WELL LOOKIE HERE, IT'S BEEN LIKE THREE YEARS SINCE WE LAST UPDATED THIS

APOLOGIES, BUT WE'VE BEEN VERY BUSY, AND YOU'RE NOT EXACTLY— WE AREN'T— SHUT UP LOSER

SO, HOW'S THE WORLD CHANGED SINCE WE LAST WROTE THIS PIECE OF PISS?

NOT A WHOLE NOT REALLY; THE AIR'S STILL SEE-THROUGH AND THE SKY'S STILL BLUE, THE USUAL

BUT I'LL TELL YOU ONE THING THAT DID CHANGE - I DEVELOPED A MASSIVE TUMOUR, AND JUST CAN'T SEEM TO SHAKE IT OFF!

IT SPEAKS TO ME SOMETIMES! IT SAYS, 'WRITE THAT PIECE OF SHIT FANFICTION OF YOURS!'

SO YEAH I'M WRITING ON THE REQUEST OF MY TUMOUR, THAT LOOKS LIKE A SQUASHED OCTOPUS, IN THE VAIN HOPE THAT IT MAY GO AWAY

THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO MY BOTTLE OF OLD J SPICED TIKI FIRE RUM THAT ARRIVED TODAY

OK ON WITH THE SHOW

Chapter 4 - God Stop Screaming At Me Barry, It's Upsetting (or) The Flaming Ape and the Sultans of Sin

Seven hours have passed since our gang were last seen, and they've just been chillin' and billin'. Doing their bills, and doing their chills. One might assume that these two things are contradictory, as one cannot be in a chill state of mind when dealing with one's economic malarkey, but y'know these lads are pretty on top of their affairs, economic or otherwise. They're inspirational figures that everyone should look up to. I know a lot of people who are a hell of a lot less inspirational than these guys, and these guys here are fictional. Like I know a guy who set fire to a load of love letters from his ex girlfriend and put it on SnapChat for everyone to see, and then went to Ibiza for no real reason. That's kinda sad.

Let's reintroduce the gang, because we've forgotten. There's Theon (occasionally referred to as 'El Vagabundo Picante' due to some illicit antics he was privy to in the airport at Alicante), who doesn't have any bills because he's a dumb kid with no responsibility or likability, but someone gave him their bills to give him a bitter taste of reality and he doesn't know what to do! He wails to himself at all the numbers (he can only count up to twenty!) Then there's Robin, played by Brian Bedford, but don't get too attached to him! ;) Then there's Milkshake the monkey; he has a load of bills because he's in major debt! Like I've never seen a monkey in more debt than this little rascal! Clearly he bought one too many bananas! The only monkey I can think of who's in more debt is King Kong, with his debts to society! The amount of community service that giant ape had to do was staggering! There's also Yusef, who's knocked the fuck out, but that's okay because he's pretty on top of his financial affairs; the bounty hunting business is quite lucrative, providing he can actually kill his targets, which is currently proving problematic. The only thing this pineapple-headed killer cares about is cash, blood and PUSSY. And then there's the thing from space that lives in a bin, who has no taxes on account of the fact that he lives in a bin (you can't tax someone for poor lifestyle choices, that's just kicking a dog whilst they're down), but the constant feeling of not being loved by anyone (including the authors) must be pretty mentally taxing as it is. And that's the whole gang! They're on a flight through space, and they're en route to a little pastel blue moon (carved with a giant screaming face that kind of resembles Karl Marx, but don't concern yourself with how this moon is a physical manifestation for the plight of the communist) called Moon Boys Pizza Palace (named as part of an unsuccessful marketing gimmick of a knock-off space fast food chain - a rather ironic allegory of the relationship between the capitalist and the communist, but enough of this heavy-handed political bullshit). Why were they going to Moon Boys Pizza Palace, you ask? They're going there because that's where Milkshake owns a B&B, and so the lads are gonna crash there for a bit so that they can get their shit in order before heading off to another planet in search of the meanings of Christmas. Yeah it's because of the B&B that Milkshake's in so much debt.

(Okay just to clear some things up for you fuckers. The reason why Milkshake didn't recognise Monkey-Madness even though he supposedly owns a B&B right next to it is because Moon Boys Pizza Palace isn't in fact that close to Monkey-Madness; it's one moon in a series of moons (all named after fast food chains) that orbit each other sporadically, which in itself was part of a terrible marketing scheme, and these moons orbit each other in such a way that they rarely line up with Monkey-Madness. Also Monkey-Madness is pretty far away from Moon Boys Pizza Palace; their hot air balloon was really fucking fast).

