spun to his left.

And found Jack Djinn standing there, grinning. His code name may have been Asphyxiation, but he preferred to live his namesake for the pretty birdies. For the rest, anything would do.

"I'd say g'day. Except it's not." Jack smirked, and even as Ski Mask 2 aimed his shotgun Jack's fingers of red energy abruptly transformed into claws of red energy that he slashed down, slicing straight through the gun and most of Ski Mask 2's fingers.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Ski Mask 2 screamed, as he looked at his newly ruined hands, blood squirting from the severed digits.

"For you anyway." Jack said, as his hand shifted and morphed again, as Jack tried to decide what to make. A drill? A hammer? Perhaps a pitchfork…

Except he never got the chance to use anything, as the White Hole reared back up from behind the bar, sank her claws into Ski Mask 2's shoulders, and yanked him back over the counter.

"Now…you said I'm a freak?" The White Hole hissed, as any good humor or oddness in her anger gave way to her natural state of seething, savage fury. "Well, I am who I am. But you, human, could stand to lose some weight. Let me help."

The tortured screams that followed from behind the bar seemed unlike anything a human throat could make. Jack stared for a moment, still surprised (and apparently, like Killjoy, unconcerned about the firepower being loosed not ten feet from him), and then he stepped in and started leaning over the counter.

"Hey! That was my kill you just nicked Be-"

Jack never actually saw where the blood came from, just that it was coming at high speed, as it sprayed into his face, and he staggered back, sputtering as the hot liquid ran down his face and chest. He blinked the blood out of his eyes, even as he looked at where it came from, as more sprayed into the air, soaking the counter in front of him.

"Uh, on second thought, be my guest." Jack said, as he walked away. He picked up his shotglass…and then noticed that some of the spraying blood (which was still coming, what the hell? The human body did have a fair bit of blood, but not ten gallons under high pressure! There was some physical or physiological error there!) had gotten in his drink.

He considered that for a second, then downed it anyway. Hey, he'd paid good money.

"Hmmmm, bit of a tang." Jack commented.

Doctor Westminster blinked, having seen all this from where he crouched by his barstool to take cover from the firepower, even as bullets flew, blood sprayed, and crazy Australians drank alcohol with blood in it despite them not being vampires.

"If this is a casual night here, perhaps I should reconsider this profession!" Doctor Westminster said, as he tried to reach up and grab the painkillers he'd left on the counter before they got bloodsoaked (they didn't grow on trees after all!)

In a way, Ski Mask 1 and Hockey Mask should have been proud: they'd managed to make more villains duck and cover then the Titans ever had. Then again, this wasn't an accomplishment they would live down, as the two of them finally realized that standing still was probably counterproductive and ran for it…of course since they were in a blind panic, neither of them ran for someplace smart, like say, THE DOOR.

They didn't stop firing though, as more bullets tore into walls, tables, and the like, as a fair bit of villains finally decided they were pissed off and got ready to counter-attack.

"Hold it! You'll just end up shooting each other! Let me handle it!" Slade called, as the bullets kept flying.

As the door to the Sorceress' office finally flew up, the racket too much for even her magic sound dampening spells.

"By Merlin's beard what is going on out-YOW!" The Sorceress yelped as she suddenly found a group of bullets dying to make her acquaintance, but she was faster then they were, as with a wave of her hand a shield of shimmering power formed before her, stopping the bullets in their tracks. "What have you been doing while I was busy with paperwork!"

"Nothing of our own wills, m'lady!" Slade replied: he didn't have respect for many things, but the Sorceress could turn him into a toad with a glance if she felt like it, so for his own sake he at least acted courteous to her.

"Oh I swear…!" The Sorceress said, as she turned and went back into her office. "Fix it! Yesterday!"

The door slammed behind her.

"All right Rose, enough of this; let's deal with the one by the bar." Slade said.

"As you wish father." The Ravager replied.

"Kurai, small focused blasts. No need for anything larger." Slade said.

"Hai!"

And so, Hockey Mask found that when he swung his spraying sub-machine gun away that maybe random fire wasn't the best way to handle some situations, as Slade, Rose, and Kurai reared up from behind the table…

Even as Doctor Light shot a blast of his own at Ski Mask 1…except he missed, and the blaze of light hit a wall near Hockey Mask and exploded, suddenly filling the three's vision with light, which messed up their aim.

Hence, instead of being riddled, Hockey Mask had the 'fortune' of only suffering one hit, to the shoulder, as he screamed and stumbled back, hitting the counter and then falling over it as the three ducked behind the table again to clear the spots blinking in their vision.

"DAMN IT! ARTHUR! I SAID WE'D HANDLE IT!" Slade yelled. Doctor Light would have replied…except he was hiding behind his overturned table as Ski Mask 1 riddled it. True, he probably had some power that would have effectively defended against the bullets…but when a gun was aimed in his face Dr. Light didn't think very well in a tactical sense (and speaking of which, why hadn't Ski Mask 1 run out of bullets yet? How big was the clip in his gun? Sometimes new technology could be so annoying, Slade mused…). Ski Mask 1, in perhaps his smartest move of the night, didn't stand and fire much longer though, as he spied an exit from the room on one side of the bar, and he took it, running backwards while firing one last spray and screaming in anger/fear (mostly the latter).

A moment after he ran through the door, the young woman who had been sitting right next to it got back up on her seat and resumed drinking, as if nothing had happened. Talk about going with the flow.

Hockey Mask didn't have such an opportunity though, as he'd fallen behind the counter, the pain in his shoulder shooting through him as he landed, but he had enough sense to try and get straightened up…even as he felt the slick mess beneath his hands, of spilled alcohol and shattered glass…and blood, so much blood, as Hockey Mask looked up from the floor…and at the White Hole, covered from head to foot in the red stuff, the torn remains of what had once been Ski Mask 2 in her hands.

"Gragmph." The White Hole murmured in animalistic annoyance as she saw Hockey Mask's fear seize him, as he aimed his still-in-his possession sub-machine gun at her.

"AIYEEEEEEAHHHHH!" Hockey Mask screamed, as he fired at the alien, but she was too quick, as she leapt from and away from the body, as the bullets tore into Ski Mask 2's savagely mutilated corpse, as the White Hole leapt onto the counter, a tangled something or other clutched in her hand.

"Damn!" White Hole yelled, as Hockey Mask followed her up, and she was forced to leap across the whole bar to escape the bullets. And she'd so wanted another kill to slake her frustration. Well, maybe yet, as Hockey Mask stood up and raked the bar, still trying to shoot the White Hole, and White Hole was forced to duck behind yet another uprooted table.

She found herself sharing the space with a villain called the Handyman, who looked stunned at the bloodsoaked alien…and at the raw pink hide dangling from one of her clawed hands. In her terms, the White Hole had helped Ski Mask 2 lose weight by skinning him alive.

"Hello." The White Hole said, as the Handyman realized just WHAT the bloody hide hanging from the White Hole's hand was.

"OH GOD YOU'RE GONNA SKIN ME TOO AND WEAR ME LIKE A SUIT IN THAT MOVIE, WATCHACALLIT, SPACE BALLS!" The Handyman screamed. The White Hole raised an eyebrow.

"Um…no. I'm going to sit here until the bullets stop." The White Hole said.

"THEN WHERE THE HELL DID YOU THAT !$#$#$! HUMAN SKIN?"

"From the body I would be continuing to do unpleasant by most terms things if that guy hadn't fallen over and started shooting at me…wait, why was THAT curse censored?' The White Hole said. "Asshole. Fuck. Shit. Cocksucker. Ok really, why did that happen?"

The Handyman just kept looking on the White Hole with sick fear. The White Hole was actually getting tired of it: why did so many of her so called fellows seem so controlled by what they feared?

"Look, it's not my fault the only thing keeping your innards from harm is a 1/8 inch thick sheet of oily pink paper." The White Hole said, thrusting the skin in the Handyman's face to indicate it. "That's what happened to YOUR species by evolution, and I'm hardly to blame if I can thresh you like wheat because of it."

"Uhhhhhhhh…ok, ok. Don't panic…wait, here because of the bullets…which means if they stop shooting, I can get away from that disembodied skin!" The Handyman said, as he yanked out his own form of submachine gun, which in according to his villain gimmick was a nailgun…except on steroids, a nail-Uzi if you would. "Suppressive fire time! ROCK AND ROLL, MOTHERFUCKERS!"

And the Handyman popped up and sprayed the surrounding area with sharp nails, as they hammered into the walls, the bar counter, and almost into a few villains who yelled angry curses…but not a single one went into Hockey Mask, because while he and the White Hole had been talking, he'd ducked behind the bar to reload.

"…Wow! I shot them so well, they vaporized!" The Handyman said.

"My hero." The White Hole said, with sarcasm that was deeper then any spot in the Mariana Trench.

"Well done Handyman." Slade commented from behind his own table. "It's good to know that in the heat of battle, you're ready, willing, and able to serve us if we suddenly have a need for radical carpentry."

"Hey…!" The Handyman snapped in return…

And unfortunately, Slade probably should have focused on Hockey Mask instead of making a comment at the Handyman's expense, as it allowed Hockey Mask to reload his gun despite his injury and overwhelming fear, and with that he popped up and with another scream raked the area with fire again, forcing Handyman to dive back down behind the table.

"Note to self: bring more then one clip of ammo next time." He said.

"Plus an explanation on that random censor." The White Hole muttered, as she waited for the terrified gunman to run out of ammo.

Once again, Hockey Mask's luck held out, as no villain vaporized him on the spot while he was firing, which was probably due to Slade signaling for them not to, as Hockey Mask ducked behind the bar again, his feet slipping on the mess beneath his feet. He yanked one of the handguns he had out, stuck it over the bar, and fired it blindly for several shots before he yanked it down, thinking it would protect him as he tried to get another clip of ammo in his main gun.

"Shall I just blast the bar and him into oblivion, Slade-sama?" Kurai asked.

"Come now Kurai, inconveniences aside, he is but a rabbit. No need to use a cannon. Additionally, we are guests here, and it would be highly impolite to raze the place." Slade said.

"Not to mention he'd probably bring the place down on our heads." Rose commented.

"Why Rose-chan, you were willing to tear out your own eye but yet are afraid of a little mortar and property damage? Your priorities are messed up."

"I'll mess YOU up you…!" Rose threatened as she aimed the gun at Kurai.

"Rose, Kurai, enough. Especially now." Slade said, his voice forever calm. "And Kurai, I am not concerned of the collapsing building. More of the owners, including the angry one in the office who reduced a city to fine powder with a gesture, and what she might do."

"As you wish Slade-sama. Though I still…" Kurai said, and then was interrupted by Hockey Mask popping up and wasting more ammo, as all of his targets either didn't care about the bullets or were protected from them. Judging from the look in Slade's lone eye though, he was getting tired of it himself.

"You may as well just give it up young man." Slade called as Hockey Mask popped back behind the bar: this time his gun had jammed and he was frantically trying to undo this fact.

"FUCK YOU!" Hockey Mask screamed.

"Ah, suicidal bravado, how many young men have I known that was claimed by it?" Slade mused. "You are eventually going to run out of ammo."

"I'LL KILL YOU FIRST!"

"Unlikely." Slade said.

"And even if you somehow did, I'm gonna kill you for eyeballing me!" Rose yelled.

"Oh right, the ultimate crime." Kurai commented: Rose glared at him.

"We all have our reasons, young man!" Slade said, as he finally saw a way to end this annoying deadlock. "I'm afraid mine are better, and better backed up! When your ammo runs dry, I won't be any less annoyed by this whole fracas, not to mention your inappropriate appraisals of my daughter…"

"I WAS NOT FUCKING STARING AT YOUR DAUGHTER!" Hockey Mask screamed from behind the bar, and furiously tried to unjam his gun again.

"Oh? Well that doesn't really matter in the end young man because you now have about two seconds to live!" Slade said. "Rose, prepare a flare. Kurai, there are still numerous bottles of alcohol placed above and behind him. Very low powered, small blasts, shoot the bottles."

"I fail to see the point, but as you command master." Kurai said, as he flexed the fingers on his right hand as the tip of his primary finger began to glow, as Rose hunted for the flare.

The gun was still jammed, and Hockey Mask was about to abandon it and go with his handgun when Kurai popped up and began firing rapidly, with great aim, as the bottles of alcohol shattered one after the other, raining down on Hockey Mask as he yelled and gasped, soaked by the contents of the bottles…

As Rose lit her flare, and with a wicked grin as she realized what her father was doing, she hurled it over the table in an overhand toss.

Hockey Mask looked up as he saw the green burning stick fall towards him.

Perhaps in his last seconds he realized just what had happened.

A flare was very hot.

And alcohol, as you probably know, was flammable.

The bar erupted in flames as the fuel caught and swiftly ignited, and an agonized scream came from behind it, as bad as the ones Ski Mask 2 had made, as White Hole cursed that she was stuck with one scapegoat.

"Ah, I see Slade-sama! Very appropriate! However did you think of it?" Kurai said.

"Saw it in a movie." Slade said, as he started getting up.

And then Hockey Mask, shrieking in sheer torment, lunged over the bar, all afire but still moving, as Slade turned his head and looked as he finished getting up, his action mirrored by Rose.

"I think this was in it too. I wish I'd remembered that part." Slade said, and lunged to the side as Hockey Mask staggered past and away from them, fire dripping from his body as ignited alcohol fell off his flaming form. Slade had instinctively put his own gun away when the fire had started, and now he found he needed it again before the poor fool set someone else on fire and that someone blamed Slade for it…

As the door to the office opened, and the Sorceress stormed out again (well, kinda/sorta: it was difficult to storm out as the concept was when one was always floating off the ground).

"Have you still not settled this…oh for the love of, now someone's on fire." The Sorceress said, and lifted a hand.

None of the villains never really saw what happened: one moment the flaming torch that had been Hockey Mask was yelling and screaming…and the next a mass of flaming wet DUST that had ONCE been Hockey Mask slammed into the wall opposite of where he had been.

As fragile as we sometimes seemed, it took an immense amount of force to utterly pulverize a human being. The Sorceress had done it by pointing at someone.

"…I begin to see why you show some deference master." Kurai said.

"I swear, you people, I should start charging a cover." The Sorceress said.

"…Well, that's three down. I call the last one!" The White Hole said as she got up.

"There's ANOTHER one? Still alive? For crying out loud! Is this the Brotherhood of Evil or the Brotherhood of Morons?" The Sorceress complained.

