Our Feature Presentation:
Philip Williams writes:
KILL PHIL
A rip-roaring tale of blood, death and fanfiction.
Chapter nine:
"Showdown at the House of Azure Flora"
Part Three
I'm going to try to describe what my exact feelings were at this moment in time.
Pretty eager I guess. Excited. I could feel one mother of a battle approaching.
Ten Krazy 88 bodyguards, formerly in black and white suits and Kato masks, lie dead all over the room; over tables, on the dance floor, face down in the decorative ponds… you get the idea. One of Phil's protégé, Sofie, has wriggled behind a pillar. I believe she's trying to nurse the still bleeding stump of her arm. Helen, Garnet and Rubus stand as gods at the top of the staircase to the private rooms. Damn I hate them. The ten Krazy 88 members are dead, but right now, I don't think that's the whole membership. There's a lot of motor noises outside, or was. Now there's just the march and stamp of shoes. Sounds like an army. The Beloved Fool thinks she's won.
Maybe she has. That's what I thought at the time.
It is time…
The rest of the Krazy 88 burst in. All one-hundred and forty of them.
Helen's smile was pure evil.
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PRESENTING
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"Crazy Uma Thurman look-alike, I want you to meet…" said Beloved Fool.
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Available to the public…
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"…the rest of my bodyguard…"
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For the first time…
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"…as well as the Krazy 88, they are also known as…"
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"THE TOMS"
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"The Toms?" said Tcutla in disbelief.
"That is the true name of the Krazy 88. Did you not wonder why they changed from cosplay to uniform so gracefully?"
"I thought they were just a myth, the mystical beings that fought their own kind in the Tower of London…" Tcutla looked at the bloodied ACROSS Blade. "I thought I might have to come against them. That was why I forged this blade after all."
"But a part of you never expected to actually fight them?" said Beloved Fool, enjoying a delicious feeling, like a bloodhound cornering a helpless animal. "Tell me, what do you know about The Toms?"
"I know that I just killed ten of them easily enough. Given the lack of any real difficulty, how much harder could killing fourteen times that number be?"
"I'd smirk and say fourteen times harder," said Helen. "But what makes you think you actually killed any of them?"
Tcutla looked around the room. Various Toms of the Krazy 88 had gathered around the bodies of their fallen brothers. Tcutla noticed that they really did all look the same. They might as well be the same person. But then again, if the stories are true…
"What are they doing?" said Tcutla.
Helen tapped her nose knowingly. Her body language conveyed a sense of wait and see. She was very smug.
Around the room, one of the Toms held his hands of the body – or pieces – of one of the ten fallen Toms. Then, as one being, the groups all shouted the same phrase.
"REVIVE!"
There was a bright flash of light in ten different points in the room. Body parts reassembled, limbs reattached, cuts healed, organs repaired. The ten dead Toms got back up, grabbed their weapons, and joined their brethren at the foot of the staircase, just out of the bloodied dance floor. Tcutla was shocked.
"I'm gonna ask you a question," said Tcutla, to Helen. "And I want a simple answer since I don't understand, read, enjoy or even like fanfiction. Just what the hell are these things?"
Helen opened her mouth to speak, but one of the Toms in the front butted in.
"I'll handle this!" he shouted. His demeanour then shifted from loud to quiet and reflective. Imagine asking an abused orphan about his childhood. "I am Master Celestial Tom, highest ranking Tom and leader of The Toms until the time when our original returns… Tom-Tom"
"Tom-Tom!" said the other kneeling Toms, their voices filled with revered awe. "First of The Toms!"
"Master Celestial Tom?" muttered Tcutla.
"We are theone-hundred and fiftyalternate versions of Tom! And we can make copies! And there's other versions that haven't been discovered!" boasted Master Celestial Tom. "We're half-vampire magic users that, by the way, have NO vampire needs or weaknesses whatsoever!"
So it was all true, every rumour.
Tcutla cursed under her breath.
"Oh, god no…" said Tcutla. "They're all Mary-Sues…"
"But our childhoods were so tragic…"
"…really bad ones!" exclaimed Tcutla.
But none of the Toms listened to Tcutla's horrified protests. They locked themselves in 'Sue Angst Mode'.
"Oh sure I - that is to say we - had a normal childhood," said Master Celestial Tom, who looked exactly the same as all the other Toms. "But we never really knew our parents. Also, bullying was commonplace. With the exception of my two closest friends who don't appear in this fic because they're not important at all, I had no friends whatsoever! I was so alone. Apart from those close friends of course, but they don't count."
"Why?"
"Because I'm trying to endear myself to the audience, stupid!"
"Look, can we just fight now?"
But the Toms had stopped listening again.
"Oh! I was hated by everyone where I grew up. And despite my LIMITLESS…"
"And we can't stress the word LIMITLESS enough!" added another Tom.
"…I let them all get away with it so many times. I was so sad, but they also made me so ANGRY…"
"That's how I was created, from his anger!" shouted one of the Toms.
"Me too!" shouted another. Obviously there hadn't been enough ill-thought out clichés for one per Tom.
"I was absolutely hated because of my half-vampire origins! Nobody liked me!" said Master Celestial Tom.
"Someone just kill me now…!" cried Tcutla.
The Toms felt the urge to add to their clichéd tale of woe:
"And whenever I was insolent I was either locked in a cupboard or beaten with pointy sticks. Pretty standard really."
"Yeah, pretty standard for your kind of character!" said Tcutla, rolling her eyes. "What movie did you steal that dialogue from anyway?"
"You see, in case you haven't noticed, we've half-vampire and half-human, but we have absolutely NONE of the weaknesses that vampires have. We walk in sunlight and don't need blood, but we have all the strengths of a vampire. Plus we have… what is it guys?"