The hot air balloon fucking crashed through the roof of Milkshake's B&B, as is tradition. Milkshake's B&B, by the way, was known as, 'The Dirty Diana', named after Michael Jackson's CLASSIC 1988 track, an irrefutable CLASSIC and also Milkshake's favourite MJ's song, although he is an avid fan of MJ's entire discography. As they crawled through the wrecked remains of the hot air balloon and fought their way through the pile of rubble and smashed masonry, they rang the bell at the front desk and were greeted by Jimminy Jericho, the most racist man on the moon, recognisable by snazzy smile and offensive slogan t-shirts. He led them to their rooms whilst spouting an endless stream of racial slurs; it was really uncomfortable for everyone involved. Milkshake explained that although he didn't agree with Jimminy's world views, Jimminy's only payment was the opportunity to spout his opinions at people and one cantaloupe a fortnight, so Milkshake considered hiring Jimminy a bargain, on account of his great expendable cantaloupe collection.

'Now this is one swell establishment!' said Robin enthusiastically as he was ushered into a little grubby bedroom with a banana motif. Like the wallpaper was bananas, there were some bananas hanging from the ceiling from little bits of string, the whole nine yards.

'Ahaha, yeah. I put my heart and soul into this, y'know?! Ahaha…' muttered Milkshake, staring forlornly down at the tiny scars on his wrist that informed him he only had thirteen days left to live. He shakes the reminder out of his head and puts on a smile once again. 'Well then guys, this'll be your room for the night. Since you're in with me, there's no holds barred! So I suggest you have a wee sesheroonie, if you know what I mean, whilst I get my monkey nose to the grindstone with these here bills of mine!'

'Ahaha, looks like you're swamped with bills, but we'll be popping all them pills! We'll have to get in contact with our good friend Violent Mog! He knows the score, and what's more knows how to score! As in drugs! Ahahaha!'

'Well Theon is like ten or some shit, so get that dickhead to watch The Incredibles or some shit', responded Milkshake. 'I'm off to bury my head in FINANCE'. And so off he went.

Theon blinked, and when he opened his eyes he was shocked to see that Robin had changed actors. He was now played by Errol Flynn. No one really seemed to pay any attention to this, which made it all the more confusing. The more eagle-eyed of you readers may be able to piece together that, now that Theon has technically but not really but close enough to figuring out a meaning of Christmas, a new Robin of the three Robins had to step in. If only Brian Bedford helped Theon on his Christmas quest, the other two Robins would feel kind of unnecessary and irrelevant and their bountiful energy would be depleted and replaced with slabs of sadness.

Robin felt a bit sad that he didn't have anyone to sesh with, because he didn't register the thing in the bin and Congleton was fucking dead and Theon was a child and all the Pirates of the Caribbean enthusiast did was complain that the rum was gone instead of actually being proactive enough to get up off his arse and buy some more rum. So Robin shook Yusef awake, and if a pineapple could convey a look of withering hatred, it did so. Fortunately for Robin he is not adept at reading the facial expressions of things that don't have faces, and so the vitriol was completely lost on him. He handed Yusef a flagon of Fosters, and Yusef's pineapple face skin literally contorted and twisted at the sight of this. He muttered something aggressively in woozy Russian (because y'know he had just been shook awake from unconsciousness), but Robin only speaks the language of Optimism and thus Yusef's anger was lost once again. Robin then began to scroll through his conch phone in search of other people to invite to the sesh.

Eventually, the sesh got underway. It was Robin, it was Yusef, it was Violent Mog. Violent Mog was a suave man with one amethyst protruding uglily out the side of his skull and teeth made of numerous probably poisonous metals, but he always had a shit load of hallucinogenic narcotics. He claimed that the black powder he was offering was the ground-up essence of long-dead gods, but this is dumb and no one was buying it. Literally or figuratively! Fortunately Violent Mog was giving out free samples, because he's an entrepreneur and knows that if you give people a little bit of something, they'll pay for more of it. I'm also an entrepreneur. I once invented a stick that tells if people are gay. My co-writer also had an idea about a lighter that doubles as a dog whistle, so when you're going for a fag at work you light up, and the dog whistle blows, and you get to hang out with a dog whilst you smoke (but then I informed my co-writer that dog whistles are intended to make dogs go away, and it made him quite sad).

Robin couldn't find anyone else to call, but that's alright. Three people can indeed maketh a sesh, and they had a fucking violent game of Suck Well Superman, a renowned drinking game in these parts. Violent Mog whipped out a few pouches of illicit substances, and the snorting sounds rumbled the heavens. It was like a coke nose kazoo symphony up in this shit. Theon was vexed by this cacophony, as he couldn't hear what Mr Incredible was saying. No doubt it was something inspirational. If only Mr Incredible was here right now, everything would be better!

The sesh was bubbling nicely, when all of a sudden, Milkshake burst through the door wearing his weapon hat. He had a banana in each hand, and boy was he holding them menacingly.

'Ayy, my monkey brother-in-arms!' cried Robin, a wee bit shaky on his feet, Budweiser sloshing around in his ivory drinking horn. 'I must say, this is a cracking establishment you've got here. And I must say, this is crack!' He held up some crack and ate it. 'Woo-argh!'