"Do not insult my fellows by insinuating all of this lot is among our ranks still." The Brain said.

"Oh look, the Brain." The Sorceress said, and lifted her arm. The Brain found himself being lifted up too, and Monsieur Mallah found much to his surprise he could not leap to his master's defense: indeed he couldn't move at all. "This is the Brain on magic. ANY QUESTIONS?"

"No." The Brain said, and was dropped down to where he had been before.

"Where's the last one? And where's the idiot that let them in here in the first place?" The Sorceress said.

Ski Mask 1 had been making good his escape…in a sense. Still in a blind panic, he had stumbled down the hallway, constantly firing behind him to ward off any pursuit (when there actually hadn't been any at all!), which had greatly reduced the distance he would have covered if he had done something else like outright ran, which ended when he finally exhausted the bullets in his machine gun. He'd dropped it and fled, and after rounding a corner, he'd found another door. Thank god, an exit!

That was locked.

Ski Mask shot it several times. Then it was no longer locked, as Ski Mask opened the door…

And found himself staring at a being that seemed ten feet tall, with limbs like tree trunks and a body like a steam engine, all of it carved out of pure granite with a small round plug like head at the top.

"OH SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!" Ski Mask 1 screamed, as he turned and ran back into the villain café.

"…Not…right…entrance?" The giant said, his words coming slow and dull. "Did Brick…use wrong way…again?"

Still yelling, Ski Mask 1 rounded around the corner and ran back down the hallway…and came to a shrieking stop as he realized just WHY HE HAD RUN AWAY IN THE FIRST PLACE, as he stopped in the doorway and stared in terror at all the villains who were now mostly standing up…and looking at him.

"Ah! Ah! Ah…" Ski Mask 1 gasped…and then her saw her, sitting just to his left. She hadn't seen him, as she just sat there, drinking like nothing had happened.

As Ski Mask 1 grabbed her around the neck with his arm and yanked her off her seat, as he put his gun to her head.

"All right nobody move or I cap the-!" Ski Mask 1 yelled.

And that was all he got to yell, as orange fingers suddenly seized the arm gripping her and crushed it like it was make of wet paper, as Ski Mask 1 let out a high shriek, the pain so sudden he even forgot to fire his gun, as Blackfire turned to him, her eyes flashing in rage. True, she'd utterly ignored everything that had happened so far, to the point where it seemed like she didn't even realize what was going on or that she was affected by it, but why would she? She'd been in some of the seediest, nastiest 'bars' across the universe, and been witness to things you would never believe. Robbers breaking in and spraying lead everywhere? To her, that was boring.

But then the idiot had gone and touched her, and that was when she stopped ignoring it.

As she half-threw, half-shoved Ski Mask 1 away from her, as he flew a few feet and then stumbled several more…and smacked right into Doctor Westminster, scattering his finally collected pills on the ground again.

"…Oh this is just too MUCH!" Dr. Westminster exploded, and then he literally exploded, in a sense, as his body tensed and then a spray of sharp bone spurs shot out of his body, like a porcupine on steroids (and yes technically porcupines could not LAUNCH their needles but you know what I mean), the blades of marrow and periosteum lancing out and plunging into Ski Mask's 1's chest, arms, and neck, one impaling through his cheek, a nightmare piercing.

His screams died off to a dull whimper, as Ski Mask 1 staggered back…

"Is it over yet?" Puppet King said as he finally looked up from where he lay.

As Ski Mask 1 tripped over Puppet King, stumbling back and falling on the ground.

With a few more dull whimpers, as he saw the remaining villains begin to approach him, Ski Mask 1 slid back on his elbows, heading back towards the door he had entered an eternity ago…

As a shadow fell over him.

Ski Mask looked up and behind him.

As the Lord of the Night, the owner of the bar, and the genocidal demi-god that had caused the Titans more pain then perhaps anybody (though there were several names in the actual running for that), stood over him, as he lifted his hand and dropped the shotgun pellets that had been used to blow his head apart on the ground. But the Lord was living darkness: blowing his head up just annoyed him for a bit while he put it back together.

The pellets clinked on the floor.

As darkness surged out from the Lord's hand and formed into a four-foot barbed katana.

"And since my barmaid left it out, FUCK YOU TOO!"

And he slashed the sword down

AIYEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

"…Oh great, we're trying to set up horror villains as the bad guys and you pull this shit?"

SHUT UP CONTROL FREAK.

LEGEND MAKER PRESENTS…

With aid in composing by Bobcat, Jedi-And, Prisionero, and Risen-Corruption

("Nobody lives…you get what you give…")

BOOGEYMEN III:

HOUSE OF 1000 CLICHES

THIS IS THE HOUSE, COME ON IN.

THIS IS THE HOUSE, BUILT ON SIN.

(Blood explodes all over the screen)

Perhaps some of you have never heard of the Lord of the Night. Understandable, as he was not in the show, or in DC Comics.

And we know as little of him as most of the heroes in this fictional world do, as he literally came from nowhere, a murderous and vicious vigilante, armed with a katana and a clawed mechanical arm, among other devices and talents. While many of the villains of Jump City thought small (rob a bank, steal some jewels, etc), even when it came to worse crimes (kill them one at a time, or when paid to), even the ones who had grand dreams (conquer the world) often could not match the Lord, for he didn't just want the world: he wanted everyone who he thought didn't deserve to live dead and buried. And that was pretty much…everyone in the world. The Lord didn't just think big, he thought bad as well.

To accomplish this, he had performed a forbidden ritual, and made his namesake a reality, a literal lord of the night, commanding darkness as a weapon and as a power in and of itself. He became godlike…and yet still lost.

Indeed, that was the sole shared trait of all the villains in this bar, from the robbers to the conquerors, from the psychopaths to the assassins, from the warriors to the nigh-deities.

The Teen Titans had bested every last one.

No wonder the Lord had opened up a bar (well it was a café but most referred to it as a bar). There were probably a lot of sorrows to drown.

Besides, this isn't wholly serious anyway (and this is the last time I'm saying that), so you can fiddle with story aspects like that to make them more believable.

And so we return to Moriarty's, just after the Lord had finished with the man who had shot him in the face when he'd gone to answer the door. Technically they should have never gotten in the door in the first place, but the Lord had finally become fed up with the incompetence of his bouncers and showed them the door, which meant since he was in a nearby room doing some inventory and thinking over his latest set of plans (and waving through Doctor Westminster), the Lord had answered the door. He'd been thinking too deeply and actually let someone get the drop on him because of it, a true rarity, but since the magic he had harnessed had long transformed his flesh and blood (and cybernetic limb) into living shadow, getting your head blown up wasn't much of a problem for him.

Still, a mere four humans had briefly inconvenienced him, requiring him to reform his body while the idiots shot up his bar (and just WHY that had been allowed to happen the Lord would get to in a second). So he'd taken his pound of flesh, as he yanked his sword from the horrific mess Ski Mask 1's body had become. While to an outside viewer it had seemed the Lord had just sliced him once, in reality the Lord had at that moment stepped out of time, dragging Ski Mask 1 with him, at which point the Lord had done unspeakable things to him for oh, a few weeks, and then stepped back into time with what was left. Hey, he was a shadow GOD after all.

"Now…" The Lord said, as the barbed katana drifted back into the misty blackness it had come from, even as Ski Mask 1's body began dissolving into black ash. "Would someone please tell me why four morons with guns were able to last more then TWO SECONDS with this group?"

"Uh well um/was busy/can't say…" Was the general mumbled result as the villains began breaking up and returning to their tables.

"Oy, shadow-man, why are you puttin' the blame on us? Your security is shite! Everyone's got a gun!" Mad Mod complained.

"So by the basis of such a statement, you TOO have a gun, Mr. Richards?" The Lord asked.

"I'm the Mad Mod you rotter! Don't forget it! And I would never soil my hands with something as crude and unrefined as a gun…" Mad Mod began boasting…which trailed off as he suddenly found the Lord's katana back from the shadows that had claimed, now five feet long and a few inches from Mad Mod's chest.

"Then I would say you are at even more of a disadvantage in this current situation then you would even be in normal terms, The Mad Mod." The Lord said. "And don't bother with any perception warping tricks that you may have concealed in your cane or elsewhere. My mind doesn't function like a human brain any more, and is no longer vulnerable to the paramnesia that can be played on those who know how to do it. Now I suggest you sit down and be quiet, or else you may find that when your latest youth drain charge from your cane is expended, your true self will have come to be afflicted with Alzheimer's and chronic incontinence."

Mad Mod visibly gulped.

Fortunately for him, the tension was broken as the gigantic man Ski Mask 1 had fled from into his gruesome doom entered the room…by pretty much utterly destroying the doorframe as he entered from the hallway. Hey, he'd TRIED to slip through it…but he was just too damn big, as the walls and ceilings around the door twisted and warped from the giant body being forced through the small space.

Everyone stared at him, as tiny bits of the ceiling fell on his head and shoulders.

"Uh…wrong…door?" The giant man said.

"YES!" Was the yelled response of pretty much everyone in the bar.

"…Oh." The giant man replied.

"Oh for the love of Newton, Brick, I can't take you anywhere!" Came a voice behind the giant, and a few seconds later a much smaller man slipped around him. He was clad in high tech mechanical armor that seemed to have a bird theme, with a rather pale face that had a beard and angular mustache combo that honestly made one wonder if the man wearing the armor got his grooming tips from "How To Be A Stereotypical Villain". "There is a reason I don't pay you for your brains! And speaking of which, if they ask for payment for repairs, it's coming out of your part of the profits of whatever items we peculate next!"

"Uh…pec…uuu…late…?" Brick said, apparently still wondering where the right door was, let alone what that word meant.

"Ugh. Peregrine, get him out of the way! Put him someplace where he won't slow down our repairs! Gragghhhh!" The Lord said in general frustration. He'd worn all black back when he'd been a vigilante, and when he'd become a shadow god he hadn't changed his style, adapting a series of fancy black outfits/robes/capes. While in the bar though, he usually wore a business suit…so it looked pretty weird when he started using his powers.

Like he was doing now, as he pointed to the body of Stocking and quickly vaporized it into nothing.

"What are you standing around for? Clean up, repair, get this place back so it doesn't look like a damn demilitarized zone!" The Lord said, as he headed over to the Sorceress. "And why, Ithlian, did you not pop these annoying twits into another dimension?"

"You want me to waste high level magic on them? That Raven girl may be underdeveloped and inferior, but she can still sense such things! It would be like putting a giant arrow on this place saying 'WE ARE HERE'." The Sorceress snapped.

"Fine! Never mind! Just help clean up!"

"Excuse me? I am your partner John, not one of the lessers who you trick or forcibly coerce into working in this location. You do not tell me what to do." The Sorceress said.

"Fine, fine, fine, FINE! PLEASE go assist in the clean-up, we NEED your amazing talents to do stuff like say, reformat all the wasted alcohol and drinks now on the floor and everywhere else mixed in with other unpleasantness back into magically reassembled bottles. Is that too much to ask?"

"Try it without the sarcasm."

"Oh go take a hike! And stop calling me John!"

"But you won't give your name so that makes you John Doe…"

"SHUT UP!" The Lord said as he stormed off. He quickly spotted the White Hole, who still looked cross at only getting one kill…or maybe that was because the Handyman, instead of fleeing, was now talking to her.

"So, what do you do with the skin after you wear it around the house? Make the person in your pit put the lotion on its skin, or make them eat their own brain?" The Handyman asked.

"…Were you not terrified of me a minute ago?" The White Hole replied, unable to understand what this human was talking about.

"Oh yes. But I've moved onto the third stage of terror: mockery and humor!" The Handyman said.

"…What stage will get you away from me as swiftly as possible?"

"Stage left?"

Off to the side, Puppet King performed a rimshot on a set of drums.

"You know what, forget it, I'll just rip out your he-"

"Styles!" The Lord called, and the White Hole looked away.

"Speaking of which…" The Handyman said, who swiftly realized his luck was running thin and got while the going was good.

"Styles, go change! I'm not running a slaughterhouse here!"

"Are you sure?" The White Hole said.

"Yes! Go change!"

The White Hole slouched off, clearly unhappy at her blood-spilling being so abruptly ended, as she headed into the back.

"Adonis, take her place at the bar, clean up, and serve until she comes back!" The Lord ordered, and then noticed Peregrine was approaching him with a metal briefcase.

"Inkeep, I will be having a meeting of the minds, perhaps quite literally, with the Brain and his little group of grotesques. I wish to invoke the service you provide and entrust the funds with you to ensure there is no…monkey business." Peregrine said, glancing briefly at Monsieur Mallah.

"What a clever pun. You spend all night thinking that up?"

"Do not disrespect me you satanic dabbler!"

"Not all dark magic is linked to hell Peregrine. And if you want false chic everywhere, go to Grodd's." The Lord said, as he took the briefcase. "They have also entrusted their own funds, whatever they may be at the moment, in my care, just so you know. And if you disagree, try not to start a fight. I am in no mood." The Lord said, and walked away. "Ithlian!"

"Stop calling me that!" The Sorceress said, as she looked away from where she was levitating the many pieces of smashed bottles back together while at the same time separating the liquors and other aqua vitaes from the blood and assorted visceral liquids that had been spilled in the firefight and placing them back into the bottles to be laid back on the shelves. How did she accomplish this insanely complicated task? She was the Sorceress. That was all. "Or shall I reveal your true name to everyone within hearing range?"

"Fine. Here's money from Peregrine. Go put it in the safe and add it to the books you so seem to love scribbling in."

"It's not a pastime for my enjoyment 'John', it's the only way this bar is still running." The Sorceress said, as she finished up her reassembly work, took the briefcase, and floated back to her office.

"Stop calling me…wait a minute, Inkeep?" The Lord said.

Nightwalker, having been spared most of the bloodshed that the White Hole had unleashed on Ski Mask 2 (and the discovering of whose corpse currently had Adonis vomiting…somewhere, she'd lost sight of him), was examining her drink to make absolutely sure no foreign substances had entered it (unlike Jack, sitting at the blood-soaked bar and throwing back a pint of Jack Daniels, she did not care to ingest such materials) when she suddenly sensed movement, a moment before someone sat down beside her.

"Hey there baby. Come here often?" Control Freak asked.

A moment later he found Nightwalker's gauntlet, which launched small marble like orbs at immensely high speeds (sometimes containing unpleasant surprises like explosives or acid), firmly jammed against his face and nearly up his nose.

