The Irony Gods: Chapter 25

(Author's Note)

I guess you could say that I have coprastasophobia, only not of the bowels, but of the scribble gland… Um…for those of you too lazy to Google coprastasophobia, it's a fear of constipation. Go ahead and toss that into the next conversation you have. Pretend it's contagious and scare your neighbors. (Yes, I can spell coprastasophobia without looking at a piece of paper—I can also spell electroencephalograph. And antidisestablishmentarianism…and cat. XD) I love language as much as I love Mountain Dew. In other words, as I die of diabetes, I shall explicate my desire to be displayed as taxidermy in my own home in a manner befitting that of the great Cicero himself.

Quote(s) of the Day: "Do not float above me while I'm dying in the abyss!"—Dane Cook, Comedian

"A lot of people laughed at that joke. Do I deprive them of a good laugh just because they were born without souls?"—Daniel Tosh, Comedian

"You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentothal."—BumperSticker

Truth: Verisimilitude and Sodium Pentothal

(Houtou Castle—Evening)

Slinking through the long stone corridors, a shadowed figure progressed steadily towards its destination like a bloodhound on the trail of a fugitive. It sensed prey as an Osprey senses a fish slipping silently through shallow waters, the camouflaged back lending nothing to its defense. At the approach of a youkai soldier who turned around a corner headed for the resurrection room, the figure hesitated and slipped easily up the nearest wall and across the ceiling, where it sat motionless until the threat had passed.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Some minutes away in the lab of Professor Ni Jianyi, lit by the solitary glow of a single computer monitor, Dr. Hwan was in the midst of compiling a database of measurements and observations about the chi generator which would be closely studied for future use. The first few hours after activation were critical, and the levels had to be carefully maintained in order to keep the small, trapped being alive. Initial diagnostics had revealed unusually high levels of brain activity in the visual centers of its brain, but that may have been due to the expected arcs of blue electricity which had begun snapping and zipping across the metal surface of the machine an hour after activation. At its current stage, sparks of energy crackled between the coils only occasionally.

However, Hwan knew that his drop-off in outer activity was in no way an indication of a drop-off in inner activity, for while the sparks grew fewer and further between, the little peaks of the electroencephalograph Ni had implanted into the creature's brain intensified and multiplied exponentially. It was a testament to the human's incredible talents that he had pulled off flawless non-invasive brain surgery. But Dr. Hwan refused to admit this aloud.

There was only one test left to administer before she could prognosticate that the generator was fit for use in their designs.

But as she pushed away from the terminal and spun the chair around to start the test, a white-haired shadow stepped into the computer's stark bluish light and stopped her from getting up.

"Hey, Hwan!" Yumoa chirped enthusiastically, quickly grabbing the Doctor's wrists, and in a flash restraining them behind the back of the chair with a pair of handcuffs he had stolen from a sleeping night watchman outside of a mall in Lydia's plane. "I have a few questions for ya."

"What the—what are you doing!" she cried indignantly, struggling against the cuffs to no avail. Of all the mishaps she might have expected, this was certainly last on her list. Yumoa wasn't even remotely near her threat radar. "I'm not telling you anything."

"Oh, hush. Yes you will," he chided as though scolding a child—which was ironic, since Hwan was the one who saw him as childish and noisy. "Hold still while I give you the shot."

"Shot? What shot? Stop that!" Calmly, with a cheerfully blank smile, he spun her chair enough to offer one of her arms, and without even moving her white coat sleeve out of the way, stuck a small syringe into her upper arm and injected a clear fluid.

"Okie, dokie!" He grinned and pulled up a second chair, leaning his elbows on his thighs while he sat with his fingers laced loosely before him, as would a concerned psychotherapist. "I've just injected you with sodium pentothal—truth serum. Honestly, I'm not sure how it'll hold up to a youkai's metabolism, but it's worth a shot anyway—get it? Worth a shot? Heh-heh-heh…oh, I love my job."

"You…traitor!" Hwan's slowly deadening eyes sent him a farewell glare before losing light and going vacant.

Yumoa merely smiled, and there was a touch of mischief in his flame-colored gaze. "I can't be a traitor if I haven't chosen a side now, can I?"

Hwan didn't reply, as his question was rhetorical and did not require an answer.