'Come and join us for a snort and a slosh!' wheedled Violent Mog, who was showing off how many jumping jacks he could do in twenty-three minutes. Yusef was not at all impressed by this show of athleticism, and instead turned back to his pure absinthe, drunk from a pineapple-shaped glass.

'Argh!' cried Milkshake, hooting and monkeying around. 'They have found me! They have found me!' What the lads did not know was that Milkshake, under the severe stress of finance, was hallucinating something fierce without even needing to have snorted some drugs! He was twitching and shaking and hooting and going monkey shit, because at his table, he did not see his former friends and traveling companions and their collective drug dealing associate, oh no! He saw, horror of horrors, the Sultans of Sin sitting around his kitchen table! Yes, the very vile deities that had swindled Milkshake's very soul all those years ago, in exchange for handing over the keys to a slightly shabby and mediocre B&B! Picture them now, misshapen half-formed entities from that land twixt light and shade, their faces rippling with waves of colour, sentient chiaroscuro coiling around their forms like ophidian devils, twisting and contorting into mockeries of human facial expressions. Atop their heads are bulbous turbans, the cloth (if it could be called cloth) ragged and torn and frayed at the edges. The deformed shapes of the turbans hint at the pulsing horrors that the Sultans hide beneath.

'I still have time! You said twelve years! Twelve years, you said, before you return to collect what is yours! I still have time!' shrieked Milkshake hysterically, believing himself to have been tricked in some bullshit Faustian pact and was now going to be swindled of some of his life by those dastardly Sultans of Sin. In reality, he was merely making a bit of an embarrassment of himself, and Robin didn't quite know how to handle this. I mean, he knew that bills were stressful, but surely they couldn't catalyse such animosity and hysteria in such a strong-willed monkey as Milkshake, right?

It is at this point where Milkshake runs across the room, throws his bananas to the ground whilst doing so, and grabs a machine gun from a nearby drawer (because y'know it is his B&B, he can keep his firearms where he wants, he can disregard all laws of health and safety). Someone shouts out, 'Oh shit, this is less than satisfactory!' But their noteworthy observations fell on deaf ears, because Milkshake was already firing the gun wildly, his monkey arm flailing with the ridiculous recoil. Everyone goes apeshit as the bullets fly through the air; pots shatter and spatulas are knocked off walls and clocks fall over and the lovely stylish banana wallpaper that Milkshake probably spent a lot of money on gets shredded to naught but tatters. Luckily, everyone dives under a conveniently knocked over table that happens to be varnished with bulletproof varnish. I mean, everyone important was alright. Theon got fucking mown down, but who even gives a shit, he'll probably be reinvigorated and rise again in like three seconds.

Yosef grabs his shot glass, which had conveniently rolled on the floor in front of him, and with expert aim he lobbed it in the direction of Milkshake. And whilst that would have been an impressive enough act (if a wee bit ineffectual, because shot glasses are infinitely less capable of fucking a man's shit up then a volley of machine gun bullets is), Yusef whips his gilded pineapple-engraved zippo lighter out of his inner suit pocket, ignites it, and lobs it over to the shot glass and its highly flammable alcoholic contents, setting both the glass and the liquor alight, and sending a torrent of flame right down on Milkshake's monkey head.

Unfortunately, Yusef did not realise that Milkshake was so fuelled with rage that he is immune to fire. How very contextual! So now they had a bigger problem on their hands: a monkey with a machine gun, but that monkey (and by extension the machine gun) is on FIRE! And you know what happens when a machine gun catches on fire? I mean I didn't, but the co-writer did, so apparently what happens is the machine gun fucking activates, and bullets explode everywhere! This already riddled-with-bullets room is getting further riddled with flaming bullets! All the shit that had been knocked over was now knocked over doubly so, and also set on fire just to add insult to injury. Everything was all bang-bang-pow, and so everyone ran out the fucking room (but not before stealing some alcohol off the table), including Milkshake, because he was not immune to bullets, only fire.

As Milkshake leapt dramatically out of a window into the little river that ran just below his B&B, he screamed out in anguish, 'YOU BASTARD SULTANS OF SIN!' But what Milkshake didn't realise was that, though his current envisioning of the infamous Sultans was naught but a stress-catalysed hallucination, the real Sultans were all too real, and always listening. Well I mean not always listening, because their whole thing is that they absorb people's souls in a gruesome and macabre fashion, and that shit is tiring bro. So in the time after they've absorbed a foolish mortal's soul, they take a serious power nap, which I suppose makes the foolish mortal feel even more insignificant when they know that the loss of their life and humanity and soul and shit is gonna be directly followed by the near-omnipotent deities having a wee little sleep. But you see, these Sultans are light sleepers; perhaps I would attempt to attribute this to some sort of vaguely offensive stereotype about sultans, but we don't know any. I mean my knowledge of sultans comes from Aladdin, but I doubt that these Sultans of Sin would be doing much ivory animal statue tower construction. Anyway, these Sultans are all about souls and shit, so whenever someone whose soul is tied to the Sultans invokes the Sultans by name, the Sultans are abruptly woken from their soul nap, and get their eldritch arses out of bed to reck havoc on the vague domain of the one who summoned them. Because these Sultans sure are some cantankerous characters! That's what they call me down at the pub, after I punched that child that one time! He shouldn't have been at the fucking pub if he didn't expect to be in a bar fight, that's what I always say!