"Right, gotcha, no ASL." Control Freak said, and grinned sheepishly. The gauntlet remained firmly pressed on his face, Nightwalker's normally lovely face now crossed with a look of firm distaste. "Please? That's just how I talk. You've made it clear it won't fly! I can behave! Really!"

"I have my doubts." Nightwalker said, as she withdrew her weapon, albeit only a bit. "What do you want Control Freak? We don't exactly run in the same circles."

"Oh you insult me and yourself lovely…I mean Nightwalker." Control Freak said, as Nightwalker's eyes glared at him again. "I can't even give you harmless compliments?"

"I know your breed. I know how your lives tend to go and how it can influence your thoughts. Forgive me for not giving you the benefit of the doubt." Nightwalker said tersely.

"We're not all like that!"

"What would you think if our positions were reversed?"

"...Touché." Control Freak said, and glanced around at the still being repaired damage. "It appears I missed a bit of entertainment."

"Oh yeah, it was a blast." Nightwalker said. "Get to your point Control Freak. We don't, as I just said, tend to run in the same circles."

"What? Are we both not mighty supervillains, the scourge of the righteous and the just?"

"You're not a scourge of anything, and as for being a supervillain, don't hoist that label on me just because I have spent much of my recent life walking in your world. I don't know if I belong, and I really have no desire to stay." Nightwalker said. "Point, or leave. Or be forced to leave."

"Ok, fine." Control Freak said. "In honor of tonight, I want to see if you want to go out and raise some hell."

"I've seen enough hellraising for one night…wait, it's just October 30th Control Freak. You're a day early."

"Oh no! You see, October 30th in some parts of is known as 'Mischief Night', where kids go out and play pranks on adults. I'm trying to both get a foothold for such a thing here in the States and to show kids how to REALLY make mischief!" Control Freak said.

"…You, Control Freak…who I have heard are a very accomplished technosorcerer, whatever that is…"

"YES! MASTER OF MONSTERS! THE…!" Control Freak declared as he started to pose…and actually found the gauntlet jammed up his nose this time. "Heh. Done. Done!"

"And yet you'd waste your time throwing eggs at houses and toilet paper over trees. Even as a villain…and a geek…really man, act your age, not your shoe size."

Control Freak looked deeply disappointed and stung by her words, but Nightwalker didn't feel much sympathy for him. One was responsible for their own choices and where they led. She knew that very well, as she turned back to her drink. Control Freak sighed, and turned to the bar as well. Looking distastefully at the specks of blood on the counter, he pulled out his remote and pressed a button.

The blood specks vanished. Nightwalker's eyes slid over to this fact, and noticing the movement, Control Freak twirled his remote and blew on it.

"Impressed?" He asked.

"…Hmmm." Was all the answer Nightwalker would give him: it was notable, she guessed.

Unfortunately, as she realized, she had, in the way some people desperate for human contact and utterly oblivious on how to proper get it, given Control Freak a go-ahead to start talking again.

"So, I must have gotten a boost in the threat status recently, because I've heard the Titans have been looking for me all October! It's about time they realized how dangerous I truly am! Oh they tried hard to find me, but I am Control Freak! I am like the Shadow! I cloud men's minds…!" Control Freak babbled. Nightwalker groaned inwardly and wondered if the potential guilt she would feel would eventually be surpassed by her aggravation and she really would shoot Control Freak in the head.

"Komand'r. Been some time since we saw you around here." The Lord said as he approached Blackfire, who had sat down and continued drinking after crushing Ski Mask 1's arm.

"I spent some time tooling around the universe. Realized it sucked. Came back here. Realized it sucks here too. Trying to decide which place sucks more." Blackfire muttered, and threw back another shot (lots of people drinking out of shot glasses tonight it seemed). The Lord knew self-inflicted misery over the concept of your place in the world when he saw it and decided to move on. He didn't want to listen to Blackfire whine over her failings, or how she should be so much better then her sister, yet that was not the widely held opinion, and in any case the Lord had just see the utter mess that had once been Ski Mask 2 behind the bar and decided said mess needed to be cleaned up. That he did, which was as good as any reason to get away from Blackfire's whining. Or maybe she wasn't going to whine at all, the Lord didn't know or care. He had this place so that his 'fellows' could gather in safety, and ultimately said safety was only provided so that one day, maybe one of them, or a group of them, or maybe the Lord himself, could do away with the Titans. The Lord didn't much care who, as long as they were gone. The lone unity of the group: the end of the Titans.

Next up was the newcomer, Doctor Westminster. Though the Lord had waved him in, that had just been through a cursory glance at the doctor's 'self', which the Lord had deemed proper to enter the bar. He didn't really notice much else, and hence when he approached he too quickly recognized Doctor Westminster as an unfamiliar face.

"You're new." The Lord said. Doctor Westminster snorted and tossed a few pills in his mouth.

"You planning on accusing me of being a spy as well?" Doctor Westminster said, as he chewed and swallowed, his water long gone in the chaos and Adonis, who was back from his illness, too busy cleaning up the blood with tools in his mech suit to get him more.

"Now who did that?" The Lord said. Westminster jerked his head in the direction of Jack Djinn. The Lord arched an eyebrow, wondering why Jack was behaving like that…it seemed oddly familiar that he might be paranoid that a spy was in the café, but why…or why now?

The Lord couldn't put his finger on it, and he didn't really care. If Jack caused trouble, he'd just throw him out. Then again with no bouncers he could just turn around and come back in when the Lord wasn't looking. Another irritant.

"Oh him. Forget him. He never had a huge amount of gray matter to begin with, and when he got powers to help him kill it addled his brain even more. I think some of the time even he doesn't realize just where his bloodlust leads. Still, watch it. He may lack sense, but not in the way so that he's not a threat. Even if you do seem to have a layer of bone over your skin." The Lord said.

"You noticed." Westminster replied: indeed, instead of the 'oily pink rag' that the White Hole had commented on earlier, Westminster's epidermis was a considerably more protective covering of bone.

Of course, such a thing was highly unnatural. This wasn't an exoskeleton like an insect would have, this was literally a covering of bone matter. Chances are it wasn't very comfortable to move around in even if it was set up so one could move. No wonder Westminster kept popping back painkillers. Though the whole 'bones shifting and morphing and coming out of the skin as weapons even as they're simultaneously replaced with new bones' probably had something to do with it. More then something. The Lord produced some water and a glass via his powers, set it down, and moved on. Westminster gave a slight nod, and went back to counting his pills.

The Lord didn't check on Jack, and there was no need to check on Killjoy. Killjoy never complained. Killjoy never said anything to begin with. If Killjoy was unhappy with something, he would just express it by shooting whatever was causing him trouble. Which was why the Lord no longer employed female human waitresses: even if he hypnotized them to not notice all the weirdness in the bar, inevitably they grew frustrated with Killjoy's non-speaking ways when it came to placing orders, and inevitably in turn that annoyed Killjoy and he shot them. Hence now whenever the Lord wasn't sure what Killjoy wanted he would just send Puppet King to check. Killjoy could shoot Puppet King all he wanted: he was enchanted wood, who gave a crap? Well, Puppet King, but he had always been the bar's whipping boy. Why? Who knew, it just happened. The Lord didn't do that now: Puppet King was probably currently trying to do some repairs while at the same time not catching the attention of his master, lest his master do something unpleasant to him. Besides him, Adonis was cleaning the bar, Sorceress was in her office doing whatever clerical tasks, and Punk Rocket…

Was running again, with another full tray of drinks.

And heading right for a big wet splatter of blood. Was he even looking where he was going? Goddamn stupid brain-dead remnant from the 80's…

"Hey…!" The Lord began yelling…

As Punk Rocket deftly leapt over the patch of wetness and presented the new tray of drinks to a table. He hadn't even managed to spill a drop.

Didn't lessen the Lord's aggravation. It figured. Instead of doing what he was told, he found a way to perfect his ignorance ie run so well he didn't spill the drinks. Well if he thought that got him off the hook he was very wrong…

And while Punk Rocket had refreshed one table's drinks, no one had replaced the ones Slade and his apprentices had been drinking before the gunfire had forced them away from the bar. In the end, only Kurai's remained, and while there was no blood IN it, it was all around it. Rose, her mask back down, wrinkled her nose in disgust over the concept of sitting there…until Kurai just sat back down and drank from his glass like it was nothing.

Perhaps not without meaning, as he glanced at Rose in such a way it couldn't have been wholly accidental.

"Something else wrong, Rose-chan?" Kurai asked.

"Yeah. You sitting down like nothing's happened." Rose said, even though with an annoyed look she realized her father was sitting down as well.

"I fail to see the problem."

"God, what is wrong with you Kurai? Killing is one thing, even by fire, but we just saw one man get skinned alive! His blood is all over the serving area! Yet you act like it's nothing!" Rose complained.

"So? I have seen blood spilled before, in quantities as great, if not greater." Kurai said, as he set his current drink down on a bloodsoaked coaster.

"But…"

"Pay no attention to it Rose." Slade commented, as he tried to get Adonis to come over and clean the blood from his section. "Kurai's cultural differences cause him to view things in a way that is often very different from others. Of course, his limited grasp of the English language at times doesn't help either."

"Does he do this all the time?" Rose asked, as Kurai finished his drink, not even noticing the blood streaking the lower part of the glass.

"Oh yes. You should see how he acts in movies…"

"…till all are one…"

And the Matrix fell from Optimus Prime's hands.

Moments later, the light in his eyes went out and the colors of his body faded. The greatest Autobot of all time had passed on from the mortal coil.

"……………HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Or in scenes that are supposed to be touching…"

"I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope."

"……………HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Or generally…well come to think of it, everything."

"Now gentlemen, in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality. Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this man to his family. In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson."

"……………HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Geez Kurai. Is there ANYTHING you won't inappropriately laugh at?" Rose asked.

"I protest that my choice of actions is not aberrant! Besides, there are films that do not affect me in such a way! Take that film Man Bites Dog…"

"Now, most serial killers only have their sound systems go up to ten on the dial. But I've modified mine so that it goes up to eleven. Just to show that I give 110 percent."

"Couldn't you just make 11 10, and have the same power?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"…I think you're mixing up your movies." Rose said.

"No, I'm sure I have it right... like when he got lost in the subways chasing that girl, and couldn't find his way out? So they had to cancel the concert?"

"Apprentice, that's Spinal Tap, not Man Bites Dog." Slade said.

"…Oh…wait. Man Bites Dog. That was just disturbing." Kurai said.

"Geez, good thing you're normal in some places Kurai. If that's how you act in serious moments I'd hate to see how you'd act in comedies."

"Oh, you'd be surprised Rose…" Slade said, and Rose could almost swear she saw a ghost of a smirk over her father's face.

A jukebox suddenly began blaring. It was playing Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now.'

"Who the hell put this on!"

"It's on random!"

"For fuck's sake!"

"David, kill the Queen!"

"What?"

"THE JUKEBOX!"

"I don't like this movie…" Kurai said, as he cringed back into his seat, occasionally covering his eyes.

"…Kurai…you are immensely odd. I could say a lot more, but I'll leave it at that." Rose said, as Atlas finally cleaned up the blood on their section.

"Well, it's not like you're needed. Slade-sama and I were doing perfectly fine before you showed up! See you around!" Kurai sarcastically snapped.

"Kurai…" Slade replied, his tone laced with warning.

"No Slade-Sama, it's not fair! Who went to all the trouble to keep your affairs in order and did his best to get you out of that coma? And then I go on an extended mission, and return, and find out you've been two-timing me? WITH YOUR OWN DAUGHTER? I thought I was your apprentice!"

"But you're not blood Kurai."

"…It's all because I didn't stab my eye out when you asked me to, isn't it." Kurai said tersely.

"Some of us understand loyalty." Rose said, indicating her white eyepatch that mirrored her father's.

"Some of us have stereoscopic vision." Kurai retorted.

"Are we all right here?" The Lord asked as he came to the three. "No injuries I would assume, for Slade and his trainees."

"It's perfectly fine." Slade said.

"New drink." Rose ordered.

"While your ability to guard your location is less then satisfactory, overall I will say it is sufficient, darkman-san." Kurai said, as the Lord narrowed his eyes at being told his security was rotten twice within five minutes. And once again not calling him the Lord.

"Must you use suffixes all the time? You're not in Japan any more." The Lord said.

"I do not respond violently when you insult me by not using the proper honorifics. You should not mind when I add them." Kurai replied. The Lord seemed amused.

"Right…Kurai?" The Lord said.

And then his eyes shot through with black, and Kurai, who could level a city single handedly (though it would take much more then a gesture from him) suddenly seized up and began violently shaking, as the Lord found certain points of the human brain and did the equivalent of poking them with a stick. Kurai's induced epilepsy only lasted a few seconds, but they were highly unpleasant seconds.

"You might want to consider the options 'violent response' and 'me' a little more thoroughly from now on." The Lord said, and walked on.

"Heh. Don't mess with the big dog in the yard Kurai." Rose said. Kurai ground his teeth.

"Well then, I guess I shall do what you say…asshole-sama." Kurai hissed under his teeth.

"I heard that." The Lord said.

With a yell Kurai was jerked off his stool, and without looking at him the Lord slammed him into the wall before ricocheting him wildly across the bar and off the wall, into the ceiling and into another wall, and so on as Kurai was bounced wildly all over the bar, forcing villains to duck and cover again (except Atlas, who just let Kurai bounce off him with a laugh).

"50,000 points." The Lord commented, and deposited a very dazed Kurai back in his seat. "Next time I actually use force."

And with that the Lord actually moved on, as Kurai quickly returned to his senses and glared daggers after the Lord.

"Why do we allow such mockery, Slade-sama? He should learn the dear cost of insulting ones such as us…!"

"Be calm Kurai. I know how hard it can be to stomach the realities of their sheer power. I've had to do some myself a few times." Slade said, as he picked up his refreshed drink and sipped from it. "But remember, as much as they claim and pride themselves on immortality, in the end that so called ruler of the dark and the rest of his demi-god ilk are as fleeting as the shadows they command. Claiming to rule the world one day, bested and forgotten the next. Let them have their power. In the end, we shall have the gravitas."

Maybe at another time, the Lord would have heard Slade's low-key dismissal of him and his ilk, but at the moment he had another task. Now that he'd done a rough check on all the customers and his employees were busy fixing things or replacing them (and Punk Rocket was running again, but even as the Lord opened his mouth to yell Punk Rocket zipped around two tables and dropped off another platter of drinks. Then he avoided running into Brick, who was standing next to the booth where Peregrine was having his meeting with the Brotherhood, in an abrupt turn where he didn't watch where he was going. Damn it, he'd just TOLD Punk Rocket not to run: he'd spill something, and if he did it on a loose wire or something, he should short the whole bar out…or something…why was he worried about problems with electricity?), he had one last task to do.