"SUPER - VAMPIRE - SPIRIT - MAGIC!" cried all of the other one hundred and forty-nine Toms in perfect unison.
Tcutla, having lost all hope, shrugged.
"Well, I guess it could be worse. You could have included a torture or rape plot in there somewhere," she said.
"Now it's funny that you should mention that…" said one of the Toms. Tcutla groaned. "Apparently that was how we were born, because when our father was on patrol he was captured and gang raped by a large group of extremely sexy half-naked vampire women."
It even hurt Helen's ears to hear that unnecessary piece of back story. Her wincing seemed to indicate to Tcutla that the Toms had just invented it on the spot, possibly to appear even more interesting. Why it had to be half-naked sexy vampire women though…
"You aren't Helen's creations are you?" Tcutla asked rhetorically. "You were all written by a reclusive fourteen year old weren't you? The sort of weird kid that collects pornographic clip-outs and who no-one likes to talk to much?"
"…and it was about then that I realised that I was part of an ancient prophecy…"
Tcutla screamed. She felt like her head was about to explode. Had she died and gone straight to Hell?
"Well, I'll leave you all to get acquainted," said Beloved Fool, no longer able to stand the horrid dialogue her bodyguards were spouting. "Garnet, Rubus, guard the dining room interior and make sure my tea doesn't get cold. I'll be outside in the private garden."
She opened the door to the dining room, Garnet and Rubus followed her. Helen disappeared. Tcutla was left alone, with one-hundred and fifty extremely unpleasant Marty Stus.
"Now, let us show you our real power!" yelled Master Celestial Tom. Every other Tom pulled out their katana blades and posed around the stairs
"But first," he said. "The Register!"
He unfolded a massive scroll; it was so long it rolled all the way down to the blood-stained floor.
"And now I shall see who is present, so that we may combine forms and transform into an ever-more powerful version of ourselves!" he announced.
"It's great that you're in Japan," said Tcutla. "Because you're ripping off every Japanese cliché in the book."
Master Celestial Tom took no notice – he did not appear interested in much apart from himself.
"Now, let us see who is here…"
"Light Tom?"
"Here."
"Dark Tom?"
"Here."
TWO HOURS LATER…Chaos, Bio, Ash… every cliché you can picture. Master Celestial Tom went through them all. Metal Tom and Robo Tom were there, so was Virus Tom, Amoeba Tom, Ruby Tom, Blue Tom, White Tom, Black Tom…
So many Toms…
Tcutla felt exhausted just thinking about it.
It was somewhere after Hyper Light Tom and Cowboy Tom (Yee-haw) that Master Celestial Tom reached the final name on the list:
"Order Tom?"
But no-one raised their hand or said 'here'.
"Damnit!" yelled Master Celestial Tom. "Where is Order Tom!"
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Downtown Tokyo
Order Tom, stuck in the middle of traffic, honked his horn. He opened his window and leaned out the side.
Honk! Honk!
"Move it you bastards, I'm late for work!".
HONK! HONK!
Cut Back To The Restaurant…
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Master Celestial Tom was very disappointed.
"It appears there's only one-hundred and fifty of us," he turned his attention away from Tcutla and to the rest of the Toms. "We're one Tom off. Looks like we won't be turning into our ultimate final form today."
"You mean…" said one of the Toms.
"Yes," said Master Celestial Tom. "We will not be transforming ourselves into SuperHyperUltraMegaDivineCelestial Tom…"
And just to make sure the ultimate-ness of the ultimate form of Tom was not lost on Tcutla, he had something to add onto that name.
"…X!"
At this point, Tcutla is almost completely asleep. You have to admire someone who can sleep while standing up.
Funny, she's almost cute when she's not killing people.
But, with the Toms no longer talking, she jerked herself back into consciousness and adopted a fighting pose. They had to be, without a doubt, the single dullest characters ever.
But they had a killer instinct. A battle-eager Tom charged her, she cut him down.
Another charged, she cut him down.
Then she resumed her fighting pose, her blood soaked ACROSS Blade ready for more. She held out her hand, stop.
"I have just one question," said Tcutla. "What's with the suits and Kato masks?"
"That's our Fatal Cobra bodyguard uniforms, as specified by Phil," answered Disco Tom.
"The Kato masks average our powers between the group," added Divine Tom.
"Some Toms, like one of the Celestial Toms or a Divine Tim, could easily destroy an entire galaxy…" said Dust Tom.
"…other ones, like Karaoke Tom and Amoeba Tom, are only good with specialist activities, like singing, dancing or holding massive rock festivals," said Ultra Dark Tom.
"Of course, most Toms can master anything in minutes provided they angst a little bit, then eventually try the activity after being talked into it by a sexy female…" said Super Order Tom.
"But some Toms exist to ruin more specialist fan-universes, so the control over their warrior abilities and their Super Vampire Spirit Magic™ is more limited," said Hyper Paladin Tom.
"But when all we wear these magical Kato masks our powers are effectively levelled," said Silver Tom.
"And make us all look the same," said Mutant Tom.
"But that just helps make us an ideal bodyguard unit," said Liche Tom.
"Like our original…" said Mega Radiation Tom. "Whose name is… Tom-Tom: First of The Toms!"
"Tom-Tom, First of The Toms…" sighed all of the Toms.
"Okay!" yelled Tcutla, annoyed and slightly panicky. "Let's not get off track!"
"All right we'll start fighting you now," said one of the Toms, acknowledging Tcutla for once. "But first, everyone take a nice deep breath."
Collectively, all of the Toms breathed in, then out.
"Now ready your weapons…"
All of the Toms held up their katana blades…
"Okay, now for real!"
