"And we just delivered the dragon," I said to my Dethphone, walking down a hall. "It's not going to catch fire like what happened the last time, is it? No, we cannot afford to get another dragon. Not to mention, we have to keep Dethklok far away from this one. The last one got destroyed because they got drunk and rode it like a horse. No, we're not making the dragons wear saddles. We don't need dragon riders - oof!" I bumped into something. Wait, not something, someone!

"Hey," a skinny man said. "I don't care how much you want to see Dethklok. You have to wait in line like everyone else!" Line? I took another look. There was a line of people in the middle of the hall!

"First of all," I said. "I work here. Second, WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MORDHAUS?!"

"Duh," a pudgy girl said. "It's International Deth Fan Day!"

I blinked. "Oh, right. Forgot about that." International Deth Fan Day was the day where the circus freaks came out of their cages and got into the audience according to Dethklok. All over the world, the fans the band hated more than anything else would gather at Mordhaus to be given a grand tour of the studios and were warned not to touch anything otherwise, they would be shot. One major problem was the fans get in the way of business. Like right now. I couldn't get to my room with this long line of nerds in the way. "Well," I said, trying to be polite as possible. "Could you at least make room to let me pass? I've got to get to my work space."

"No way!" a mother shouted. "My boy and I waited over twelve hours in line to get into Pickles' room and we're not going to move!"

Okay then. I guess I was taking the long way.

(!)

"There you are," Mr. Offdenson said. "You're 20 minutes late."

"Sorry. It's just, I had to take the long way and swim through a sea of rabid Dethklok fans."

"Well," he said, like it meant nothing. "Did you remember to use the fire escapes to get by them?" Oh. "Well, we're twenty minutes behind schedule," he said. "So I need you to do the animation for Facebones when the tour starts." Facebones was a talking cartoon version of the Dethklok skull who was the host of the Mordhaus tours.

"Okay. Have you got someone to do the voice?"

"Yeah. He's just finished recording his lines."

"Oh, good."

"By the way," Mr. Offdenson said, as I prepared the Facebones animation. "Speaking of rabid, how are the nightmares?"

Oh, yeah, that's right. For the past several days, after I gave that "Totally Awesome Sweet Alabama Liquid Snake" to the labs, I experienced frightening nightmares. Strangely, it was always the same one: the band surrounding me, clad in armor that belonged in Dungeons And Dragons with fire surrounding us and a voice in the distance saying, "The Metalocalypse is upon us..." And then I would wake up screaming. Mr. Offdenson thought it might have been from me licking that tiny amount of the stuff.

"Yeah. It's not that bad," I lied. "By the way, did the boys in the lab find out what was in that?"

"They couldn't trace the source of it," he said. "But they say that the drug isn't the kind you can find in the streets or in the cartels."

"So, who made it?"

"We don't know yet, but the boys in the lab did make a very disturbing description of it: a mind control serum."

"But...why am I not under mind control?" I asked, worried.

"The boys say that you consumed too minimal a dosage for it to take affect," he theorized. "But that should prove a lesson to you: don't take anything Dethklok gives you."

"I won't." A loud scream was heard outside. "Another fan?"

"Yep."

(!)

"It's being called the ticket of the century. Mordhaus, the home of Dethklok will be open to the public for the first time... in celebration of this year's International Dethfan Day. Banks have closed because customers are withdrawing all their life savings... in an attempt to purchase one of these coveted tickets. An official statement from Dethklok calls this... 'a psychotic day of insane celebration for regular jackoffs.'"

The tribunal watched the news footages. Senator Stampingston was the first to report, "Dethklok is opening their home to their fans. It seems that their popularity is still growing at an alarming rate. We get most of our Dethklok information by monitoring over 100,000 fan web sites... the biggest of which being diefordethklokdotcom, run by the Jomfru brothers Eric and Edgar." The senator showed an image of two young men: Eric, the tall and skinny one and Edgar, the fat one confined to an electric wheel chair with a computer. "They dropped out of Harvard to become dedicated Dethklok fans. Their web site alone gets more hits than all of South America."

General Crozier decided this pair of nerds could be useful. "We can interrogate them later and find out what's really inside Mordhaus."

"Yes..."

(!)

"Okay, people!" I shouted to the Klokateers. "The first wave of tourists are arriving on the train! Activate Facebones!"