The man with the dome for a head, his exposed brain glowing faintly with darkish-pink energy, seemed unperturbed as the Lord approached.

"Simon Jones. Aka Psimon." The Lord said.

"You know my name, as well you should." Psimon replied, and sipped his drink.

"I also know it was your mental manipulations that caused those robbers to act so foolish and blind, which in turn instead of them running away made them cause trouble and make a mess."

"Your new patron Control Freak said it best. Call it Mischief Night. And I was bored." Psimon said.

"Right, boredom is always annoying…but Psimon, your mistake was doing it in MY bar."

Psimon slammed his drink down and abruptly stood up, his green coat billowing a bit as everyone's eye was drawn to the sudden new noise.

"Do not presume to give me orders darkling. I have fully unlocked my mind's potential and brought it to levels you could never even hope to conceive. Now go back to hiding in the back away from the children who bested you despite all your grand power and attempts to rule the world, and let alone those who have not failed so spectacularly."

Silence.

"Arrogance is an unflattering trait, even among our breed." The Lord 'said', except this time he didn't speak verbally. He spoke directly in Psimon's mind.

"Oh, so you would challenge me? In my place of expertise? Do so! I will enjoy tearing your brain apart, atom by atom!" Psimon replied mentally. "On the world of the mind, I am supreme."

"Oh really, well I guess I can't make you do this then."

And Psimon's fist suddenly clenched and violently punched Psimon in his own testicles. The surprise in Psimon's eyes was only matched by the surge of pain…as the Lord hammered Psimon's limb into his gonads again and again and again until one had to think there was some actual damage done.

With a blink of his eyes, the blackness within the eyes of the Lord lessened, as Psimon wilted, his mental powers blocked while the Lord's ran roughshed.

"Thank you Adam Sandler." The Lord said. "This is my place of business, Jones. I am supreme here, not you. Do anything like this again, and I'll reduce that brilliantly abused brain of yours to the mental capacity of room temperature dog feces. And oh yes, I almost forgot this part of the bit." The Lord said.

The darkness flashed in his eyes again, and Psimon punched himself in the face so hard he fell over his own table.

"What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind." The Lord said, and walked on. He'd dealt with that problem, but he'd spied another in the process.

"And then in the forth game they actually let the zombies…wait no they weren't really zombies, they were called Los Plagas, open doors…" Control Freak droned on, as Nightwalker desperately tried to find anything of interest in Control Freak's lengthy rants and kept coming up blank.

"Kill me now." She whispered to herself as Control Freak went on and on, now lost in his own world.

"Sorry, my pay tends to get docked." Came a sudden voice, and Nightwalker glanced over to see the White Hole had materialized from somewhere, in a new fresh uniform. "Though please don't tempt me. You have a nice swan-like neck I think would be really fun to take a bite out of."

Nightwalker sat there, looking stunned, as the White Hole walked on, Nightwalker really not sure what to make of the comment.

"Hey? Nightwalker! Not wise to check out the alien. She thrives on violence…not to mention YUCK." Control Freak said.

"What? I wasn't checking out the alien!" Nightwalker protested.

"Oh. Good. Well then while you can kick the normal Plagas you can actually do a suplex on the monk ones…"

Nightwalker suddenly found herself wishing the White Hole HAD taken a big bite out of her throat.

Over at the meeting table, Peregrine didn't look happy.

"Now look brain, I don't know where you got your information from…"

"You just used his name with lower case letters, didn't you?" Monsieur Mallah said in his thick French accent. At least I think it was a French accent. I'll go check Wikipedia!

Yeah, it's a French accent. Though in retrospect I probably should have known that considering his name is MONSIEUR Mallah.

"So what if I did? It's not like he has EARS." Peregrine retorted.

"I am quite capable of hearing you. As for conventional ears, I am working on that." The Brain said in his monotone electronic voice.

"HOW? YOU HAVE NO LIMBS!"

"…Monsieur Mallah, you did send message to the correct Dr. Nathaniel Peregrine, did you not? This one seems barely capable of holding together a grade school play, let alone a master plan."

"WHY YOU…!" Peregrine said as he sat up, reaching for something in his suit. Mallah suddenly had a giant gun pointing at him, and Brick stepped forward…

As the gun was yanked out of Mallah's hands and crushed by darkness.

"Put it away Peregrine. I told you to behave." The Lord said, and left his warning at that as he returned his attention to the wall of magical artifacts that took up a small space in his bar. They weren't just there to look pretty either: they aided him and the Sorceress in making sure everything went smoothly in just about any case (such as, say, an attack, or when the Lord needed to negate an arrogant mentalist's powers to put him in his place). Though in the last case, the Lord had been lucky: since there was a spell on the artifacts that touching them (unless you were a select few people) meant death, no one ever went near them…but the spell didn't apply to bullets, and sometime in the firefight a spray of gunfire had gone across this part of the wall and damaged several of the magical relics. They would have to be taken down and repaired: using the relics while they were damaged was a risky business…and damn, the Vioxx seal had a bullet hole through it. That was the current centerpiece of the various charms, fetishes, phylactery, and talismans: it aided in, as you may have guessed, sealing, in this case powers, which allowed the Lord to blunt various people's abilities without affecting his own. He'd need to replace that one for sure: the rest were mostly negotiable but the Vioxx seal was the link to them all: its power connected and flowed through the other artifacts, greatly increasing its power. That had probably been the only thing that had kept it from 'blowing up' in the Lord's face when he had showed Psimon the displeasure of his little prank, and there was no guarantee it wouldn't do that next time. The Lord frowned: this was a deep inconvenience.

"Sir…" Adonis said, as he tromped over to the Lord. "The White Hole has returned, shall I return to my usual duties?"

"Hmmm, no Adonis, keep tending bar, she still has some steam to blow off, better to not let her stand there and stew in her mess of furious psychoses'. Tell her to help repair whatever's still needed."

"Yes sir. Oh, a few crates of mail arrived today, I forgot…"

"They did?" The Lord said, as a possibility occurred to him "Go fetch them. Bring them right here."

"Yessir."

"Now where did that bloody Mumbo go?" Mad Mod said as he angrily drummed his fingers on the table. "He's been gone since…'ell, he's been gone since before the ruckus with the punks!"

"He had better return soon! He owes the great Atlas ten dollars!" The large orange megalomaniac robot boomed (though he didn't seem to have much in the way of other voice settings: his statements always boomed)

"We may as well continue without him and cut him in for the next game." Malchior, stuck in his paper body and unable to access his true form with the magical artifacts blocking it off, said.

"Indeed! The Mad Mod, do you have any 7's?"

"Go fish."

"Here you go boss." Adonis said, as he deposited all the mail, including a few good-sized crates, in front of the Lord.

"Good. Go back to the bar Adonis." The Lord said, as he swiftly disposed of the written mail and began opening the crates.

The second to last one had what he had: inside instead of packed items he found…nothing at all. Except symbols painted on the inside of the crate. The Lord raised one finger and began whispering words of a long forgotten language, and after doing so for fifteen seconds the symbols inside the crate re-arranged themselves and black smoke issues forth from the box. The Lord blew it away, the cloud reeking faintly of brimstone.

As Mumbo, the so-called amazing magician, came staggering out of one of the doors that lead out of the main bar/restaurant. Well, not quite staggering, but his step had a touch of uncertainty.

"Ohhhhhhh, I smell magic…smells like…pickles." Mumbo said, as the Lord looked at him. Something clearly wasn't right with the magician…and you didn't need to be a shadow god to know it, as the Lord sniffed the air, and caught a scent familiar to anyone who experimented with drugs. Mumbo had apparently recently discovered the 'joys' of marijuana. The Lord frowned slightly.

"Mumbo, don't use drugs in my place. I mean it." The Lord said.

"Hey man, weed is not a drug…"

"Maybe many argue it seems harmless in comparison to other illegal narcotics, and hence doesn't deserve the title of drug. I don't care. I don't want you using it in my bar." The Lord said, trying to drive his point home: he didn't feel like maiming or killing Mumbo at the moment, he needed to focus on fixing his wall of artifacts.

"Hey man, I wouldn't think you'd be complaining about something that makes me wanna order twenty appetizers." Mumbo said. "More to the point, weed ain't nothing compared to the shit you pulled. Mass murder, genocide, and making it 6.95 for nachos. NACHOS, man! That can't cost more then fifty cents for the ingredients!"

"Mumbo, be quiet, or I'll do a trick with your hat you REALLY don't want to see." The Lord said, as the cleared black smoke revealed that the inside of the crate now had an item in it, on a small twisted pedestal, as the Lord pulled it out.

It was an orb, about the size of a basketball, with a serrated looking covering. Mumbo's eyes went wide as he recognized what it was. The Orb of Archetypal.

"Hey, I 'been lookin' for that! Where'd you find that, man?" Mumbo said. "I thought I'd gotten high and pawned it or something!"

"What?" The Lord said, his pleasure at finding that his Orb of Archetypal had finally arrived (and at such a convenient time too…wait, why was that nagging feeling of something wrong creeping back into him…it was like he kept recognizing elements of a puzzle but couldn't find the box with the picture). "This is mine. I went to a lot of trouble to get it."

"Yeah yeah, likely story! You can't just order those out of a catalogue you know!"

"Shows how much YOU know." The Lord replied. "This is not yours Mumbo."

"Like heck it ain't! Give it back!"

"Mumbo, do you even know what this is?"

"Eye of Archetypal. Or Orb of Archetypal, it's been called both. Capable of sealing any and all unnatural powers, from mutation to magical based, only unable to affect very low grade enhancements and natural abilities gained through years of training and effort. Able to seal powers even at immensely high levels, which makes it one of the rarest and most powerful magical artifacts in the known universe. Now give it back."

The Lord wondered why he didn't just blast a hole in Mumbo, instead of explaining himself.

"Mumbo, this isn't YOUR Orb. You lost yours to the Titans, who took it to their Tower and…and…" The Lord said, as the full picture finally hit him between the eyes like a bolt of lightning. "The Orb! With the…!"

The Lord looked at the calendar, showing that it was still indeed October 30th. Mischief Night, as a few people had called it.

"With the Titans and the Hive, triggered by…" The Lord said as he looked at the electrical socket that had the wire the Lord thought Punk Rocket would trip over. Now he knew why he didn't want Punk Rocket tripping over the wire: what always triggered it was some kind of electrical short.

"That damn horror invasion phenomenon. How could I forget that? We placed bets on that last year!" The Lord snapped.

"That thing? Why are you worried? You don't have any horror films around her do you?"

"No…but I have too many of the triggers in place, and that includes the biggest one…" The Lord said, as he turned towards the bar. "Control Freak. And his damn technosorcery remote. Oh no. Not this year and especially NOT ME. NO." The Lord said, as he stalked over to Control Freak.

The geek 'master of monsters' was oblivious to the Lord heading his way: he still had Nightwalker cornered as he babbled on and on.

"But really, the great thing about Babylon 5 is that…um…um…you know, I just realized I'm a fan of something for no good reason." Control Freak said. Nightwalker rolled her eyes.

"Like that's the first time THAT happened." The vigilante said, as she tried to find an escape route…

Too late. Control Freak was starting up again.

"Hey now, did I ever tell you about the time I pantsed Leonard Nemoy at the Star Trek convention? Man, I was banned SO fast!" Control Freak babbled. "The trick is, those Vulcan ears of his make it hard to hear stuff, so you can be as loud as you…"

The Lord's hand came clapping down on Control Freak's shoulder.

"HEY!" Control Freak yelled, as he whirled, whipping out his remote to defend himself (not bad reflexes, Nightwalker noted, considering his corpulence): unfortunately he was still too slow as the Lord caught his hand and pointed it up.

"Ah yes, there's the infernal device now. I smell a setup but it's not going to work. Come Control Freak, I'm afraid we do not desire your company any more this night." The Lord said, as he seized Control Freak by the collar of his coat and yanked him out of his seat.

"What? Why?" Control Freak protested.

"You should know damn well from experience what has happened involving your remote in this timeframe over the past few years! If history is going to repeat itself, it is NOT going to happen here! Get!"

"Hey, my money's as green as anybody else's!" Control Freak yelled.

"No it isn't. Because you tend not to bathe, your dollars are YELLOW." The Lord said, as he dragged Control Freak out the door to the bar and up the stairs.

"It's my money, I'll use it as a tissue if I want to!"

"Ugh! Thanks for giving me yet ANOTHER justification. OUT!"

Outside Moriarty's, in the alleyway.

"AHHHHH!" Control Freak yelled, as he was forcibly tossed out, crash landing on the ground. "Ow. Hey! You thief! You stole this from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from whenever Uncle Phil forcibly threw DJ Jazzy Jeff out of his house!"

"Thanks for clarifying the reference: it had a hard time conveying itself in a written form." The Lord said, and closed the door with a slam. He heard another crash inside the bar, and headed back down the stairs and inside to see Puppet King buried under another collapsed wall. "Oh. Just you. Cleanup!" The Lord said, and headed back to his crates. With Control Freak gone, he could now install the Orb properly.

Unfortunately, the Orb was no longer in its box.

Fortunately, it was only a few steps away, as Mumbo at an empty table, staring at it. This was, the Lord noted to himself, the trouble with using any type of substance that affected your brain: even if it was 'harmless' by itself…that did not make it harmless in and of itself.

"Oh, this is gonna be great…" Mumbo said, as the Lord approached. "I'll get back and that guy won't even notice I took it, and then it's my word against his…heh…er…uh….uh…"

Mumbo abruptly turned around to face the Lord.

"Hey, I'm trying to smuggle this crystal ball back to my table without the owner noticing. Do you remember which one is mine?"

The Lord stood there, staring, wondering if Mumbo was serious…and then, checking the blank look in his eye that didn't even seem to comprehend he was trying to ask the guy WHO HE HAD STOLEN THE ORB FROM DIRECTIONS TO GET AWAY, if there had been something else in the joint(s?) he had smoked besides the usual hemp.

"…I'll only tell you for that crystal ball." The Lord said on a whim.

"That's great! Most giant frogs ask for two balls!" Mumbo said, as he handed the Orb of Archetypal over.