Yumoa rubbed his hands together, thoroughly pleased with the results of his homemade truth serum. The tank of laughing gas had been his backup, but since he clearly didn't need it now, he made a mental note to bring it to Lydia's next birthday and fill a bunch of balloons with a mixture of laughing gas and helium. Not only would people talk in high-pitched voices, they would be incapable of holding in their laughter. Ideas like this gave him a sense of purpose, and the mere thought of carrying out such a plan made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

He placed Bob to sit on the desktop beside him and turned back to Hwan, smirking like a kid with fireworks. "Just to be sure that the serum is working properly, I have to run a couple of tests," he informed the inattentive Doctor. "Now, my dear Hwan, could you tell me your name?"

"Doctor Hwan," responded the Doctor without hesitation.

"What's the answer to life, the universe, and everything?"

"Forty-two."

"Wow, so it really is," he mused. He pouted a little, thinking hard on a final test, then gasped and grinned, "Who really crashed your computer and corrupted eighty percent of your data files?"

The corners of her eyes tightened, and her brows came closer together behind her glasses. She'd been telling everyone that Yumoa had done it, and he wanted to be certain that she wasn't completely deluding herself. Plus, the conniving god just found it plain hilarious that she had done all the damage on her own while attempting to prevent him from doing exactly that.

Her mouth barely moved, "I did."

"Sweet! It works!" Comedy did a little dance in his chair, then snapped back to his purpose for being there and said with a straight face and serious eyes, "Where is Higeki?"

"She is in the resurrection chamber." Her voice had gone completely monotone.

He raised one brow in mild surprise. "With whom, may I ask?"

"Chitsujo and Professor Ni are discussing the processes involved in resurrecting Lord Gyumaoh, and she is assisting in their search for answers."

"Huh. Typical of her, getting all wrapped up in Chitsujo's funky machinations." He frowned at a paperclip, picked it up, and started fiddling with it. "I should really take her to Disneyland. I think all that time on Acheron was simply not good for her. What do you think? Disneyland?"

"I don't know what Disneyland is," replied the drugged Doctor, staring vacantly at the air.

He lit up and set down his paper clip smiley face. "Really? I'll take you too, then! It's a theme park, and it's REALLY fun! Wanna come with us?"

"Not particularly."

His smile frowned. "Aww, I like it better when people lie a little. Don't you think bending the truth is nicer than brutal honesty?"

"Sometimes."

He sighed and glanced over his shoulder at the giant tank of nitrous oxide, then twirled the chair around and stood up. "And I suppose the crazy man, Chitsujo, and yourself are preparing the chi generator as we speak, eh?" Pinching the clear tube shut, he drew out the hose and opened the valve the slightest bit, leading the nosepiece over to where the Doctor was passively restrained.

"The generator is completed. The Professor is sending it out tonight."

Yumoa almost dropped the hose, but caught himself quickly and straightened up, squaring his shoulders and turning to face Hwan with a twitchy smile. "R-really? Is that s-so?" He blinked and frowned, his eyes darting from right to left in worry, then falling back on the Doctor with a sharp glint. "Where is Akhlys—I mean Ákùmu?"

"In the generator."

He grimaced and stamped his foot in frustration. "Oh, damn!—oops!" Quickly, he covered his mouth and glanced around to make sure no one had heard him curse. Hwan wouldn't remember it, and Bob was the only other present, so he lowered his hands and took a deep, steadying breath. "Oh, man, Kon's gonna kill me…How did you all get it done so early?"

"The reaction chamber worked more quickly than we had originally expected."

"Shoot. I hadn't considered that possibility. Well, looks like I'll be sticking around." Resuming his previously interrupted duty, he brought the nosepiece over to Hwan and banded it behind her ears before undoing the cuffs which he intended to return to the kind unconscious night watchman.

Comedy gave Dr. Hwan a few minutes to breathe the gas and let it take effect, removing it only when he was absolutely positive that she would be incapable of coherent speech for the next four hours. By the time he had banished the cuffs and nitrous oxide tank back to his realm, the doctor's head was lolling around her shoulders, trying to raise upright and failing miserably. Her short, bouncy hair made her look like she had just woken up. The best she had managed so far was a move like slow-motion whiplash.