"Yes, sir!" A Klokateer pressed a button on the computer. If all went well, Facebones would appear on the train's TV and tell the fans the rules of Mordhaus. "Activate the video monitors," I ordered. "I want to make sure Facebones is keeping them placid and under control."

"Yes, sir!"

A large screen lowered and turned on live footage of the group. A talking skull with horns appeared on the train's monitors and spoke in a high pitched voice. "Hey, pals! It's me, Facebones! Welcome to Mordland, home of the international metal band Dethklok. Now, we got a big list of dos and don'ts because we at Mordland like to run a really tight ship! Remember: our snipers have new.50 caliber rifles that can kill you from almost 3 miles away." The footage cut to a Klokateer shooting a thief. "Yikes! And remember: deadly force is authorized, so do not ever enter into..." Static interrupted the speech.

"What happened?" I demanded.

"Signal's cut off," a Klokateer said. "Hold on." He gave the computer controlling the program a smack and Facebones came back.

"And you have to use the restroom, make sure and don't go into the..." Static. A smack fixed that. "And remember: no recording devices or cameras will be allowed or your life will be terminated." The footage cut to two Klokateers catching a man with camera glasses and a wire and proceeded to pummel him before returning to Facebones. "Now, Dethklok has decided to allow you to listen to one secret song to be played one time only for you, the fans!"

The fans cheered except for two individuals with stern looks: a tall, lanky young man accompanying a fat older man in a mechanized wheel chair with a computer.

"Keep a close eye on those two," I ordered to Klokateer guards.

"Yes sir!"

(!)

"God damn it!" I shouted, once again blocked by a line of fans. "I can't get around anywhere! This place is getting more tighter than Hank Hill's narrow urethra!" Thankfully, there was one place that wasn't lined up with fans: the dining hall. There, I found the band, drunk out of their minds except for Toki, who was building a model jet.

"Why do I drink so much before stupid Fan Day?" Nathan slurred.

"I believe you drink because it's Fan Day," pointed out Murderface.

"Don't talk to me about that. Wait, where's Skwisgaar?"

"Oh, I don't think he's gonna be here for a while," said Toki. "He have a very big night with a very 'huge' fan."

"How huge?" I asked.

"Hippo."

"Ah."

"Yeah, we were all up late," groaned Nathan.

Toki said as he adjusted his model, "Not me. I actually gots good rest."

"Will you please be quiet," groaned Pickles, clearly not through with his hangover yet.

"What's wrong, Pickle? You just need to eat something. Your name is Pickle. Maybe you should try a pickle-herring sandwich, famous from Oslo!"

The moment the guitarist put the sandwich on the drummer's plate, Pickles turned green in the face and tried to make a run for it, only to find the exit blocked by fans. He slammed the door on their faces. "God! Everywhere I go, there's fans everywhere. Can't I just throw up in my own house?!"

"Oh, God! Don't! What are you, bulimia?" asked Murderface.

"Oh, great," groaned Nathan. "Now you're gonna start a whole chain reaction puke-a-thon."

Pickles vomited, Murderface vomited, Toki vomited, I vomited, Nathan vomited blood...wait, blood?! I vomited all over Nathan's vomit, then the whole process started all over.

"Oh, blood puke," exclaimed Toki. "Good song title. Someone write that... Oh. That's right. We already wrote that. Good song though. It should go back in the set list."

Nathan looked pale. "Hey, you okay?" I asked.

"Oh," he groaned. "I think I need another liver transplant."

"ANOTHER?!"

"Yeah," Murderface said. "This is like the fifth transplant he's going to go through this month."

"Fifth?! How many does he have?!"

"About fifteen transplants a year."

"MEDIC!"

(!)

"Is everything ready?" I asked a Klokateer when I got to the stadium (finally!).

"The video's ready to be played," she said.

"Good. The fans are all gathered. Play the Facebones thing."

"Yes sir!"

A screen lowered down and the cartoon skull appeared. "Hey, guys! It's me, Face Bones! Now is the time you've all been waiting for... your very own exclusive, super duper exclusive... fan song and one-time-only song videooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Roll it."

*Cue Fan Song*

It was the epitome of hatred. The song basically taunted the band's fans, calling them hunchbacked 32-year-old virgins who live in their parents' basements and have no sex partner and that they should all just die.

Suddenly, my communicator went off. "Wood here."