"And this is why I don't allow drug use in my bar." The Lord said to himself. "Say what you will about my deeds, at least I did them knowing full well what they were."

"So which one was mine?" Mumbo asked.

"The one with the angry robot."

"Narrow it down a bit."

"The yellow and red one."

"Ah, right." Mumbo said, and returned to his table. "Hey Atlas, where's my ten bucks?"

"Stupid human! You owe the great Atlas ten dollars, not the other way around!" Atlas boomed.

"Uh…who are you again?" Mumbo said.

"WHAT? You spoke my name not ten of your seconds ago! How could even a feeble human forget so swiftly!"

"…Are you Mister Coffee?"

"IMPERIUS REX!"

WHAM!

The Lord glanced over from where he was place the Orb of Archetypal into the central spot of the artifacts, saw the fight had consisted of a single punch, and ignored it as Mumbo looked dazed on the ground, his hat squashed over his head.

"…Imperius Rex?" Johnny Rancid said, as he was now playing with them. "What, you curse in paleontology tin man?"

"Oh shut up human." Atlas said.

"…No, really, IMPERIUS REX?"

"Argh! It's…it's from that Sub-Mariner comic book. You happy now?"

"Since when did Sub-Mariner have a solo series?"

"I SAID SHUT UP!"

"Ah, there we go." The Lord said, as he fully placed the Orb of Archetypal into the central spot. He'd have to get Sorceress to redo the spells when he next saw her. Now to replace the damaged lesser artifacts…which would have to wait a bit: Slade was approaching him.

"I have an inquiry to make, Duke of the Dark." Slade said, his voice coming as close as it could to sarcasm with the last comment. The Lord gave Slade a distasteful look.

"I'll let that pass this time Slade. Can I help you?"

"Some time ago I left a variety of weapons in your care. I have not yet decided, but I may be needing them tonight. You still have them, I assume."

"That crate? Yes Slade, I still have them. They're in top shape, as you left them."

"Good. It would be decidedly inconvenient if I had to visit my main weapon storage. But just to be on the safe side, I would like to examine them."

"Fine. Follow me." The Lord said, as he headed down one of the bar hallways.

"Looks like Father will be gone for a bit." Rose commented.

"Good. ROSE-CHAN, I CHALLENGE YOU!" Kurai declared.

"What?"

"A challenge! If I win, you shall renounce your lawless claim to being Slade's heir!"

"Are you still hung up on that? Fine. If I win, you have to stop calling me Rose-chan."

"It's a deal, Rose-chan!" Kurai replied. Rose narrowed her eyebrows.

"So what kind of contest did you have in mind?" She asked.

"I initially considered combat. But that would be unfair." Kurai said.

"Right, I'd whup your ass too easy."

"LIAR!" Kurai yelled, and then coughed, trying to look dignified. "So, anyone, I asked the White Hole what was the least pleasant item to on this menu to eat was. She indicated item number…10!"

BUM BUM BUMMMMMMM!

"Whoever did that was really sub-par at dramatic revealing sound effects." Kurai said, and with slouched soldiers Thunder and Lightning walked off and left the bar in shame. Probably a good thing, considering they weren't really villains.

Rose looked at the menu.

"The Six-Alarm Buffalo Chili Wings?" She asked. "Are you sure this is really worthy basing a challenge around?"

"I have strong sources!"

"Yeah, those things are way too hot." Hotspot said.

"What the hell are YOU doing here?" Adonis said in shock from behind the bar.

"Being an honorary Titan doesn't pay the bills. So I've been involved in a part time job at a payday loan business." Hotspot said.

"Ugh, that's just cruel man. This is on the house." Adonis said, giving Hotspot a drink.

"So, Rose-chan, DO YOU ACCEPT?" Kurai asked.

"So what, the person who can eat the most without bursting into flames wins?" Rose clarified.

"YES!"

"Why not?" Rose said, and snapped her fingers. As if by magic, Adonis produced a large plate of alarmingly red looking wings, as each of Slade's apprentices grabbed one.

"Go." Adonis said.

Each yanked the wing to their mouth…

And Rose's mask caught on fire, while Kurai inhaled while bringing his to his mouth, which had the rough effect of slamming a mach truck into his sternum, as both recoiled and fell on the ground, the wings dropping back on the large plate.

Adonis stared in disbelief.

"…Tie, Rose-chan?" Kurai asked as he got back up on his seat.

"Make it…so…second apprentice." Rose said. Adonis looked at them again, and then at the wings…and then at the Sorceress, who had emerged from her office and floated over to the bar.

"Are all repairs done? I am no longer needed here? Oh, I see someone ordered Item 10." The Sorceress said to Adonis, looking at the wings.

"…Holy shit Ithlian, what do you put in those?" Adonis asked.

"Hellfire, mostly." The Sorceress said.

"That's what happens when you ask certain people to make food." The Lord said as he returned with Slade, who sat back down with his two apprentices. "Are you done Ithlian? I require your assistance."

"I'm not done John. So stop acting like I'm hired help you can snap your fingers to get to jump." The Sorceress said. "I came out here because of the taste."

"Stop calling me…the taste?"

"Yes…when you started changing around the items on the wall, I noticed a change in the flavor of the magic around here…"

"You taste magic?"

"Yes."

"So what does the boss taste like?" Adonis said, and realized he'd really said the wrong thing at the offended looks on both the godling's faces. "Right, that came out REALLY REALLY wrong, don't hurt me please!"

"Nothing to write home about." The Sorceress said. The Lord's eyebrows narrowed. "But the reason I'm out here is because since I started paying attention to the tastes, I noticed something new. A sour overtone…right over the rich essence of chaos magic manipulation. I only know one thing that combines these two. Technosorcery."

"What? You mean Control Freak? But I just threw him…" The Lord trailed off as he glanced across the bar.

There was Control Freak again, sitting like nothing was wrong, and this time bothering Blackfire, who for some reason wasn't breaking his neck.

"Oh that annoying bastard. You'd think with how well he avoided the Titans this month he'd know not to blow it in the final lap." The Lord said, stalking over.

"So in the end making Starbuck a woman was such a better idea…" Control Freak said before the Lord grabbed him by the collar again.

"You know I thought you had a better sense of self-preservation fatass." The Lord said as he yanked Control Freak off his stool again. "What damaged brain cell made you think you could just waltz back in here?"

"HEY!" Control Freak snapped, as he twisted, broke free, and then whirled and yanked his remote out, quicker this time, as he aimed it at the Lord. "You know why I came back in here! I know your secret!"

"Oh? What?"

"You fear my power!"

Silence.

"Oh this won't end well." Doctor Westminster said, and sipped his drink.

"You know what I did! I made the impossible commonplace! I turned TV channels into an alternate reality! And unlike you, I have no overt weaknesses! I can think of at least 25 ways off the top of my head to completely obliterate you from existence! That's why you're going to stand down and let me remain in your bar, Baron von Nightfall! You don't want to get into a competition with me, or else you'd realize just how much I squander my power!"

Outside in the alleyway.

"AHHHHH!" Control Freak yelled as he was bodily thrown out again.

"Annoying things, hearts. They tend to tip off bluffs." The Lord said as he returned to his bar. He glanced at Blackfire. "You sat there and let him talk like that, Komand'r? Maybe it's true, maybe your glory days are all gone, if they ever were in the first place." The Lord said, and walked on. The Sorceress had vanished back into her office again. Figured. Fine, the Lord would just replace the damaged artifacts and adjust the spells for the Orb of Archetypal later, as he headed over there.

Blackfire sat there, running the Lord's words over in her head. So this was how it ended, did it? From Queen of Tamaran to this.

"Tried to be good. Didn't work. Tried to be bad. Didn't work either. Neither worked. So, I'm just going to drink myself into oblivion." Blackfire said.

"Are you sure that's such a good…" Adonis asked.

"SUCK MY DICK, SCRAPPILE!" Blackfire snarled, and hurled her bottle at Adonis. It shattered on his neck, too close to his face.

"…Very well." The robot suited man said as he backed off, leaving Blackfire to keep drinking.

"Wow, you took that well." Doctor Westminster commented.

"Oh, not really. I'm going to wait until she's passed out then sell her to a Malasian brothel.

"…Heh. Funny." Westminster said.

"Who said I was being funny? I know a guy." Adonis said. Westminster blinked.

"Welcome to our world mate. Even the most impotent of us have it at the core. But maybe you wouldn't know, would you?" Jack said, and before Westminster could answer he had walked off back to his seat. Annoying lunatic.

Killjoy was back to doing his domino balance building when Peregrine walked past him, looked highly pissed.

"I can't believe this." Peregrine said, having walked away from the table, Brick following in tow. "How could the…what was his name again?"

"Uh…the…Brain?" Brick said.

"Ah yes, such a creatively named one. I can't believe this Brain came in here thinking that I should serve HIM! The insult is incredible! I shouldn't have ever put my money in their safe, this was such a wasted trip! Why did I even BOTHER?"

"Uh…could…make…money…?" The Brick tried to offer.

"Money? Hah! I don't trust them at all! I don't trust them as far as I could throw them! And I don't trust their money either!" Peregrine declared.

"Trust good?" Brick asked.

"YES!"

"…Ok." Brick said, as he suddenly walked off.

"What? Brick? What ridiculous sparking of your four remaining brain cells are you…!" Peregrine yelled as Brick went over to the door to the Sorceress's office and broke through it with ease, going inside.

"HEY! GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!" The Sorceress shouted from inside, followed by a tremendous amount of racket.

Brick emerged, breaking apart the door frame again as he carried the safe that the Sorceress had put Peregrine, the Brotherhood, and a few other's money in, having yanked it right out of the wall. Sorceress followed, sputtering, and with a wave of her hand she initiated the same force wave that had reduced Hockey Mask to wet dust.

Brick seemed to stumble a bit. That was all, as he thrust out his arms and began spinning, and after a few spins he roared and hurled the safe upward. It smashed through the ceiling and everything beyond with ease, and even as those who could see at the right angle watched it vanished into the sky within seconds.

"…There. Thrown…very far. Can trust." Brick said.

The Lord watched from where he stood, having no idea what just happened, while the Sorceress stared as well, both at what Brick had done and how her force blow had had so little effect.

"…That's going to unbalance all my books!" The Sorceress huffed, as she slapped her forehead and then angrily turned and floated back into her office, a wave of her hand instantly fixing the damage and setting the door back in.

"…Oh." Peregrine said, as he looked up at the hole. "Lessee, if you were even half trying, that's going to be in a rapidly decaying orbit, lemme just do some mental calculations here…DAMMIT BRICK, IT'LL BE HOURS BEFORE IT LANDS BACK ON EARTH AND WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE IT'S GOING TO LAND!"

"But…far…" Brick slowly insisted.

"QUIET!" Peregrine yelled.

"Oh for the love of, now what happened? This bar does not need a skylight!" The Lord said as he came up to the two. "Let me just make sure my eyes somehow didn't deceive me. Brick, did you throw that?"

"Yes."

"WHY?"

"…I…trust…it."

Lord stared at Brick, and then turned to Peregrine.

"Ok, what did you sat that Oatmeal for Brains misunderstood?"

"…I said I trusted the Brotherhood and their money as far as I could throw them." Peregrine said through gritted teeth.

"…And it never occurred to you, genius, that this is a bad thing to say to your mentally lacking muscle? You know, for being so smart, you constantly amaze me at being SO STUPID!"

"Oh shut up! You're all gore and no brains yourself, and you're no exception! Just last week, you told him to get somebody who was drunk out of here and had him polishing their watch for an hour!"

"Look Peregrine, this is considerable difference in the possible mistakes of the expressions "I don't trust them as far as I could throw them" and "Go clean his clock"…"

"Good evening gentlemen! May I trouble you for a drink?" Said a familiar voice with a horrid false accent, and the Lord turned to look at the speaker, not wanting to believe it.

But it was. Control Freak. With a sub-par beard and mustache with a top hat on, with a new cane. He tried to look innocent.

"…Do…you…HONESTLY think…this. Has. The. Slightest. Iota. Of. A. Chance. Of WORKING, Control Freak?" The Lord snapped through gritted teeth.

"Control Freak? 'Ou is Control Freak? My name is Count Recondite."

Outside in the alleyway.

"AHHHHH!" 'Count Recondite' yelled as he was hurled out into the alleyway and into the wall on the other end, where he fell into a bunch of garbage bags.

Silence…

…More silence…

…Still more silence…

…A-HEM…

"Sorry, really was just me with a bad disguise." Control Freak slurred as he got up, his fake beard mostly sloughed off.

Oh for the love of…

A brick fell on Control Freak's head, and he collapsed into the garbage again.

"Now, before I was interrupted." The Lord said, back down in the bar with Peregrine and Brick. "Besides those differences, I've seen Brick maybe three times. You WORK with him. WHO should know better? And hence WHO is the stupider one?"

"Oh fine. Forget you. Brick, come with me. The drinks are half water anyway." Peregrine said.

"HEY!" Adonis yelled from the bar.

"No they're not actually. We just water them down for you because you can't hold your liquor for shit." The Lord said.

"OH THAT DOES IT!" Peregrine yelled, getting everyone's attention as he snapped out twin discs and slapped them on either side of the Lord's head. "JUPITER'S GRAVITY!"

Everyone froze as Peregrine tried to bring his suit-allowed powers of gravity manipulation to bear.

And…nothing happened. The Lord cocked his head.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you trying to get me to abide by the traditional laws of physics?" The Lord said snarkily.

"Oh you and your god-moding." Peregrine said sourly.

"Yes, exactly. You on the other hand…"

Outside in the alleyway.

"AHHHHH!" Peregrine yelled as he was thrown out. "OH THAT DOES IT! YOU CAN'T EVEN THINK OF A NEW PARODY FOR ME! THIS BAR SUCKS! I'M GOING BACK TO GRODD'S!"

Elsewhere…

The lounge was done in a 1950's style, and once again there were many faces there, many you would find familiar…even with all of them wearing tuxedoes. Especially considering many of them should NOT have been wearing tuxedos.

"I did it MYYYYYYYY WAY!" The singer on stage finished, and walked off amidst light applause as the deadly simian villain, Gorilla Grodd…made somewhat less menacing by the tuxedo he was wearing, walked on stage.

"And that was William Jones, one of Frank Sinatra's many illegitimate children." Grodd said. "Next up, we have a special treat: in town for one night only, the comedic stylings of George Carlin!"

"That monkey runs one classy joint." Peregrine finished.