Milkshake fell with a splash down into the waters of the gentle river to extinguish the flames and render his machine gun useless simultaneously, but the waters suddenly began to whirl and swirl in nasty weird fucking ways! The lovely waters, once sparkling and blue and stuff, remained sparkling and blue and stuff but were also now in nasty grabby hand shapes! And they grabbed and tugged at Milkshake in a nasty grabby fashion! And he shrieked and scowled and displayed his negative opinions of his current circumstances to the greatest extent, but alas, he could not stop the nefarious water hands!

He was held above the lake by the water hands, suspended above the lake in such a way where he was looking right at the lovely B&B. In front of him, whorls of serpentine shadow in the air began to twist and writhe like displeased sentient ribbons, forming into the malformed but undeniably TERRIFYING shapes of the three Sultans of Sin! We would have put actual effort into their descriptions here, but we totally did that already, so I ain't doing it here as well. They floated there, wearing their hastily put on bathrobes and slippers, and looked at Milkshake with their faceless faces somehow screwed into looks of tired contempt.

'MILKSHAKE, MILK MILKY SHAKE THE MONKEY', said the Sultans as one, their voices sounding kind of like someone doing a poor Antonio Banderas impression. 'YOU HAVE AWOKEN US FROM OUR… SLEEPY SLEEP. THE SLEEP OF SOULS. THE SOUL SLEEP. THE SLEEP FOR WHICH I SLEEP. SLEEP. FOR THAT I WILL STEAL YOUR SOUL DREAM. YOUR B&B. YOUR BED AND BREAKFAST WILL NOW BE DEAD AND BYE-BYE. NO BED AND NO BREAKFAST. DEAD BED. DEAD BREAKFAST. NO DREAM FOR YOU. BYE BYE.' And then they teleported away in a shroud of smoke. The water hands instantaneously crystallised and shattered, leaving Milkshake to tumble back into the lake, before swimming out again ready to stop these bastard Sultans.

Meanwhile, Theon awoke on a huge autumn leaf, suspended in an endless vaguely crimson void of endless floating leaves. Where were the leaves falling from? From what colossal universal tree did they fall from? Fuck knows. Jesus stood on the leaf opposite Theon, in the form of Gene Simmons, his hideously long tongue wrapped around his head like a balaclava. How could Theon tell it was Gene Simmons if his face was concealed, you may be asking. Well, Theon could tell due to Jesus Simmons' terrible opinions on music. Resounding throughout this world of slowly tumbling leaves was the song 'Rock and Roll All Night', as performed by an astral Gregorian choir.

'Rock is dead and so are you,' said Jesus, voice muffled due to his tongue being wrapped around his head. Jesus guffaws, a weird gurgling sound, before opening a small silver box. In the box is a small mechanical frog, which latches itself onto Theon's head and burrows into his flesh. Theon remains a frog throughout the rest of the conversation. This tiny frog on the giant leaf looked even more tiny and insignificant than if Theon were a tiny sprog on a giant leaf.

'What are you talking about?' croaked the insignificant Theon. 'Can you just bring me back to life?'

'Enough, you puppy hunter,' responded Jesus, a tone of resignation in his voice. 'You shall refer to me only as "Gav". Now, you will be reborn where you can do good. Because if you go back to the land where the Sultans hold sway, you will die repeatedly and I don't want to have to deal with that.'

Before Theon could say anything, like asking where he was going or why he was actually going there or how he could get back or what any of this has to with discovering any sort of meaning of Christmas, he found himself in a stinky swamp, secluded in a little grove of pastel-coloured trees. But more importantly, he found himself very mucky on account of being covered in swamp stuff! Pew-whee! He was absolutely covered in newts also! Unfortunately the newts later died, but that's a story for another time. Attempting to shake the mucky much off his wee sprog limbs with limp-wrist hand shakes, he clambered out of the newt swamp (fun fact: newts don't actually live in swamps) and made his way onto slightly drier land. There he found… a little man, only about three foot! His eyes were absolutely caked in turquoise and hot pink makeup, and he fluttered his eyes coquettishly. The rest of his body was completely covered with a flowing black robe, conspicuously free of the aforementioned mucky muck. 'Come with me, to the rumba-rumba,' he said in a surprisingly deep voice, which juxtaposed his dinky visage. Then he scampered off up a mucky tree stump, and Theon reluctantly followed as he continued to shake off the muck. Theon knows that if he does not obey what people tell him to do, it is likely that he will get hurt. I mean he may well get hurt anyway, because we hate him.