Seeing this, he decided that it would be best if she didn't try that again. As a Comedy god, he set very strict regulations for himself, one of which being that he would never allow someone to die as a result of his actions. On other words, whenever someone did die as a result of his actions, he denied all involvement.

He removed her glasses and set them on the desk, then removed her from the chair and placed her on the floor, where she was least likely to break her own neck.

"Now what should I do?" The looming presence of the generator caught his attention, and the flames in his eyes flickered in recognition. "Well look at the obvious giant sinister object sitting in the center of the laboratory," he muttered dryly, somewhat disappointed with everybody's lack of imagination. "You'd think they could have at least hidden it in a dark, secret lair. Any cliché is better than squat diddly."

But this minor letdown was no reason for him to get sidetracked—he had to lie low for now and wait for Chitsujo and Higeki to return. If he was lucky, Order or the crazy guy would let slip some way to free Ákùmu.

"Hang tight, Uncle Akhlys!" he whispered to the machine before going invisible and receding into the shadows once more.

Hwan gurgled and giggled at the pink elephants, her arm flopping in a senseless wave. She was not going to be happy once the drugs wore off.

(Final Preparations for Departure)

"Pack more food!"

"Shut up…"

"Hakkai, where's the teriyaki sauce?"

"Silence, monkey!"

"All the sauces and spices are over by the pots and pans."

"Hey, stupid cockroach, I put those dumplings in my pile!"

"I don't see your name on it."

"I said shut up!"

"Right there! I wrote my name right there!"

"I'm going to kill you all…"

"You call that writing? That's gibberish! Those aren't even words!"

"Now, please, let's not be so rude."

"Bastard, you take that back!"

"I SAID SHUT UP!"

Sanzo, who had been sitting relatively peacefully at the table with a beer, a cigarette, and a periodical, exploded into action, leaping up onto his chair with one foot on the seat and one on the back, balancing it on the two rear legs and aiming the gun threateningly at the cowering duo beneath.

"If I have to listen to one more second of your inane bickering I'm going to beat you both to death and feed your bodies to the Stray!" he practically screamed. His other hand pointed at me on the opposite end of the table.

One of my eyes twitched, and Konran chuckled behind his fist at my expense. "Cannibalism, eh? I knew you were clinically insane, but criminally insane ended at age nine, didn't it?"

"Watch your back, ass-hat," I groused, restraining my temper for now. "I'll happily cut you up and eat your liver."

"I'm immortal. I can't die."

I let go of an evil little giggle and turned to him sitting two seats down with a dangerous smirk. "I didn't say you'd be dead when I did it."

Goku, Gojyo, and Sanzo all went silent and were suddenly back to whatever they had been doing before the monk's temper had snapped. Cannibalism was one thing, but one would prefer the sentient meal to be dead at the time of consumption. Pansies…

But whatever. I had bigger fish to fry…or people…did fried people taste like chicken? Flashbacks of that movie Alive zipped through my head, but nothing in my repertoire of cinematic recollections hinted at it. I made a mental note to watch the movie again whenever I returned to my world.

"Hey, Kougaiji?" I called over to the restless prince, who was clearly anxious to get on with their obscure plan. He halted in mid-step between his group's bag of supplies and his sister as she headed back into the kitchen to scrounge up whatever food hadn't already been hijacked by the monkey and the kappa.

"What is it?" he replied, trying not to sound too impatient.

"So, just to recap, we five get the cramped Jeep, and you four get to ride two cool dragons…and the socially inept deity over yonder gets to hang out all by his lonesome, correct?"

Sharp lavender eyes blinked slowly, separating the insults from the actual questions, and at length he murmured slowly in reply, "Well, yes. How else did you suppose we would do this?"

"Clearly, you suck at math worse than the pissy priest." I stated my version of the battle plan in all seriousness. "Me, Goku, Lirin, and Hakkai get the Jeep. The rest of y'alls fend for yourselves in the untamed wilderness of Togenkyo, of course. Naturally, Konran will remain alone and unloved for the rest of eternity."

"Hey!"

Kougaiji glanced at the disgruntled god, then back at me, and sighed. "That's ridiculous. You three would drive Hakkai out of his mind."

"I dunno. That guy's got quite the tolerance."

"Eh-heh-heh…Is it really necessary to talk about me as if I'm not here?"