"All right Brick." The Lord said as he came down the stairs again. "You stay here. Ithlian wants to punish you for the safe hurling, but she's working, so drinks are on the house until she turns you inside out or something equally unpleasant."

"…Who drinks…on roof?" Brick asked.

The Lord stared, in the way of those who keep getting surprised despite themselves.

"…Just sit by the door and ask anyone who comes in who they are." The Lord said, and walked off. Brick, used to taking orders without question, stared dumbly after the shadow god for a few seconds, and then went and sat his massive frame near the door as told.

"Why don't you just kill him?" The White Hole asked as the Lord started walking back over to the wall of artifacts.

"Strongly tempted to, albeit for one reason." The Lord said. "As socially backward and nerdish as Control Freak is, one doesn't get to the level of fine tuning in technosorcery he has without a fair bit of brains. And nothing inspires those brains to create back up plans then a defeat or two at the hands of those accursed Titans. So for the moment I hold off on killing him lest it trigger some surprise in his remote I don't care to deal with." The Lord said…as he spied Punk Rocket, sprinting across the café again like his life depended on it…and heading for a rather messed up carpet, which had several large bumps for Punk Rocket to trip over…

But with nimble feet, he dodged all the bumps, without spilling a drop.

That didn't improve his standing in the least though.

"Though I'm definitely going to kill someone if HE DOESN'T STOP RUNNING!" The Lord yelled. Punk Rocket stiffened and then tried to hide, but the Lord was already dismissing him. He had another idea for avoiding trouble that seemed determined to occur.

"Now return to your duties Rebecalnatrac. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can vent the rage I can feel boiling inside you on whatever unfortunate soul crosses your path in the shadows of this city's underbelly."

The White Hole's expression was unreadable, though that may be due to the fact the Lord had called her by her actual alien first name (It was rendered in English as Rebecca, hence Jack's calling her 'Becky'), and the Lord didn't have time to waste pondering over it, as he came back to the wall of artifacts. Control Freak was being stubborn, was he? Fine, the Lord would just put the Orb back in its crate and revert the magical seals in it, which would 'shift' the Orb out of reality and out of any way it could do harm. He gestured with his finger, and the basic attachment spells nullified themselves as the orb was pulled off its wall attachment and to the Lord's hands.

"Another word, Marquis of the Murk." Slade suddenly said: he'd approached the Lord again while the Lord was removing the orb. The Lord glared at Slade.

"Your skills are immense Slade. But I actually know that." The Lord said in a warning tone, as he tried to find the crate he had pulled the Orb from…and found it gone. Damn it! Someone must have cleared it away. Well he wasn't going to stand here holding the Orb: off the wall and not connected with the Lord and the Sorceress' own spells, anyone who knew the correct right words could invoke the Orb's ability to seal power on HIM, and that would be damn inconvenient to say the least. "We will speak in a second…PUNK ROCKET!"

A brief pause, and then the hard rocker tentatively approached.

"Yes?"

"Now listen carefully." The Lord said as he put the Orb of Archetypal in Punk Rocket's hands. "Take this orb to the Sorceress. And above ALL else, do NOT run. Are we UNDERSTOOD on the second part?"

"Uh…yeah." The rocker said, and the Lord turned away from him to speak to Slade.

Punk Rocket looked at the Orb, finding he didn't like how it felt. Though considering he had no powers (just his guitar), it shouldn't have been able to affect him anyway. He still didn't like it. Or what he was supposed to do.

"Give the Orb to the Sorceress? 'Ell no, she's on the hunt for a head to bite off. Besides, who would want this thing! I don't want it!"

"Yoink!" Mumbo said as he snatched the Orb away from Punk Rocket. "Yes! It is mine again! I once again have it…what is it?"

"Huh!" The Handyman said as he grabbed the Orb from Mumbo. "Now this is some fine craftsmanship." The tool-themed villain said as he pulled out a jeweler's lense. "No flaws at all! What is it?"

"Uh…I think…it's an item of unbelievable magical power." Mumbo said.

Handyman stared at Mumbo…the magician…the rather OUT OF IT magician…who moments ago had been handling a magical item of 'of unbelievable power'…

"Nope, don't like where this is going! Brick, take one for the team!" The Handyman said, and hurled the Orb across the bar.

Brick was just looking in the direction of the shout when the Orb sailed in and bonked into his face. Fortunately, his hand happened to be positioned so the Orb fell into that, rather then on the ground where it may have broken.

"There. Not our problem any more." The Handyman said, as Punk Rocket shrugged and headed back to get more drinks for the next table. What did he care what happened to the Orb? The pay here sucked anyway, hiding place/place of preparation or not.

"Now, before we were interrupted, what I really wanna know is how she got the whole skin off in one…" The Handyman started saying.

"Will you PLEASE let that drop? My current body is made of paper, which doesn't have a stomach, yet it is being upset!" Malchior complained.

"Tools are my trade man, and I just wanna know what tool she used."

'Fine, A WIZARD DID IT."

"So you did it?"

"I'M NOT A WIZARD! THAT WAS MY COVER! NOW CHANGE SUBJECTS ALREADY!"

"One…what?" The Brick said, looking at the Orb.

He never realized that Handyman tossing him the Orb saved him a lot of discomfort, as the Sorceress was now floating over to him. She'd tried to adjust her books for Brick's mistake, but every time she saw the hole where her safe had been she got more and more aggravated, to the point where even she needed to go deal with it. In this case, teach Brick a lesson.

However, that desire vanished when she what he was holding.

"Brick! Where did you get that?" The Sorceress said.

"Uh…team…take…me…orb…sit…uh…" Brick said, as he honestly tried to fight through the fog in his brain, but as it had many times before, it proved too thick.

"Never mind!" The Sorceress said. "Give me that. You'll break it!"

The Sorceress called the Orb to her. Brick actually looked a bit relieved that it was gone and he didn't have to wander through the dark that was his brain to figure out what it was. For a moment the Sorceress just stared, taking in how truly lacking in intelligence he was. It didn't lessen her frustration much, but far be it from saying she didn't understand some things.

And she noticed the Lord was waving her over. He apparently wanted her to join his current conversation with Slade. And, knowing pretty much exactly what the Lord did about the Orb of Archetypal, she had no desire to hold it either.

"Puppet King!" She snapped, and the miserable looking wooden dummy swiftly appeared. She handed him the Orb. "Put this in my office."

The Puppet King took the Orb, looked at it…and then…

"Hey! I ain't got no strings to hold me down!" He snapped. The Sorceress stared.

"What?"

"I don't take orders, I give them! Hence the whole PUPPET KING bit!" The Puppet King snapped.

The Sorceress noticed the White Hole was now next to her: at some point in the past several seconds she had walked by the Sorceress and stopped, probably due to the fact that the subdued, dolorous Puppet King had not only regained some pep, he was yelling at his mistress.

"…I think holding that orb had somehow given him a spine." The White Hole commented.

"Yes, I got that impression. Please deal with it Rebecca." The Sorceress said.

And before the Puppet King could even blink, the White Hole had plucked the Orb out of his wooden hands with one of her own clawed ones…and used the other to smash him across the face, sending him flying across the bar like a baseball and slamming into another wall, which shook from the impact.

"Stupid golem." The White Hole said, glad to have released some of her inbuilt aggression…though the Puppet King's magical wooden body wasn't much fun to smack around. Plus it rendered him tougher then most would believe…not that seemed to be helping the crumbled marionette at the moment.

"Oh…I ain't got no spine…to help me walk…" The Puppet King sang in a daze.

"Now what…" The White Hole said, as she turned…and realized the Sorceress was gone. She'd just left the White Hole holding the Orb as she went off to do whatever she needed to do, as if she expected the White Hole to read her mind on what she wanted. Screw that. She listened to the Sorceress but not like that.

"Forget it." The White Hole said, as she left the Orb on the bar and headed off to do something else.

Brick had watched this little encounter with dull interest, staring at it much like a cow stares at whatever it does while chewing its cud…though while his brain barely worked at all, his ears were fine, and he heard someone coming to the door and turned to face them.

Control Freak, trying to sneak back in, was rather alarmed at the sudden new development of Brick placed by the door.

"Wait…who…are you?" Brick asked.

"Um…I'm Slade." Control Freak blurted.

Brick looked at Control Freak, and Control Freak could see the wince: trying to understand was literally hurting Brick's brain.

"But Slade's already…inside…" Brick said.

"Then if I'm already inside, then you have no reason to stop me from getting in!" Control Freak declared.

"…Go away…you make…my head…hurt." Brick said. Control Freak growled in frustration. He'd just use his remote on the juggernaut, except for someone as magically sensitive as the Lord that would be like announcing his presence with a megaphone.

"Ok fine, how about this. I'll give you twenty dollars, and you look the other way." Control Freak said.

"…Ok." Brick said. Control Freak grinned.

"Ok, here you go!" Control Freak said, handing the (thankfully clean) bill over. Brick took in, and then shifted around so his back was facing the technosorcerer, who began to strut past the giant…

And found a tree-trunk sized arm shoved in front of him, one giant hand keeping him from going on.

"You said turn…around. Still…can't let you in." Brick said. Control Freak glared at the dimwitted giant.

"My good man, a question. Define BRIBE." Control Freak said.

"…Is it something that…is good to eat?" Brick ventured.

"No, that's a bride, Goku. IDIOT!" Control Freak yelled, as he threw up his hands, turned, and stomped back out the door in rage, utterly furious at the whole thing…

And realizing two steps away from the door that by walking out when he was trying to sneak back IN, he was acting in a rather counterproductive manner, as he turned and headed back. Well who cared what had happened, he'd yet get the best of that dunce…

The good news for Control Freak was, Brick had backed off when he came back through the door.

The bad news was that the reason Brick had backed off was because the Sorceress was now there, having finished her part of the conversation and headed back to punish Brick. Only Control Freak interrupted her by stomping through the door.

"Uh…hi miss." Control Freak said, as the Sorceress looked at him.

"Hello. I believe you are banned from the bar tonight and yet still continue to try and get back in. Tell me why I should not react accordingly due to your constant defiance." The Sorceress said.

"Uh…want some chaos magic?" Control Freak asked, producing his remote.

"The foulness of your insistence of blending the accursed science with my domain takes away any of the richness such magic has. It is not a good reason. You have five seconds to give another."

"Uh…because I'm cool!"

"…Because you're cool." The Sorceress repeated.

"Yes!"

"Shall I cast a spell to test that?" The Sorceress said, raising a hand.

"You have a spell for that?" Control Freak said in actual disbelief.

"I am the Sorceress. I have a spell for everything." The Sorceress said. "Now…considering there is a strong chance you are NOT cool…"

"Oh I'm plenty cool! The Fonz ain't got nothing on me!"

"Who?"

"Never mind! Tell you what, if I'm not cool, then I'll change my name to Kevin Dubrauh!" Control Freak said. The Sorceress narrowed one eyebrow, trying to figure out any significance of Control Freak's vow.

"So let me get this straight. If you're cool, then I have to let you in. But if you're not, you have to change your name to Kevin Dubrauh."

"Yes!"

Outside in the alleyway.

"AHHHHH!" Control Freak yelled as he was tossed out.

"Better get down to the courthouse, Kevin." The Sorceress said, and turned and floated away as the door closed behind her.

"Ohhhhh…that is IT…they wanna discriminate against me…just like the rest of them…those BASTARDS…" Control Freak said in uncharacteristic rage as he pulled himself up from the garbage again.

The Sorceress didn't know, or care, about Control Freak being angry, as she floated back through the door. She looked at Brick, still sitting dumbly there…except she'd worked out most of her aggression throwing Control Freak out.

"…Just stay there." The Sorceress said, as she floated on, eager to head back to her office and get away from all this nonsense. She even ignored the still-there hole in the ceiling Brick's toss had made. Someone ELSE could fix that.

And hence never noticed that the Orb of Archetypal was still sitting on the bar.

For a few more moments anyway.

"Heyyyyyyyyy…" Blackfire said, her voice slurred just a bit as she finally noticed and picked up the Orb. "I wonder how much I could get for this…HEY BARKEEP! THIS HAS GOTTA BE WORTH ANOTHER ROUND!"

"…Whatever you say, drunky." Adonis said as he took the Orb from Blackfire, looked at it, shrugged, and gave her another bottle. "Great, no space left in the suit, can't carry this around…" Adonis said, as he placed the Orb down near Doctor Westminster. Who had actually been watching the little journey of the Orb.

"Ugh. This thing's been around the room more times then a cheap hooker. I have no idea what it is but I thoroughly decline it being in my personal space anyway." Westminster said as he extended two long daggers of bone from his arm, clamped them around the Orb of Archetypal, lifted it up, and set it down on the bar as far away as he could reach. Which happened to put it almost right next to Jack.

"Oh look, a giant pearl." Jack said as he rolled the Orb over to him. "Reminds me of the color of birdie's faces after I'm done with them."

Poor choice of words, as despite the fact she'd been sitting near him for some time, a spark of recognition still fired through Blackfire's brain as she heard those words from that voice.

"YOU!" Blackfire yelled as she stood up, smashing her bottle to the side. "YOU TRIED TO KILL ME!"

"Oh bother, I thought I was done with this." Doctor Westminster said, and dove onto the floor as a Blackbolt went flying.

"HEY! NO FIGHTING! WE JUST FIXED IT! THE BOSS WILL BE PISSED!" Adonis yelled as he tried to break up the fight, as the Orb, forgotten, was thrown through the air and away from the bar from the force of the Blackbolt's impact. It shot down the hallway.

"Maybe I better get going…" Hotspot said as he left the bathroom.

DONG! The Orb bounced off his head, flying off in another direction. Hotspot collapsed, unconscious. Or dead. Or sick. One of them. I don't care, do you?

Punk Rocket came across the fallen body…and then with an almost bored effort picked him up and shoved him in a closet.

See? No one cares.

Back to the Orb, as it continued its second flight and landed back on the bar…right in front of Rose and Kurai, even as the White Hole interjected herself in the fight, which quickly brought it to an end. They knew not to give her an excuse.

"What's that?" Rose asked.

"You shall never distract me from this staring contest, wench!" Kurai snapped, as the Orb started rolling away, towards the edge of the bar…

"Jackass!"

"Hussy!"

"Shithead!"

"Termagant!"

And slipped off.

"Shmuck!"

"Woman of questionable character!"

And was caught.

"Gad, enough, I can feel the testosterone from here." Nightwalker said as she lifted up the orb…and saw that Slade Wilson was returning. She immediately put on her respectful face.