They climbed a hill, and holy shit! As it turns out, the 'rumba-rumba' was not some sort of exotic sex party - it was just a little village! All the houses were carved out of lovely pink mushrooms! I mean, not normal mushrooms; they were obviously fairly big mushrooms, just big enough for the three-foot village folk. Not like humungous mushrooms, that would be ridiculous.

'Oh, I see! "Rumba-rumba" means "village" in your language, yes?' asked Theon.

'Rumba-rumba, come with me,' said the village guy, who as it turns out can only say those two phrases. Theon couldn't even express his feelings in words, he just scrunched up his face and proceeded to follow Rumba-Rumba into the village. As they bumbled down into the mushroom town, the townsfolk, similarly clad in robes and ostentatious makeup, all gathered around in a star formation. They stared forward, their faces youthful and pale and unblinking. The crowd wordlessly parted, and a gangly cheetah man in full tracksuit shambled forward. (We need to stop including animal men). The cheetah man wields a large Easter Island head statue as a bludgeoning weapon, though as this is a time of peace, the statue was currently tied to his back with belts and twine.

'Ay Theon, it's you, innit?' said the cheetah man in the accent of a Medway chav. 'It's me, Tacky Gus. I ain't called that coz I'm tacky, I'm called that coz of my successful Blu Tac business, innit? Yeah, Jesus sent me here to tell you that the pirates are invading ere in like, err… forty-three seconds? Yeah, I'm gonna leave now, so you've got to deal with them, yeah? You've got to take care of these little three-foot people ere, yeah? Don't worry, there'll be these little twelve year olds in a biplane that'll come along to help you, but you're in charge of the three-foot people, yeah? Now don't try and speak to them, they won't understand you, but if you do say "rumba-rumba" to them they will get excited, yeah. Now I've got to dash now, yeah. Got to study philosophy and history at the same time, it's crazy shit, yeah?' And then Tacky Gus hopped into his burgundy Reliant Regal; as he started the engine, 'Capital Punishment' by Big Pun started up, and he slowly chugged away in his piece of shit car. Theon stood there gormlessly, as all the village folk stood there staring at him with their dead sad eyes.

Theon was about to say something before the entire village was blown the fuck up by cannonballs. He watched helplessly as the Rumbafolk got the shit blown the fuck out of them via pirate warfare. There were pirate cackles and shit everywhere, punctuated by flintlock fire and rum spillage. Holy shit! What can stop dear little cunt Theon from suffering the same fate? Well let me tell you. From the edge of this town came a loud cheer of sprogs, followed by the crowd of physical sprogs pushing a biplane ineffectually. Now on account of Peter Pan bullshit magic, these sprogs had remained as sprogs for many many years, as you could tell by the wisdom in their eyes (I mean Theon couldn't see this because the sprogs were running by hella quick, but fuck off); they wore gaudy raincoats and bucket hats, which somewhat contradicted the threat that they supposedly represented to the pirate uprising. The leader, however, was a lot more intimidating; he had brown insect legs that stuck awkwardly from his form (yes his orange raincoat accommodated the additional limbs), and a tiny white head with little beady staring eyes. This leader was known as Old J, so called because he is old (or I mean he's still a child but he's been a child for a long time) and has a fondness for the letter J (woah man, talk about nominative determinism!), but you won't find that out for a while yet.

Okay yes we do understand that this apparent action scene here is written in such a way that it lacks any semblance of excitement or action, on account of the reader not having seen the supposedly threatening pirates yet and the fact that the protagonists of this side-plot who are supposed to be valiant warriors or whatever have been introduced as they literally just waltz in from the left hand side. And I mean I guess I could go into a wee bit of detail about these pallid pirates with braided white beards and smouldering holes in their heads, and their imposing jet-black galleons, but it's hardly important at the moment because they're literally just about to be defeated offscreen. I guess you could interpret the laziness on my part as viewing the story from Theon's limited perspective, if for some reason you want to justify our shit writing.

With a shit load of off-screen fighting and yelling and cannon blasts and sprog antics, during which time Theon decided to cower behind a chunk of exploded mushroom masonry until the threat went away, the twelve-year olds had defeated the pirates and sent them running the fuck away again in their huge fuck-off boats (and that in itself is worth applauding, because these are some fucking big boats in a pretty small swamp river, so to escape with such haste and efficiency is most certainly praiseworthy). When Theon eventually crept out from behind his protective mushroom, he was greeted with the raincoat twelve year olds ready to greet him, their weapons held awkwardly in their wee sprog hands.

Old J stepped forward to greet Theon, rubbing his weird little insect hands together. Like you know that thing that flies do when they rub their hands together in a kind of nefarious manner? Yeah kind of like this. But Old J isn't a nefarious character, he was just washing his hands of sin so that he could properly address Theon, the one prophesied to come by Jesus, to possibly in some way help even though he's a terrible child.