Yaone intervened before the prince could add anything further, "It sounds like an interesting idea, but the plan we've formulated wouldn't work any other way. Besides, I'm supposed to be in charge of Lady Lirin, and I can't do that if she's so far from me."

"Gah! Thwarted by the babysitter, Goku!"

"Crap!"

"Yeah, I know. Looks like we'll have to wait on Twister." I gave Yaone the disappointed pout she deserved, but already she was distracted by Kougaiji's request for help with the checklist. Dokugakuji was off preparing the two dragons for our (their) morning departure. Lirin was with him, perhaps bringing about the end of the world via hyperactive, unrealistically egomaniacal revenge plots against the ones who threatened her realm.

Much to my annoyance, Konran had awakened sometime around four and formed a temporary impromptu cabal while I had been on the roof with Lirin and Goku seeing the sights, resulting in my exclusion from all mysterious planning sessions. This irritation was a natural byproduct of being brushed aside like an insect (namely, the detested mosquito), but I stored it away regardless, intent on allowing it to fester inside as a mental illness, to be used in the future whenever the god decided to break the last straw.

In other words, I had no idea what they all had planned, but I was fairly certain that I was going to blame Konran for everything that went wrong. Life was simpler with a stool pigeon.

"Umm, Sanzo?" Goku murmured sheepishly, slowly edging beside his master with wide, uncertain eyes.

"What." It wasn't even replied as an inquiry, so much as a vector to convey the underlying threat of bodily injury for interrupting his peace.

"Well…didja find out what's actually happenin'? I mean, what's Chitsujo gonna do to wake up Gyumaoh? An' why's the plan so secret?" He asked in earnest, and I listened closely, wondering if the monk would ever actually give up a straight answer.

He took his time turning the page, making plenty of noise with the crinkly newsprint—or maybe rice paper? I hadn't examined his reading material yet—and took another long, deep drag of his precious cigarette. Three minutes after that, he replied, "We know enough to make a move. You'll have to ask Konran if you want specifics." And just like that, the shortest conversation I had ever seen was over.

Not one to be easily deterred from his intent, Goku promptly turned his attention to the god, who frowned slightly and gave him a sidelong arch of a brow. "What are you looking at?"

"Do you even know what your sister's got planned or are you just draggin' us around to help you beat her?" he responded guilelessly. Even the Kou Crew (easier to spell than the Kougaiji Gang, and much more euphonious) hesitated in their movements to stare at the forthright monkey.

Konran's frown deepened, but the arch was gone and replaced by a widening of the eyes. "Both, but for different reasons than what you think. I know what she plans, and I need your help to stop her. Yet it is not for my own personal gain, but to clean up this mess I've caused. I've already told you that I'm not evil."

I snorted in interruption, "So says the creep who keeps appearing in my bed while I'm asleep. Uninvited, might I add. I don't believe you."

"It's my bed, too!" he defended instantly.

"Pervert," was my only response to that statement.

Luckily for Konran, Hakkai tactfully interrupted, "Regardless of Konran's intent, It's obvious that Chitsujo has grim plans for our world, and being the only ones who have any idea as to what's going on, it's our responsibility to do something about it. We can argue over Konran's virtue another time…though I do find it distasteful that he keeps invading Lydia's bed." He smiled, and was completely reasonable throughout, but for that last bit he gave the god a dangerous look bordering on the psychotic—and I know psychotic.

Chaos seemed visibly shaken, and conveniently excused himself to go to the roof and have a look around the perimeter of the castle to "ascertain that there was still no motion in the West". He did this a lot, especially whenever Hakkai looked at him like that.

Now that he was out of the way, I turned to Sanzo.

"How come you guys are keeping the plan from us? Did he tell you what Chitsujo was doing? This morning, before I came down for breakfast, he mentioned that he sensed something was up."

He frowned over the top of the business section and replied more than a little gruffly, "Because apparently you're not allowed to know. Very simple. He did say a few things about his sister, but I'm not telling you anything. Go ask him. He's your guardian, after all."

"Guardian? Have you lost your marbles? The day I start answering to that arrogant bastard is the day Tartarus burns and pigs obtain jet-propulsion. Now gimme answers!"

"No."

"Dammit! Hakkai, talk some sense into him! Are you guys gonna try and kill me off? Is that it? And how the crap are we gonna get all the way to Houtou Castle? I mean, holy hell, it's taken you guys a year so far and you're barely halfway there!"