"Ah, Slade…um…what do you make of this?" Nightwalker said, offering Slade the Orb, as Kurai and Rose shut up and looked away, their contest nullified by the return of their master.

"I am not sure. It seems...oddly familiar." Slade said. "But since taking lost items is against the listed rules of the establishment, I suppose it is up to me to be responsible and give it to the owner." Slade said, as he took the Orb from Nightwalker and walked off again. Nightwalker returned to her own seat.

"…Gomeril!" Rose suddenly snapped, as she started up the staring contest again.

"Vituperator!"

"Oh how can you know a word like that! You can barely speak the language!"

"Same way you know an obscure synonym for idiot like gomeril you blonde!"

"OH NO YOU DIDN'T!"

Nightwalker sighed and rolled her eyes.

Slade returned to the Lord, who was once again examining his wall of magical artifacts.

"I do not mean to keep bothering you, Tsar of the Tenebrosity…"

"Ok Slade, DROP IT. I am the LORD of the NIGHT. I know you don't like using the name because you calling ANYONE a lord is against you, but drop it! I don't call you Dell, or Valley, or Flat Piece of Low, Moist Ground…"

"Your point is made and understood. This is also in my possession." Slade said as he handed the Orb over. "You should keep better track of items like this. It could have been smashed a thousand times. And I'd also like to point out that for the whole chapter absolutely no one has actually addressed you as the Lord."

Slade tried not to enjoy the look of complete disbelief on the Lord's face, both at the realization of the truth of the name thing and Slade handing him back the Orb. Didn't succeed very well at it either.

"What the…how did YOU get this?"

"It has been through many hands, lo these five minutes." Slade said.

"I asked for it to be put away, not used in a game of Whisper Down The Alley!" The Lord snapped, as he floated the Orb up in lieu of holding it.

"You obviously didn't ask well enough. Good day, or night, for now." Slade said, as he headed back to his seat.

The Lord stood and stewed for a moment, wondering who to punish…and then decided, screw it. He'd put the Orb back on the wall, seal up all the electrical sockets, and if Control Freak came back in, he'd just do something that didn't involve killing. Maybe if he insisted on bringing his accursed remote back into the bar, he'd just shove it where the sun don't shine…

"Now, my apprentices, did anything happen while I was having my several discussions with the proprietor?" Slade asked Rose and Kurai.

"Nothing important, Slade-sama."

"Control Freak got thrown out a few more times. That's about it."

"Yes, I noticed that he seems to have been singled out…rather curious, actually." Slade said. "In fact, I think I shall have one last discussion with the owner, just to be certain why he is constantly being removed…"

And with that Slade left again. Nightwalker smacked her forehead, knowing what was coming next with their master one again gone.

The Lord had finished sticking the Orb back into the central position and redoing the basic connection spells when he felt a hand tap her shoulder. Well, more like knife-edge poke-slam his shoulder. He snapped his head over his shoulder, even as an extending arm snapped back to its normal length.

"Oi, can 'oi get some flippin' service over 'ere?" Madam Rouge yelled.

The Lord glanced to the side, seeing that the White Hole and Adonis were looking to see what his reaction was, but the Lord waved them away as he walked over.

"First of all, I am not one of…wait a minute, didn't you have a Russian accent before?" The Lord realized, as Madam Rogue's command sounded more like cockney English.

"I 'em, how you say, a woman of many accentz." Madam Rouge said in yet ANOTHER accent, this one the Lord couldn't place…and he didn't want to.

"Right. Well, unfortunately your Brain is not an…organ of many dollars. His tab has been run up past my patience, which means, no, you don't get any 'flippin' service', and for your choice of attempts, you might get a lot worse!"

"You do not scare us." The Brain intoned. "You are nothing. We were the villains of the last season of a show YOU NEVER APPEARED ON."

"Oh, and please, remind the readers what happened at the end of your evil plot?"

Silence.

"Well?"

"…Something involving monkeys. Perhaps with wings…" The Brain said with uncharacteristic lameness.

"Right." The Lord said, his voice thick with disparaging sarcasm.

A second later, he found the front of his suit seized by Monsieur Mallah.

"You will NOT DISRESPECT…!"

The Lord's suit abruptly became as thin as air, as the Lord utilized his shadow powers to break Mallah's grip, as he shot out his own hand and grabbed the gorilla by the throat.

"Next time, I use the claws." The Lord said, and hurled Mallah backwards. "Monkey, if your master cannot pay his bill, I will put his neat little container in charge of fermenting alcohol."

Mallah snarled.

"I have disabled your gun, and you have already seen how futile physical blows are. That leaves your options…somewhat limited." The Lord said.

Silence.

And then something brown and unpleasant struck the Lord in the face.

"…" The Lord said, as he reached up and pushed the highly unpleasant substance off his face. "Talk about a shitty last resort."

And then a seven-foot katana appeared in the Lord's hands.

"NOW YOU ARE IN THE SHIT."

"Brotherhood of Evil, retreat!" The Brain said, and then there was a brilliant flash as the Brain activated a teleportation device in his personal system, warping him, Monsieur Mallah, and Madam Rouge to safety.

"Sorceress, make a note. They're banned." The Lord said, as a slight shift of his own personal matter got rid of the rest of the disgusting choice of projectile Mallah had used.

And then, suddenly, General Immortus emerged from the hallway.

"Sorry, I…" Immortus said, and trailed off as he saw the Brotherhood was gone. "Oh. Child, where did my companions go?"

Outside in the alleyway.

"AHHHH!" Immortus yelled as he was thrown out.

"And I'd say that joke is finally dead." The Lord said as he came back into his bar.

"One more time Caesar of the Crepuscule…"

"AND SO IS THAT ONE." The Lord said, thrusting his very long sword at the approaching Slade. He stopped.

"Hmmm. One might say one was compensating…"

"Say something of worth Slade, or be silent. My patience for this night is running thin."

"I merely wish to ask why you keep throwing Control Freak out."

"Why Slade, don't you remember? What happened these last few years? We watched last year's on the television after all…"

And Punk Rocket ran past the Lord, who finally decided he'd had enough as the rocker dodged around a table…

And then saw which table he was heading for, and decided to leave it in fate's hands.

As Punk Rocket stopped on a dime, grabbed the glass, and slammed it down…

Not realizing in time he was serving Killjoy's table. He just went by table numbers on a map for the most part…which is why he slammed the drink down instead of placing it.

Killjoy stared as his dominoes wavered, his eyes sliding onto Punk Rocket.

The rocker froze.

Killjoy's eyes bored into him, so calm…and so cold…

A thin trickle of sweat began running down Punk Rocket's face, seeing every subtle vibration as it rocked through the dominoes, the small game pieces shifting so slightly, ever so slightly…

And then stopped.

The dominoes stood.

Punk Rocket glanced at Killjoy again, his eyes were as blank as ever, as Punk Rocket slowly began backing up…and then ran away full-tilt, not stopping until he reached the bar.

"Damn." The Lord said, as Punk Rocket reached the bar and put his tray down, breathing in relief.

Killjoy turned back to his dominoes.

As a drop of collected moisture dripped off the edge of the glass and landed on the table.

The dominoes collapsed.

Killjoy pulled his gun, as Punk Rocket screamed (lucky for him he'd turned around again) and dove behind the bar, as Killjoy emptied the handgun's whole clip into the wood of said bar. And he could aim much better then the average gunman.

"Killjoy! Enough! Really!" The Lord called, as the assassin began reaching for a clip. "I've had enough of repairs for one night. Can we just call it even, even if he's still alive?"

Killjoy glanced at the Lord…and then ejected his empty clip, slapped another one in…and put his gun away, as he returned to the dominoes.

Punk Rocket slowly slipped his head over the edge, amazed he didn't have a hole in him, as Killjoy went back to his dominoes.

"…Maybe I should stop running…" He muttered.

"…Oh hey, game's on!" The Handyman said, and got up and headed to the bar where he turned the TV on. That broke the tension in the bar, and people went back to what they were doing.

"I mean, why is it me? I never did anything to him, or anyone…well, except try and take over the world, but who hasn't done that here?" Puppet King complained. "But they just keep heaping abuse on me…it's not fair…I had the magic…and it's so unnecessary! Just because I said the drinks were watered down, Darkman the Barkeep didn't have to create termites in my leg…"

WHACK!

Puppet King flew, his head smashing into a lower part of the wall nearby.

"Oh SHUT UP. You're so pathetic you're even MY punching bag." Dr. Light said. "And…and…wood is harder then I had been led to believe. OWOWOWOWOW!" Dr. Light hissed as he waved his hand in the way the hurt sometimes so.

Dazed once more, the Puppet King sat up. Glancing behind him, he saw he'd plowed headfirst into an electrical socket. Really messed it up too: a few sparks were spitting from it. Well, at least wood didn't conduct electricity, as the Puppet King scurried off.

"So, Torque, your deal is that you have your head turned around, right?" Johnny Rancid asked.

"Your point?" Torque asked in great annoyance: he did indeed have his head turned around, the result of him going toe to toe with a superstrong crime lord, somehow surviving getting his head twisted 180 degrees, and then recovering from radical drug therapy that let him regain his former physical peak at the cost of having his head permanently stuck backwards. He got around the problem of seeing via special mirrored glasses/goggles, which effectively let him see forward and backward.

"How is that a superpower?" Rancid asked.

"I'd say the fact that I survived the experience is pretty unusual." Torque said in an effort to defend himself.

"The ability to live the rest of your life as a backwards freak? Some power, mate." Mad Mod commented.

"Oh look who's talking! Your only power is being a horrible British stereotype!"

"You need to learn to respect your betters!" Mod retorted.

"More like his elders." Rancid cracked.

"Oh, you making cracks, you rotter? What's your angle? You seem to be a vaguely strong man with an overcharged motorcycle and different robot pets. That's not a power at all!"

"Hey, all your powers come from fucked up eye tricks and…"

"SHUT UP!" The Lord yelled, suddenly at their table. "LET'S ALL AGREE YOUR POWERS SUCK AND GO ON WITH OUR LIVES!"

The Lord turned and stalked back to Slade, leaving the three lesser villains silent at their table, while the Lord resumed his conversation.

"Aha! I know!" Kurai said, once again taking advantage that Slade was still speaking with the Lord. "Let us see who can lose the most blood before passing out!"

"…you first." Rose replied.

"…Right." Kurai said. "Aha! Let us see who can kill Mumbo the fastest!"

"Now that one actually sounds like FUN." Rose replied.

"Whoever kills him assumes his debt to the bar. House rules." Adonis said, as he stood nearby cleaning glasses, still filling in for the White Hole, who was on her break and sitting at a nearby table eating something that Adonis could swear had been alive when she'd started.

"Curses." Kurai said.

"My turn to suggest a challenge. Let's see who can go the longest without saying anything stupid." Rose said.

"And who shall judge?" Kurai asked.

"I win." Rose replied.

"WHY YOU LITTLE!"

"You forget to set terms." Adonis added.

"Which makes your contest moot! HAH!" Kurai said.

"Fine. Arm wrestling." Rose said with annoyance.

"I have super strength. It would be patently unfair."

"Only if you use it."

"You have small amounts of super strength. While I can power down to not use mine, yours is inherent. Either way, it would be patently unfair."

"…Huh." Rose said. "You actually have a brain under that language barrier and rage. No wonder Dad picked you until his true heir was available."

"THAT IS STILL TO BE DECIDED, WHORE!"

"JAP!"

"QUEEN OF THE HARPIES!"

"PENCIL-DICK!"

"You know, if this were an anime, they would be a destined couple." Slade commented to the Lord.

A throwing knife embedded itself in the wall just in front of Slade's face.

"Rose, dear, try not to bend those, they're expensive." Slade said. "I will tell you that considering the information you just gave me, I may take my own precautions if Control Freak returns to this place."

"Just keep in mind what I myself said." The Lord replied, as Slade left once more.

"UNSCRUPULOUS…!"

"AND YOU TWO WILL STOP IT NOW OR ELSE YOU'RE BOTH DISINHERITED!" Slade snapped at he returned. His apprentices immediately went silent.

"…Um…Mister Wilson…pardon me if I'm being rude but…if they do get kicked out, can I slide into the available slot?" Nightwalker asked, always looking to improve herself. Being Slade Wilson's apprentice would definitely do that, and since she was now sitting closer to the three then she had been before she may as well…

"Really? You're interested? Would you rip out an eye if I told you to?" Slade asked.

"Uh…wouldn't keeping my peripheral work better?" Nightwalker asked.

"You pass." Slade said.

"WHAT?" Rose yelled, as her lone remaining eye went as wide as possible: if her eyepatch was a monocle, it would have fallen off her face as monocles often do in comedies.

"You passed the loyalty test Rose, but failed the common sense test." Slade said.

"The latter seems needed for the former." Nightwalker commented.

"WHY YOU-!" Rose snarled as her hand, quick as lightning, snapped down and yanked out her leg firearm, a long elongated pistol like the ones found in the Wild West, as she snapped it up…

She was probably faster then Nightwalker, but the fact that Nightwalker had her weapon right on her arm proved to be a better edge, as Rose found Nightwalker's gauntlet right in her face even as she brought the gun up into a Mexican standoff.

"Don't test me." Nightwalker said.

"…Hmmmm." The White Hole said, watching with interest from her table as she ate. Though she wasn't quite sure why.

And it didn't last long, as a slight ringing metal noise, the sound of a blade leaving its sheath, rang through the one again quieted bar as Slade drew and placed his sword on the crossed arms. Nightwalker could feel how sharp the blade was even through her armor, and that was saying something.

"Down." Slade said.

"I'll drop it when she does Mr. Wilson." Nightwalker said.

"That was addressed to both of you. Do not make me repeat myself."

Nightwalker didn't trust Rose much, but she respected Deathstroke the Terminator's reputation, and she listened. Rose did as well, though she certainly looked like she wanted to settle it in a different fashion.

"That's better. And while they followed my orders and are thus NOT disinherited, we can talk later, Ms. Sine." Slade said.

"A pity. They do both seem to lack a certain soundness in their judgment." Nightwalker said in a parting shot. Rose grit her teeth and shifted her arm, as if debating going for her gun again despite her father's order.

"That is why I am the master, and they the apprentices." Slade said.

"That isn't set up like the Sith, is it?…Oh dear god, Control Freak infected me." Nightwalker said.

"I have too many plans in motion for there to be only two of us." Slade replied.

"You mean like the ones the Titans all thwarted, almost easily?" Jack commented from a few seats away. Slade glanced at the Australian.

