The Party That May or May Not Have Been
by
Malcolm Payne
"Waddayou lookin' at, chump?" Jax asked as he swayed uneasily from side to side. One eye was partially closed while the other was protruding madly from its socket. "I asskt you a question..."
The man's speech was badly slurred and he could barely stand upright. He was most obviously drunk. And the cybornetic ninja before him did not seem to notice all that much, or even care.
The machine was completely red, with the exception of black legs and arms, and a shiny, metal head. It was as expressionless as a smooth chunk of marble. LK-9D9, better known as Sektor, stood motionless, and silent. He watched carefully as Major Briggs began making threats envolving two gallons of gasoline and a twelve pound sledgehammer. But still he did nothing.
"What the hell iss the matter wit you, you red bastard?" Jax questioned, tapping the cyborg on the shoulder with his finger. "You awake in there, pal?"
Unbeknownst to the intoxicated Jax, Sektor could easily have taken hold of him and broken him in two equal halves. But the machine had decided against this particular course of action. He wanted to see where this was going.
I'll give him three more seconds, thought Sektor as the man began screaming in his face.
"C'mon, Jax! The festivities ain't over!" A hand reached out and grabbed Jax by the shoulder, leading him away from the red cyborg.
Lucky, the machine thought. And if he had had a mouth to do it with, he would have been smiling.
Kurtis Stryker had led the drunkened Major Briggs away from the dangerous cyborg, knowing it could have done any number of horrible things to him. And as entertaining as that would have been, he just couldn't have watched his friend become a large splat on the wall. Stryker was also drunk, but was thinking a tad more clearer than his pal. Jax swayed on his feet uneasily, very nearly knocking Stryker to the floor.
"Take it easy, man. More beer is on the way." Stryker's face twisted into a most horrifying grin.
"Waddabout chips?" asked Jax, stumbling over someone's loose shoe.
"There'll be chips too, man. Sonya just went to the super market. She got a ton of shit!"
The two men finally reached where the others were either passed out, dancing, drunk off their asses, or stripping.
When and why that party had started is irrelavant. What is important is what happened after things had kicked into high gear. To try and explain just what had led up to the unfortunate events which follow, we would only be dragging ourselves into another which-came-first argument. And that goes for religion, too! The point is: who cares why the party was? All that really mattered to the people who had attended was the booze.
Jax and Stryker stumbled through the crowd. As they passed they picked up small bits and pieces of different conversations.
"I'm just saying," Rayden was muttering, "that the series could have been saved had they not released the third game. I mean, come on! It sucked totally! And I wasn't even IN it!"
Kano nodded and took a small sip from his martini. "And that second movie was REALLY bad. Even worse than the first."
It was now Rayden's turn to nod. "MK4 was pretty cool, though. But did we REALLY need a game devoted solely to Sub-Zero? I mean, what the HELL was that all about?"
Kano shrugged and Rayden let out a sigh. He looked down at the wine cooler in his hand and then swallowed the remainder of it..
Sheeva was talking to Jade.
"... do I look fat?"
"Absolutely not," Jade lied.
"Hey, everyone!" Sub-Zero yelled to the croud as he leaped onto a table. "Check THIS out!"
Everyone turned and watched in drunken awe as the ninja fired a load of ice into the nearest spectator, Kung Lao. The unfortunate man stood motionless, entombed in ice. Suddenly, a chuckle arose from the croud, and a man appeared. He was dressed in yellow, and looked suspiciously like Scorpion. Sub-Zero's eyes turned cold as steel as he faced the mysterious figure.
"You bastard!" Sub-Zero screamed as he took a drunken leap toward the yellow ninja, firing a ball of ice as he did so. The yellow ninja avoided it swiftly, doing a perfect backflip over the crowd. Everyone turned to watch as the ball of ice struck a person just walking into the apartment.
"Hey, guys!" Johnny Cage said as he stepped through the door. "Reptile just spewed big chunks of--" WHAP! The deadly snowball struck Johnny Cage in the chest, forcing him into a wall. He let out a groan and then lay still.
Sub-Zero launched himself at the yellow ninja, striking him in the stomach with his fist. The yellow ninja just laughed, insanely, as he performed a roundhouse kick on Sub-Zero's face. He laughed even harder as Sub-Zero fell into a chair, impaling himself on one of its busted legs.
The ice ninja began to squirm, attempting to free himself from the piece of wood sticking through his liver. All watched as the man finally began to choke on his own saliva. And then, finally, after several minutes of painful blockage in his trachea, he died.