Hakkai looked up from feeding Hakuryu and blinked at me in what appeared to be surprise—or maybe condescension. (Both, actually, whispered my brain.) "We're not going to Houtou Castle. That's much too far. Lucky for us, Chitsujo is bringing her plan near enough to reach within a day or so."

Ah-HA! "So it's not something in the castle? What is it? Is it food?"

"Why the hell would it be food?" demanded Gojyo, poking his head above the table and staring at me in shock. "You've been spending too much time bonding with the monkey."

I shrugged. "Maybe she wants to poison us? And just because I like food doesn't mean I'm infected with Goku's Bottomless Pit Syndrome. It just means I'm deluding myself with the thought that maybe it will be something as easy to deal with as a plate of blueberry cheesecake bait sitting in the middle of an empty desert wasteland. Weirdo."

"Crazy woman…" He sweatdropped, but ducked down and made it go away before I could leap over the table and tackle it from him…meany.

"Speaking of cheesecake, did the resident social reject mention anything concerning Yumoa's whereabouts?" I asked everyone. "He did kind of leave without any sort of thorough explanation."

"What does that have to do with cheesecake?" Hakkai queried.

"It alludes to his sporadic nature."

"Oh…no, there was nothing about him in our planning. Konran seems to think that he can take care of himself, and chances are, he knows more about this than anybody." He fell into a musing silence as he stood to take the empty dish of roasted meat—Hakuryu's dinner—to the kitchen-slash-war room. The tiny dragon followed faithfully, chirping and fluttering right behind his master.

I was beginning to get the feeling that I'd obtain nothing useful from anybody.

"It's like the freaking CIA in here," I muttered to myself. I couldn't wait to get moving.

(Houtou Castle—Resurrection Chamber)

Professor Ni had just finished explaining the resurrection method to Higeki and Chitsujo when one of his remote sensors picked up a disturbance in the lab. More specifically, it was the remote sensor that kept track of Dr. Hwan's every move, as well as her vital signs.

Either the Doctor had taken up opium or something had happened, but her life itself didn't seem to be at risk, so he patiently listened to Chitsujo and Higeki for their input of what was going to happen with the demon lord.

"Leave all this equipment as it is," instructed the Goddess of Order, indicating the immense presence of Gyumaoh himself. "You designed it well to channel the energies into his dormant state, and once the generator begins emitting the chi waves, it will take approximately eighteen hours to go to completion—possibly less, seeing as how the reaction chamber is conducting the power much more efficiently than originally predicted."

"Hmm…and so now all we have to do is bring it out there. Hwan should be done with the diagnostics testing by now. Shall we go make arrangements for transport?"

Higeki's dark electric blue eyes focused up on him and seemed to see straight through to his inner thoughts, but his poker face remained pleasantly scheming. He was Lady Koushu's favorite, a genius, and a veritable ghost to the outside world. He was the safest human in Togenkyo.

"Remain cautious, Ni," murmured the little Goddess with a warning glint in her fathomless gaze. "The power within that generator is beyond anything you have ever seen, and without proper precautions it could easily destroy this entire land."

Order gave her a severe look. "The child is beyond the realm of consciousness, Higeki. Until we activate the second phase, the generator is perfectly safe."

Higeki was unperturbed. "I would still prefer that all precautions are taken anyway."

"Oh, I think I can handle it. I don't intend to be the one who gets swallowed up." An enigmatic smirk quirked the edge of his mouth and tipped his cigarette up, the glowing tip sending wispy, evanescent threads of smoke into the air. "Shall we go back to the lab and prepare the generator now?"

(Ni Jianyi's Laboratory)

Yumoa hated waiting. He couldn't do anything yet, not even play with his Gameboy SP, without jeopardizing his mission. As interesting as the generator was, he couldn't get in, and knew also that even if he could, chances were that Akhlys would try to kill him…or worse. Uncle Akhlys was the only god who wasn't immortal in the usual sense. In other words, he could die of injury or old age just as any other human could, but was always reincarnated with the same memories. He was one of the original gods, brother of the long-gone parents of Konran and Yumoa, but for very good reasons, he was normally kept in solitary confinement, where his immense abilities over the dead could be contained in the depths of Tartarus.