'What the flippidy funk?' said Theon incredulously. 'What in the funk is going on here?'

'There is no translator in the world that can translate our thoughts. We all die alone.' Old J spoke without emotion.

'Oh ok', said Theon.

'Let's go kill a nasty pirate. Only one pirate. This pirates is the origin of all pirates.' Old J only really speaks in emotionless short sentences, he's a very intense hundred-year-old child.

Meanwhile, in the important story, the Sultans of Sin are teleporting all throughout the B&B, flipping over tables in anguish. Wherever they drift, black sand begins to pour from the walls and the air seems to shift and ripple in the wake of things that aren't truly there. The Sultans were most unhappy about the fact that they had been awoken abruptly and they wanted to take out their sleepy angst by wrecking this B&B, but Milkshake had already done a pretty good job at wrecking it before they'd even gotten there. So they strove to wreck the room even more, because y'know that's all they can be expected to do. As the Sultans used their arcane nastiness to beat up clocks and teapots and armchairs and stuff, they shouted at one another in their recognisably dumb voices. 'MURDER MURDER, DEATH DEATH, INFIDELS'. It is a most heinous scene and frankly I apologise that you, as the reader, have to bear witness to it. Honestly this neighbourhood has really gone down the shitter. If you vote for Politician-by-Heavenly-Appointment Puggins Sweaterson in the local election next month, we'll be sure to see an improvement in the crime rates in this town, that's for sure! But let's be honest, even the holy Sweaterson couldn't have articulated this shit. So you can deal with it.

Let us discuss the facial structure of Milkshake the monkey. He's a capuchin monkey, I think we've written already, but you may not know that his eyes are actually six inches apart. As he pulled himself out of the lake and ran the fuck into that B&B, he did a hop, a skip, and last but not least a stab into the back of one of them there Sultans. But this stab was ineffectual as fuck! Milkshake's already disgusting face went even more disgusting as it contorted in some negative emotion or another. It was an emotion that I would like to describe, as, grungled. It means sad. Oliver suggests that it is the sensation one experiences upon eating a wine gum (the red one), but fortunately Oliver is merely a figment of my imagination, and will hopefully fade away into my subconscious now that I have shouted him out. I wonder why my dogs bark at him when he doesn't exist? Hmm.

(Hopefully no one notices that it's been two months since we've done any work on this. We're jumping back in now.)

Yusef, being the murder man that he is, reached into the soft squishy confines of his pineapple head, and pulled out twenty small fiddly parts of the same gun in quick succession, which he then assembled faster than you can say the word, 'proletariat'. I mean that's a five syllable word, but I don't see you assembling a gun in five syllables time! Yeah fuck you Reader, you racist. Yusef reached into his pocket (which is bigger than you'd assume, looking at how well-tailored his sweet suit is), and pulled out a dented tin capsule marked with a small note saying 'Special Bullets'. In this small capsule were such extravagant bullets as the Anti-Big-Monkey bullet (NOTE: THIS DOES NOT WORK ON SMALL MONKEYS!), the Bench-Freer-in-Central-London bullet (which is a bullet that you fire to make any bench in central London free), the Big Shitty Bullet, the Minotaur-with-a-Brooklyn-Accent bullet, the Gargling-Mayonnaise bullet, and of course, the FUCK OFF SAND BULLET. Bingo! Yusef loaded that bullet into his gun, and with a satisfying *pop* fired that bitch into the knotted nasty turban of the nearest Sultan. With a hollow screech that rapidly lowered in volume like a cat being chucked down a laundry chute, the shot Sultan, of course being a rather sandy character, got definitively told to fuck off, and was helpless to the call as his sandy body sagged and crumpled and sizzled away, kind of like what happens to a bit of litmus paper when you piss on it. (In order to save you wasting bits of litmus paper, I should specify right now that according to my experiments (and a quick Google search), piss is at about a 6 on the pH scale. You're welcome).

The Sultan, having been forcibly fucked off back to whatever foul dusty palace realm that it usually chills in, had lowered the number of Sultans from three to two. Wait wasn't this building on fire earlier? Did we specify that the Sultans probably extinguished that with sand? I don't remember at all. I'm not going to go back and check. I can guarantee that in like ten years when I re-read all this marvellous fiction we have created, I'll be pissed off by this here possible discrepancy. To future me, and to the reader, I say, 'fuck off'. Anyway the remaining Sultans were less than pleased with the fact that their bro had been ejected from this reality via oddly specific bullet, and now made to advance on the remaining geezers.

'Wow, that was crazier than my economics class!' said Robin with a laugh.

'Quick, Yusef, fire more of those oddly specific bullets!' screamed Milkshake.

'I do not have any more of those bullets,' said Yusef, patting his pockets in order to check this fact.