"That's the funniest fucking thing I've ever seen!" cried the yellow ninja, laughing merrily, like some sort of fucked-up Santa Claus.
"Fuck you, you ignorant fuck!" Jax blurted out as he rushed over to the ninja, beer in hand.
"Don't do it!" Stryker yelled. "You're still extremely intoxicated!!!"
Jax ignored his friend's pleas and landed a punch on the ninja's face. The ninja fell like a baked potato as Jax continued to thrash him using both his hands and feet. The crowd began to cheer as Jax forced his boot into the ninja's groin, causing him to scream like a schoolgirl. The crowd cheered even more when Jax grabbed the ninja by his mask and tore it off.
"That is one ugly fucker!" yelled Liu Kang, who had been sitting in a lawn chair at the back of the room the entire time, drinking a case of scotch.
All stared at the face that was not a face. Underneath the mask was a human skull, glaring out at everyone. The intoxicated group of partygoers gasped as the skull began to chuckle.
"Stupid bastards! I am infinite! I am invincible! For I am Scor--"
The talking skull was rudely inturrupted by a large explosion which tore its body to pieces. Jax was thrown clear of the blast, unlike the unfortunate Kung Lao who was blasted into a thousand icy pieces.
"Great!" someone from the crowd said. "Now we'll NEVER know who it was!"
After the smoke had cleared and the fire had put itself out, everyone looked to where the ninja once stood. There, strewn about the entire apartment, were bits and pieces of limbs and torso. Jax slowly got to his feet and directed his attention to a figure standing in the kitchen.
Sektor stood, motionless, his chest opened up like a can of tuna. Smoke curled from the compartment in his chest where a spare missile now sat. The cyborg's chest slid shut and the machine remained motionless.
"What an asshole," Sektor said.
Everyone stared, shocked into silence. And then the party resumed itself and all were drunk and stumbling about like brain-dead chickens once again. It did not stay that way for long, however. Everything was going absolutely terrific until a knock came at the door.
Sonya went to answer the door (she having arrived back from the super market seven minutes earlier). When she opened it, a yellow figure greeted her... with a massive kick to the face! The stunned woman flew through the air, crashing into the dining room table, reducing it to splinters. At first everyone thought it to be Scorpion, the unlucky bastard who had just been blown to pieces not ten minutes earlier.
"Where is Sektor?" questioned the cyborg Cyrax as he calmly stepped into the apartment.
"I'm right here, man!" Sektor cried merrily as he trotted over to his friend. "Where the fuck have YOU been?"
"Lost in a desert," Cyrax replied with a small shrug. "Goddamn sand got into my every nook and crevice. The damn stuff is drivin' me nuts!"
Cyrax's fist suddenly shot out and nailed Stryker in the forehead, knocking him down and out. Jax, in the john puking at that particular moment, did nothing to help his unconcious friend.
"Do you see what I mean?" said Cyrax. "I could suddenly snap and kill everyone here with a blunt object, or something in that nature."
"I get what you're saying," Sektor said, nodding. "Come, alcohol awaits."
The two cyborgs walked over to the refrigerator and retrieved two Budweisers from the top shelf. Sektor calmly tore the top of his can open and poured it into his now-opened chest compartment. He executed a sigh of pleasure.... just before smoke began to pour out of his body.
"Oh... shit," the cyborg muttered. "Icannotconsumeliquids!"
"What is it?" Jax asked, stepping out of the bathroom. "Heartburn or something?"
Sektor began to go into uncontrollable twitches and spasms, throwing Jax into the fridge and kicking the still-unconscious Stryker in the ass. After a few seconds, sparks began to fly madly from the machine's chest. Several moments later, Sektor fell over and landed on Stryker's legs, crushing them brutally. This woke the fallen cop instantly.
"Jeeeeeeeeeeeesuuuuusssssssss!!!" Stryker screamed as three to four hundred pounds of raw carnage landed on his legs. He sat upright and tried to push the machine off of him, but to no avail.
"Sektor, my comrade!" Cyrax exclaimed, getting to one knee. He carefully lifted the fallen cyborg off of Stryker's shattered legs and set it down a few feet away. Stryker grabbed at a chair for support.
"That's tough, man," Jax said as he stumbled over to where Cyrax now stood. The intoxicated man put his hand on the machine's shoulder. "You want a beer?"
"Sure," Cyrax said, reaching for the can of Coors Light in Jax's outstretched hand.
THE END???