But now the game was different. Chitsujo had freed him from the cell and was now using him as her power source. Time was of the essence, and it was only good fortune that saved them all from the horrors of his abilities. As an infant, his powers could be controlled by outside forces, rather than by the god himself, but the level of release was entirely up to him. This was the reason for the massive power coil apparatus. Without it, they had no way to manage the flow.

He sighed, utterly bored, and while shifted out of the visual realm, he perched atop a file cabinet beside Konran's pet raven. It gave him and Bob a perturbed look, then sidestepped a couple of paces away.

"Just because you can see me doesn't mean you have to be so cruel, Rhad," muttered the lackluster comedy god. "Kon will come back for you once Lydia's safe."

The bird grumpily ruffled his feathers, and would have made a smart-aleck reply, but it was then that the door opened and drew both their attentions to the Professor, Higeki, and Chitsujo as they entered the lab, flooding the room with the hallway light and illuminating the semi-conscious Doctor on the floor. All three halted and stared at Hwan.

"My, someone has been busy while we were away," snickered Ni, somehow catching the glare of a light coming from the hall with his lenses—the absolute opposite direction necessary, according to the common understanding of light, to create a glare.

Yumoa raised a dubious brow. Physics certainly favored the dramatic in this realm—that was for certain. No wonder he found it so easy to teleport all over the place without getting tired.

"She is alive and conscious," Order observed with robotic emptiness, stepping over to the prone figure and scanning for any signs of foul play. There were none visible, but she detected the faintest scent of nitrous oxide. "Someone has drugged her. Ni?"

The Professor wore a jaded expression. "It wasn't me, if that's what you're wondering…it seems that we have an intruder in our midst." As though this weren't much of an emergency, he seated himself at the now-vacant computer monitor where Hwan had been compiling the data collected over the course of this endeavor. Plus, the Knights had returned at last, and had brought along with them all the data he needed on that strange girl Konran liked so much.

Chitsujo also felt it was prudent to move on with the preparations. Once certain that Hwan would be fine within a few hours—she was, after all, one of only two people in this realm capable of understanding the complex biophysics utilized by the generator—she looked around the lab itself. After several moments, her gaze landed on Rhadamanthus, Konran's pet raven and keeper of thought. Because of the bird's stern and uncompromising personality, he had been named after the Underworld Judge of the same appellation. And because he was Konran's pet, Chitsujo was incapable of harming him. Lucky bird.

"Where is he?" she said flatly to the dark fowl.

Rhad merely shot her a cold glare and took off into the air, zipping out through a wall while absolutely nobody reacted in a manner befitting such a bizarre occurrence.

Yumoa silently thanked the bird for not revealing his position, and listened in as Chitsujo dismissed the threat and reviewed all the procedures for activating the generator, before giving the command to have it sent out immediately and set up in the preordained destination.

Once it had gone, and the Doctor had been sent to a doctor of different sorts—much to Yumoa's endless amusement—the Comedy god remained in the humming, deserted lab and pondered hard on what to do about this latest dilemma. First, however, he would have to get his sister away from these crazy people and back to the other crazy people. He trusted Sanzo and Kougaiji to make the right choices in a situation like this, whereas Higeki would simply ride it out and do as she was told. She wasn't safe with the Professor and Chitsujo.

Meanwhile, at the same time, Chitsujo pondered silently on how to get rid of Yumoa once and for all…

…Ni pondered boastfully on how to destroy the Sanzo-ikkou in the most entertaining way once and for all…

…Higeki pondered on what to have for dinner…um, once and for all…

…and Rhadamanthus pondered on how to remove Konran's head once he found his pet-abandoning master. (A/N: Screw it. I need an MD.)

And far, far, FAR away, Lydia was asleep…quite possibly the only one not pondering anything whatsoever.

(Author's Note)

Do you hear it? That's the sound of my frazzled, writers' blocked, constipated brain turning into something the consistency of warm Jell-O…it sloshes around in my cranium whenever I get like this. Up next…or at least SOON: Army of Darkness! Long live Jambi! I LOVE REVIEWS. FEEED MEEE CHOCOLATE! Sorry this took forever to post…my longest hiatus EVER. I'm so ashamed!

—Cyh Scævola, the Chaos Theoryst OUT