"We got them, sir," a Klokateer on the other line said. "Those two nerds just finished recording the whole song."

"Bring them to the lounge. And tell Mr. Offdenson. I'm sure he would want to deal with the situation personally."

"Yes, sir!"

(!)

Nathan looked out the triangle window the conference room. "I'll be very glad when this is over with."

"If they only knew how much we hated them," Murderface said. "I mean, they just keep crawling back like groveling putrid stupid zombies that... well, just want to eat out brains that is our art."

"That's the price of being gods," I said. "The masses pray to you like idiots to give them what they want. And it doesn't matter how much you hate them, as long as they're happy, nothing else matters to them."

"Ugh," Pickles said. "I hate them so much." Suddenly, a Klokateer entered with the two nerds I was keeping an eye on. "Hey, what are you doing?!"

"He's in a wheelchair, my lords," the Klokateer said. "I didn't know what to do."

"That does not means you get free lunch for entrance to everything," scolded Skwisgaar.

"We are the Jomfru brothers," the fat one said. "Proprietors of diefordethklokdotcom."

Pickles didn't care. "Really? That's interesting. What are you selling? You know, handicap stuff?"

The skinny brother said, "No. We want you to pay for a good review on our web site."

"HAH!" laughed Murderface. "That's rich."

"We are the fans," the fat one threatened. "We have the power. Without us your precious brutality means nothing!"

"Take a walk," Nathan threatened back. "before I kill you."

"Not so fast, Mr. Explosion," the skinny Jomfru said, not at all intimidated by the vocalist. "Though I do appreciate your simplistic views of smashing that which you don't understand."

"Effective," agreed the fat one.

"Oh, come on! Screw that Internet crap," Pickles shouted. "I mean, come on, what is the Internet, you know?" He paused. "Seriously. What is the Internet?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "You've really got to keep up with the times, drummer boy."

"Perhaps," the fat Jomfru held up a tape. "you will give us more than a link when we debut this on our web site." It was the Fan Song. "We've taken the liberty of appropriating your exclusive song which is ready to be hyperlinked and sold exclusively on our web site with a single keystroke."

Murderface said, "How about we have a link to the bottom of the stairs... by me throwing you to the bottom of the stairs?!"

"I think not."

"You really don't understand how gods work, do you, Jomfru?" I asked. "As long as we give the commoners what they want, they don't care how much we hate them."

"But do you know what happens to the gods when the mortals turn on them?"

"They smite them."

"True," the skinny one said. "But what happens when you have nothing to hate?" Silence. "You NEED us so you can hate! Otherwise, you have no purpose in this universe."

There was a brief moment of silence. Then Mr. Offdenson faced me. "Get the money and meet us at the turret on the west side."

"Yes sir."

(!)

"Are they ready?" I asked in my earpiece.

"Yes, the Jomfru brothers and I are coming up the elevator. Is the money ready?"

"Yes." And by money, he meant the snipers all waiting to fire. "It's ready."

(!)

The elevator opened to a corridor with no roof. "Your money's way down there... behind that door. Can you see it? Hey, you better hurry up. Closing time is in two minutes. I'd serpentine if I were you," Mr. Offdenson warned before returning to the elevator.

"Why should we serpentine?" asked Edgar.

"FIRE!" I commanded.

Eric's face, brains and whatever was left of his skull splattered all over Edgar's chair and computer. Edgar shrieked. "Serpentine!" He obeyed Mr. Offdenson's warning and serpentined across the corridor, avoiding the snipers' bullets. When he arrived at the door, he found no money, but the special effects manager waiting for him.

"Congratulations," I said. "You're alive!" I punched Edgar in the face and tossed him out of the wheelchair.

"Wait," he groaned. "I have a spinal problem!"

"Tough luck," I said, dragging him into the room by his disused legs. He tried to grab onto something to keep him from being dragged, but a good tug stopped that. "You really should have listened to Facebones. We here at Mordhaus like to run a tight ship, which means there can be no distractions like you." I smiled wickedly. "Oh, and about the money? It's being sent to your parents to keep them quiet. No one's going to come looking for you."

"Wha..." the fat nerd whimpered. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Just think of this as your extended vacation away from your website." I gestured to two Klokateers. "Throw him in the dungeon. And ready the radiation suits for when we go to Krangor Island."

The Klokateers nodded. The last thing Edgar Jomfru saw was a Klokateer's boot colliding with his face.