'Quick lads, let us abscond with dignity!' shouted Robin, though such a statement was redundant as everyone was already running the fuck away.

As Robin looked around at all of his comrades and noted that they had already bailed, he was rudely interrupted when one of the surviving Sultans of Sin jabbed him so hard with one gnarly clawed hand that the arm went right the fuck through Robin's chest and out of his back. Robin, using pure charm and charisma, delivers a rakish grin so powerful that the shine off of his teeth temporarily blinds the bastard Sultan. Taking swift advantage of this window of opportunity, he lurches the Sultan's arm out of his own chest and snaps it in half like a twig. Because the Sultans are like bare old, and it's bare easy to hurt old people with brittle bones. Remember this if you ever need easy money. Robin then head butts the Sultan in its puffy turban so fucking hard that it splits like a soggy beanbag, and sand starts seeping out like sludge from a squashed frog. (Editor's note: if you want to see more visceral squashed frog action, go read Whiskers and Wheels chapter BLANK. Oh what's that, we didn't tell you the exact chapter? Well you better go read it all then.)

The Sultan was not too pleased about being smacked across the big fat head, and so in a trickle of sand skedaddled out of there. He was weakened, but not yet defeated! He would go and lick his sand wounds, which I can't imagine would be very nice because he'd have like a sandy tongue and that'd just be no fun at all. Imagine licking like one of those huge elaborate well-built sandcastles you see at sandcastle making contests. Imagine locking eyes with the creator of said sandcastle as you violate it with your tongue right in front of his sad tearful eyes.

Yusef, Milkshake and Violent Mog were hiding in a pillow fort. They could hear the last Sultan approaching them, though how they could have done this is a mystery, considering that he floats. Violent Mog, in his infinite drug dealer wisdom, decided to shuffle out of the pillow fort in a clandestine method. Shuffle shuffle he went on his belly, and as soon as he straightened himself up with a smile on his face, he was inconvenienced when he was riddled with the bullets of a submachine gun. Held in the hand of the remaining undamaged Sultan. Because magic is tiring I guess. The recoil of the gun must have been hell on his aching limbs and rheumatism or whatever the fuck else old people get. Violent Mog fell to the floor, the amethyst embedded in his skull making a satisfying clonk on the ground as he did so.

'Oh shit, what should we do?' whispered Milkshake, content in the knowledge that there was no way in hell that the Sultan could hear him whispering from inside the pillow fort.

Yusef was not paying attention, for he was methodically cleaning his gun at the speed of sound. Yusef was thinking to himself how easy it would be to shoot Milkshake right now; killing these geezers and collecting the bounty was literally the entire reason he was here. But there was also some sort of fucked-up magic man outside, and that was arguably the more important threat to eliminate first. There'd be other opportunities for murder yet.

Doing some sweet gun assembly montage, he aimed in a seemingly random direction out of the pillow fort and squeezed the trigger. What followed was a series of comic ricochet sound effects, followed by the sound of a sandbag being punctured and a Spanish yelp. Because of course Yusef had calculated the exact path that the bullet would take and, through a series of convoluted ricochets, would hit the Sultan right in the back of his nasty Sultan head. Unfortunately these were not the oddly contextual bullets that proved to be so effective earlier, but it was enough to elicit an unexpected shout of mild irritation from that cunt Sultan.

Yusef exploded from the pillow fort, scattering gaudy banana-coloured cushions everywhere as he leapt forward in a dramatic action pose. Arm outstretched, he fired his gun as quickly as his pineapple fingers could twitch, but though the bullets left large holes in the form of the Sultan that would have been devastating in any lesser life form, sand swelled and whorled to fill the gaps left by the bullets. Yusef ran past the Sultan who whipped around and slithered after him as he high-tailed it down the corridor. The pineapple bounty hunter spun around and fired at an overhead fluorescent light fixture, sending shards of glass and spark-spewing electrics raining down on the Sultan, but this did not stop its pursuit. Some other action shit occurred, involving gun spinning and exploding police cars and one roundhouse kick that was disappointingly ineffectual.

Eventually, Yusef found himself in a cramped kitchenette, his back to the wall, the Sultan advancing on him. His clip was empty, but he was fucked if he was going to die fighting some bullshit supernatural entity that he'd only been aware of the existence of for like twenty minutes. He started flinging open cupboard doors searching for anything that could potentially be repurposed as a weapon, and as luck would have it, he found a wee dinky cupboard tucked away in a corner. And what was in that corner, behind a mop and bucket and emergency jetpack? Why, a shelf full of hand grenades, used by Milkshake for cleaning out his sink. How very convenient! Of course, using hand grenades for any purpose other than the socially acceptable use of sink cleaning was most unethical and frowned upon by all hard-working citizens, but Yusef was one unscrupulous character!