"Foul dog, I will…!" Kurai said as the energy appeared on one hand again.

"No, ignore him Kurai. He's looking for a fight. Don't give him what he wants." Slade said to his apprentice. "As for you, Djinn, those were the plans I let them KNOW about."

"Oh, and what happened to the plans you DIDN'T let them know about?"

"Now that…is a secret. But believe me Djinn, unlike many people, I actually know what I am doing. ALWAYS."

RANDOM FAMILY GUY STYLE CUTAWAY!

"So you see, Mr. Jones, there is nothing you have that I cannot take away." Slade said to Indiana Jones, who for some reason was hanging by one arm above a pit of snakes in front of snakes. And was, you know, real. Somehow. In a sense. You know what I mean.

"How about your daughter's virginity?" Indiana retorted.

"…You know, I was going to let you fall to your death, killed by something you fear greatly." Slade said, and then pulled out a pistol. "This time I'm actually going to make sure you actually die."

BANG!

END CUTAWAY!

"You know you didn't have to point out the cutaway was ending, that was in its nature more obvious then it's beginning." Slade said.

CRASH!

"THE NEXT PERSON WHO WRECKS THE FOURTH WALL GETS A PERSONALLY GIVEN FACELIFT!" The Lord yelled from across the bar.

Yes, truly a strange place, this bar. Let us take one last look through it…at Doctor Light, holding his glass full of icy water against his knuckles for a bit before setting it down in his table…a bit too close to the edge of the table, really, and then move on to…

"GET ON WITH IT!" The whole bar yelled.

CRASH!

Right, before this whole story collapses beneath its own self-referencing nature, let us skip to the end of our planned last look, which ends at the Handyman, now sitting at the bar close to where Nightwalker had been sitting earlier, watching football on the TV. The same TV that last year had shown a very unusual event.

Perhaps it was a sign.

"Fumble! They've lost the ball!" Madden declared in his play by play. "It's picked up! And he's on the 20…the 15…the…well Bob, in all my years of sportscasting, I've never seen this! It looks like a fat man in a brown trenchcoat is in the endzone and is…mowing down the players with what appears to be a laser gun!"

"So it is John, and I bet you the refs are gonna pull a flag on that." Bob replied.

"HAH!" Control Freak declared as he popped out of the TV, his gun vanishing back into whatever sci-fi world he'd summoned it from. "You need more then a locked door to keep me out!"

"HEY! YOU FAT BASTARD! I HAD TWENTY BUCKS ON THAT GAME!" The Handyman yelled.

"Here, I'll tell you the ending." Control Freak sarcastically replied. "One steroid using millionaire ran past another steroid using millionaire, delivering a ball to an arbitrary place. There. I just saved you every fall for the rest of forever. You can thank me later."

And then the Lord grabbed Control Freak and yanked him away with a yelp.

"You know, it's funny how you can make such astute comments, yet so clearly express a death wish by refusing to listen me. I think life, beyond your loathsome appearance and execrable social skills, is telling me that you are never to breed. And whom am I to argue with life?" The Lord snarled, as he dragged Control Freak across the room. He'd had it. Just when he was about to fix the hole in the ceiling and call it a night Control Freak comes back, again, a factor the Lord should have done away with the first time by killing him, not to mention the constant attempts to nip the problem in the bud not working.

And the night wasn't done throwing annoying problems at him yet, as Control Freak managed to squirm out of the Lord's grip again. The Lord snarled and formed claws of shadow…as Control Freak reached into his coat, pulled out his remote…and something else.

"Hold it! Cut! I don't like this situation! So we're doing a retcon!" Control Freak said as he aimed his remote at what else he had brought out…a DVD. "This is a compilation of the hundred scariest moments of film picked by Donthavealifedontwantone dot com! All of it burned onto this DVD! So here's the deal…!"

"Sigh. It appears I must involve myself." Slade said, as he got up and left Rose and Kurai alone again, heading for the Lord and Control Freak's 'disagreement'.

"…Hey Rose-chan, I bet you can't hit that glass of water over there with this fork." Kurai said.

"Are you going to be hypercompetitive all night?" Rose replied in disbelief.

"YES, DAMN IT! I am the TRUE disciple of Slade-sama! You're just blood!"

"Fine. I'll prove you wrong. You mean that glass perched on that table edge precariously close to that damaged, sparking, electrical socket?"

"Yes! That's the one! Hit it with the fork!"

"…Kurai, something is telling me this would be a real bad idea…"

"My dear Rose-chan, if you want to surrender, no need to hide it in other words." Kurai smirked.

"Surrender? Why you…"

"You let me back in the bar, and I warp this thing into deep space! Otherwise, I'll just jump-start the whole mess, right here, right now!" Control Freak threatened.

"Really." The Lord said, trying to hide his deep irritation. And to top it all off, the bar had seen so much chaos that night this latest dustup was actually being mostly ignored, the patrons going on the business, rendering the whole thing into one big noise pounding on the Lord's head.

"Yes! I'll do it! Don't make me!"

"Let me shoot him." Slade said, as he came up near the Lord and drew a handgun.

"Hah! Wanna risk my death twitch?" Control Freak said, pressing his remote against the DVD.

"Perhaps I should shoot his hand off instead."

"Oh no Slade, let him start the ridiculous nonsense we watched last year again, in our own backyard, so to speak. We can feed a new piece of him to each new bit of fiction we encounter."

"Uh…" Control Freak said, and then tried to hide his new doubt by pressing the remote against the DVD again. "I'LL DO IT! You won't need some random electrical discharge this time! I can do it all by myself!"

The glass teetered on the edge of the table…

The damaged electrical outlet spat a few more sparks…

Rose, oblivious to these factors, aimed her shot…

And Control Freak pressed up against his DVD filled with untold amounts of horrors, dying to get out…

With nothing.

"HUH?" Control Freak said, as he realized that his remote was gone.

"Helps if you have this." The Sorceress said, holding up her new toy. One small teleportation spell was all it needed.

As Rose hurled the fork through the air.

…And it thudded into the wall, having missed the water glass by a half inch.

"HAH!" Kurai yelled, as Rose made a low noise of frustration.

"Hey!" Light snapped, having seen the projectile barely miss his water, as he pulled it back from the edge of the table. "Don't make me come over there!"

"Uh…" Control Freak whimpered.

"May I Slade?" The Lord asked.

"…As you will." Slade replied, holstering his gun: it was in the Lord's hands now.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Control Freak screamed, as he turned to run…

Into the Lord, who had swiftly warped behind him. He once again seized Control Freak by his coat.

"I'll take THAT." The Lord said, snatching the DVD. With a quick flash of black power, it was burned to nothing, much like the bodies of the four robbers who had had the misfortune to think they could rob the Villain Café. Much like Control Freak had had the misfortune to think he could threaten his way back into it. "Oh, you REALLY screwed the pooch this time Control Freak. You…" The Lord said, and then winced, no one was paying attention, there was so much NOISE…

"QUIETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!"

And just like that, everyone and everything stopped in the bar, as everyone stopped talking and stood or sat where they were. Slade and the Sorceress standing nearby, Blackfire, Doctor Westminster, Asphyxiation (aka Jack Djinn), Rose, Kurai, Nightwalker, and Handyman sitting at the bar with Adonis behind it, and scattered around the room, most sitting at tables but a few standing, Killjoy, The White Hole, Dr. Light, Brick still sitting by the door, Mumbo, The Puppet King, Mad Mod, Atlas, Melchior, Johnny Rancid, and the villain from out of town, Torque. Even Psimon was still there despite the humiliation he had suffered earlier…and finally, Punk Rocket…who had stopped in mid-step while delivering another tray of drinks.

The Lord had been angrier then he meant to be. His bellow hadn't just been a noise. It had been a slight exertion of his power, in which he commanded everyone to freeze and be quiet. Most had the power to resist the full implications of this accident, but a few…found themselves unable to move. By stuck in mid-step, it meant that Punk Rocket still had one foot in the air…and he couldn't put it down.

"Uh…little help here?" He asked.

No one heard him. They had been compelled to listen to the Lord, and those who weren't…listened anyway.

"Thank you." The Lord said.

The Sorceress handed the Lord Control Freak's remote control, guessing that he wanted it and guessing correct.

"You know Control Freak, I was going to just toss you in the big cooker in the back and see if you could thicken up the chili some…"

In the background someone vomited in realization of what the Lord's threat implied.

"I DON'T DO THAT ON A REGULAR OCCURENCE!" The Lord yelled. "But…now I have a better idea. You want to come in here so bad? Then let's put the case to your peers."

"Really, help would be nice…!" Punk Rocket said, as the Lord threw Control Freak on the ground.

"This is Control Freak. He's a technosorcerer…and two years ago his damn remote opened up a pathway to another world. A very, very STUPID world, but one that existed nonetheless thanks to the little toy he created. That year, and the year after, his little creation caused trouble…but not for us. BUT, it's that time again, and where is he? In here, with his remote, WITH US. DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS."

"Uh…I was bluffing?" Control Freak said.

"Bluffing? Oh well then let's just forgive and forget…oh yeah, I forgot, WE'RE THE BAD GUYS." The Lord snapped. "It doesn't matter if you meant to trigger the effect or not. Several of us know damn well you don't have to do anything but be there. Or more precisely, your remote has to be there. And everything else is lined up in place here, despite my best efforts. AND I'VE HAD IT!" The Lord yelled, as he threw the remote at Control Freak, knocking him flat on his back as the remote slammed into his chest. "So I tried to get rid of you, but you kept coming back. I am not known for my mercy, Control Freak, and neither is anyone else who saw what happened last year, who knows what happens, who knows how the gate gets opened! And it's not happening in here!"

Control Freak got up, clutching his remote, as the Lord reformed his sword and claws.

"So I'm cutting it off at the pass. The third time is NOT the charm."

"But you burned the DVD to nothing! You left out one thing! You need material for it to work! Movies, games, anything! And there's nothing like that here!" Control Freak protested in desperation. As for why he didn't try and use his given-back remote on the Lord, well, would YOU want to make the Lord even angrier then he was?

"You know what, I don't care. Like Jurassic Park said, 'Life finds a way'. Even life as unnatural, as ridiculous, as outright ABSURD as what your damn remote spawned. Oh no. Not here. Not with us. I forbid it. Let others handle that nonsense. Let the children play in such ridiculous setups. I will NOT play by any rules other then my own. And I will NOT let your bullshit boogeymen take up residence in MY WORLD!"

The Lord spun around.

"So tell me, everyone, do you want to let him drink with us? Or should I just do what I do best."

Silence.

"Take it from me." Nightwalker suddenly spoke up. "I lived through it. So to speak. Unlike what it comes from…it's not entertaining in the least."

"Yes, and I am quite loathe to provide these PEOPLE with any more entertainment." The Lord said.

"…Uh, which people are you talking about exactly Lord?" The Sorceress asked.

"They know who they are." The Lord said, as he glanced in a certain direction. "I am not a joke. I am not a punchline. I am the LORD OF THE NIGHT! I am the bad guy here! For lack of a better term, I'M CREDIBLE!" The Lord said. "So Control Freak, you have to go, and so does your remote. No boogeymen this year. OVER MY DEAD BODY!"

"AHHHHHHHHH!" Punk Rocket yelled as he finally lost his balance and fell…as his drinks crashed to the ground in a storm of liquid and glass…

…Right against the damaged electrical socket.

The Lord's eyes snapped towards the noise. So did Control Freak's.

As a dark crackling sound filled the bar even as the liquid struck the damaged outlet.

"…Make it so!" Control Freak said, as he tossed his remote to the Lord and dove on the floor. The Lord, on instinct, caught it.

"…Oh fiddlesticks."

The electrical bolt exploded from the socket, far larger then it should have been…because this wasn't an electrical reaction. This was a key turning in a lock.

It struck the remote, and the power coursed through it, and the Lord in turn as he yelled, the energies ripping into him, tearing through his shadow matter…and then with a snarling curse he half threw and half thrust the remote away from him…

…as he realized that was the LAST THING he should have done, as the energy crackling through the remote turned a familiar red…

And shot out, striking the Orb of Archetypal and coursing through it…and into all the magical artifacts linked to it in turn, it's power spiking upward higher and higher from it, as the whole bar began to shake.

"Oh no NOT AGAIN!" Nightwalker shrieked.

And a gigantic surge of red power returned, refracted through the Orb and all its brother artifacts, utterly consuming the bar.

And tearing up through the hole in the ceiling, the hole the Lord would have fixed…but he hadn't, and hence it escaped, as the blood red power shot through the roof and slashed up into the sky above Jump City.

"WHAT THE DEVIL!" Robin yelled as he recoiled away from the window, as all the Titans jumped from the sudden eruption from their city.

Brother Blood saw the arcing blood red blast as well. His reaction was simpler: he dove and hid under his chair.

As the blast split into many crimson bolts of questing energy, as they rained back down onto Jump City.

As one struck a movie store, and the people inside screamed as the red energy tore through the shelves, gathering on their chosen targets…

As the bolts hit more movie stores, from chains to small family owned businesses. And video game stores. And malls. And just about everything else in between, dozens of places around Jump City exploding with the power.

And then, in a final blast of red illumination, the entire city of Jump was plunged into darkness.

Gate open. Third time WAS the charm.

The bar was as dark as the rest of the city, as people moved and coughed in the blackness.

"…FUCK. NOW WHAT?"

"You know damn well now what! Didn't you pay attention to the LAST two stories?"

CRASH!

To Be Continued.

Next Time, In Boogeymen III!

Once again, infiltration has been easy. I swear, these villains just get dumber and dumber. Jack got it all wrong in his choice. As for me, all I needed was a holo-pin and I convinced Slade he had a daughter. Moron. And GOD this Kurai kid is annoying. Honor…what is it really? Is it something personal? If it's a societal thing, then it's basically just brownie points, and is then stupid. He's dishonored himself his actions so many times…ah well. Time to get back into character. Tee hee!…What was THAT?

8888

White Hole snarled, "And I don't care how much being a lesbian semi-villain will make the male demographic love you, Nightwalker. I WILL CRUSH YOU!"

"…Where…did…your…shirt…go?"

8888

And Killjoy drew his gun and shot Barney.

"I love you, you love me, we're all one gun-fightin' family…"

And just to be sure, emptied the whole clip into him.

8888

"Nightwalker, I am your father." Slade said.

Nightwalker stared…and then she looked at the camera.

"…What a twist!"