The Sultan walked in, and Yusef handed him a hand grenade, and the Sultan, being one greedy goose, accepted it blindly, without seeing what it was! You silly ninny, it was a hand grenade with no pin! Oh you daft sod! Look, now it's exploded, and you're dead! And serious structural damage has been done to the B&B! And Yusef has been launched right the fuck out of the exploded hole in the building, to drift slowly down the lazy winding river! Better luck next time, you dastardly scoundrel!

Robin looked at the display of chaos and general shittiness around him with a big happy grin on his face. 'Now this is what I call a pretty piff party!' he exclaimed. 'Why, I haven't had this much fun since the Holy War! Oh, the screams were delicious! Haha!'

'This looks to be an unprecedented disaster of gigantic proportions,' said the thing in the bin. Yeah he's still here, don't acknowledge him. Robin sure didn't. He continued talking.

'Right now chums, now we've got this little bamboozle sorted out, let's go find the meaning of Christmas! Haha!' He looked around for the sprog that he was supposed to be guiding, and couldn't find him. 'Oh shit, where's the sprog?'

'Here I am,' said Theon, climbing out of a tupperware box. 'Jesus swept me away to go do an errand. I had to go defeat a pirate king. He appeared through a swarm of tittybats and had a big flaming hole in the middle of his head. There were children there with insect hands. I sorted it out though, don't worry.'

'That sounds significantly more interesting than what we went through,' said Robin, giving Theon an infernal noogie that set Theon's scalp ablaze. 'Now this had nothing to do with Christmas, so go to sleep until we arrive in Christmas Land.' Robin then put Theon in a chokehold until he passed out, at which point he was dropped on the floor and rolled along in the direction they were going in.

'Ere, where's Milkshake?' asked Robin.

'HERE HE IS, INFIDELS!' shrieked a Spanish accent! Holy shit, it was the injured Sultan! His name was Snooki, but the characters don't know that, so you as a reader are privy to some wacky new info! Count yourselves lucky! Snooki floated out all dramatic-like, and held in his nasty telekinetic sand grip was, horror of horrors, Milkshake! With one limp-wristed shake, Snooki summoned one nasty motherfucking SAND JAGUAR, which is the coolest shit. I want the sand jaguar to be a main character. Anyway the sand jaguar latches on to the vague air around Milkshake and starts wigging the fuck out, like proper going primal and shit, and Milkshake's luminescent banana-yellow soul began to drift and be dragged out of Milkshake's body! Even his soul hat joined him! (Okay fine, the hat is a karakul. I know you've all been fucking asking us this. And I know there was one fucking email saying, 'Hey Kim, you sexy man, what kind of hat does Milkshake have? I hope it's not a karakul.' Well fuck you Jake from Shropshire, it's a fucking karakul). The sand jaguar ripped this rancid monkey soul out of the floppy monkey body, and Snooki started laughing in Spanish. The noise he made was something like 'si si si si senoritaaaa!' There was maraca accompaniment.

'Ah… shit.' said Robin. 'That's bad. Don't do that.'

But it was already done.

And so Snooki said, 'AHAHA FUCK YOU WE HAVE HIS SOUL. IF YOU WANT IT BACK THEN YOU HAVE TO COMPETE IN THE CHALLENGE THAT WE ANCIENT SPANIARDS CALL 'EL RETO DELICIOSO'.'

'Oh fuck, that sounds Spanish.'

'Yeah but we should do it though. I know Spain can be scary, but we need to save our monkey friend!'

(Who are these two people talking? I don't know. I think it's just Robin talking to himself.)

'Yeah okay we'll do your challenge, even though the Spanishness of it scares us!' This was also Robin.

The thing in the bin offered no comment. I mean even if it did, we don't fucking care about what it has to say.

So they agreed to do the challenge, and we'll skip over the boring bits here, because it basically involves a long business trip to space Spain, and then they were made to sit in a room for twenty four hours with a box of Crunchy Nut cereal, and they weren't allowed to eat it. And I mean it was kind of difficult, but they managed it pretty easily. Robin might have eaten the entire box, but no one really even noticed. The Sultans have got better shit to be getting on with.

So then they all got out again. And Milkshake's soul was forcibly put back into his horribly deformed monkey body via jaguar. Everyone all stood and looked at Milkshake discernible, very annoyed at him for putting them all through that shit, when he could have instead just done the Crunchy Nut Challenge and no one would have had to have died.

'Hooray!'

'Hooray!'

'Hooray!'

BANG.

Milkshake's brains exploded all over the walls like a Pollock painting. Theon threw up, Robin screamed, the thing in the bin silently weeped, but he had been weeping the entire time because he was lonely.

They all looked up, and Yusef was standing there with a big fucking gun. He had shot Milkshake. Fuck.

THERE WE ARE

OK HOLY FUCKING SHIT

WE STARTED WRITING THIS ON THE 19TH OF APRIL

IT IS NOW THE 8TH OF JULY

SO YEAH THIS WAS NOT WORTH IT

MAYBE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE GOOD

NEVER TALK TO ME AGAIN BRUH