A/N- Ah, back to normalcy. Or at least as much as Saints Row will allow…I think you guys and gals out there will like this one.
MASS MISCALCULATION
Episode 27- Tag 2: the return of Johnny Tag
The streets of Illium were calm this night; and recently they actually had been more calm since the Saints rolled in with gangsters in purple in the streets. Some people were wary, but the Saints were decent enough in their eyes.
So such was a night that Johnny Gat decided to take a stroll through the streets. He was bored, he hadn't fought anything lately, hadn't done ANYTHING lately.
Hell, it was to a point that'd he do a damn Saints Flow commercial with Pierce to alleviate the boredom, if only so.
He sighed in defeat, not finding one single mugger, although seeing who he was he wasn't surprised people avoided fighting him. He was about to head back to HQ, in defeat, when he heard the tell-take sounds of fighting in the distance, and wandered towards it, finding a small building with a line of krogan leading out, a painted sign at the front reading 'UKWF: the Underground Krogan Wrestling Federation'. Ecstatic, Gat ran towards the line and waited, eager to finally get some fight in, and even earn some money on the side.
Alas, after waiting in line for a hour, the bouncer stopped him. "Can't let you in" the krogan said.
"The fuck you talkin' about?" Gat demanded. "I've been waiting here a hour to fight here, man"
"Look, I know, and I know who you are o mighty Gat" the krogan said mockingly, "but this is a illegal underground wrestling federation, read the fine print on the sign"
Gat looked up at the sign and squinted really hard, the camera zooming into writing under the main sign writing, the fine print's letters only being about a centimeter long, that read 'catchy name and alias, flashy costume, and tag team partner required'.
"Aw that's bull" Gat protested, crossing his arms.
The krogan bouncer shrugged. "Hey, that's the rules man. You need a name, cheesy fake backstory, costume, and partner with similar criteria to enter"
Gat sputtered, sighed, then pointed at the bouncer, saying, "I'll be back" before storming off.
HQ
Boss laughed as he sat on the couch tossing a purple tennis ball, playing fetch with Urz, Aaron's pet Varren, with Kinzie on a laptop sitting next to him along with Matt reading a NyteBlade comic when Gat stormed in.
"Boss, I need your help" Gat said, catching Boss's attention as Urz came to the leader.
While scratching Urz's head, Boss asked, "Whatcha need?"
"I'm bored as hell and I found this awesome underground fighting ring, but they got these damn regulations and- look I need a costume and a tag team partner, you in?"
Boss hummed, looking at Matt and Kinzie who shrugged, before saying, "Gat I know you haven't seen much action the last few chapters, but come on! I barely survived wrestling with Killbane"
"You beat him with sex dolls and sharks then beat his ass without a sweat after slaughtering his men with a chainsaw" Gat argued in a dry tone.
"Gat. We aren't in a videogame anymore, we are more refined in the realism here" Boss got up. "Now if you excuse me Aaron and I are going to rob a bank in space owned by jellyfish people then skydive into a volcano in a giant robot suit after we drink some alien wine using ice-cubes mined from mars" he was about to leave, but he saw the disappointed look Gat had, and sighed, knowing that he wouldn't let this go. Plus Gat was one of Boss's best friends, he needed to help him for that reason alone, so he relented.
"Fiiiiiine. Matt, Kinzie. Make the man happy, I'ma go space rob"
The two tried to protests, but it was too late as Boss was already getting ready to leave, Aaron coming in to join him, and the two left, Matt and Kinzie sighing in defeat.
"Okay, what do you need?" Kinzie demanded, shutting her laptop.
"A costume, fake cheesy backround and name, and a partner" Gat explained, counting off his fingers.
Kinzie put a finger to her cheek. "I can get a partner for you…yeah, that will definitely work" she got up and ran away, leaving a confused Matt and Gat. If this worked, Gat would get his partner. Oh he'd get his partner…
Matt shook his head. "I guess I'll work on everything else, guess you should train for the match"
"Train?" Gat scoffed. "Matt, it's me. I'm too awesome to lose"
"Wouldn't hurt to train" Matt said, walking off.
Gat pondered this, pacing around the room. He needed something to do in the meantime, the only question was who? Who would be willing to train one of the deadliest Saints for wrestling?
Just like a answer from the heavens, a door opened, purple smoke pouring out as Angel, the ex-wrestler, walked in, wearing his purple hood and purple and gold wrestling mask.
"Gat" he spoke, in his usually gravely voice, "I am told that you need to train for a wrestling match; I'm your man"
"You?" Gat asked, then shrugged. "Yeah sure, why not? But why?"
"There's no challenge here, Gat. Ever since Killbane was defeated by Boss I've searched endlessly for a new challenge, but have found none. Then I looked at Boss, into the fighter I molded him into. I wish to pass those teachings to worthy fighters, and you, Gat; you have what it takes"
Gat slowly nodded, not understanding most of what the man had just said but getting the gist of it. "Okay, when do we start?"
"Now. Awhile ago Boss got me something near and dear to me via the time machine, now to put her to the test"
"Alright" Gat nodded, then tilted his head. "Wait, 'her'?"
(Play the 'Flying High' song from 'Rocky' for the duration of training)
"So why are we doing this again?" Gat asked, sitting in the seat of a topless purple skycar, with Angel standing next to him, both on the roof of the HQ.
"To teach you the value of ignoring pain and focusing on your goal" Angel explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"And that?" Gat asked, pointing to something covered by a purple sheet sitting in the seat next to him.
"You'll see. Good luck" Angel said, waving as the car took off, flying with the traffic.
Gat hummed a little bit, taking this all into stride when the sheet flew away, Gat doing a double take when he saw a real-life, adult tiger sitting next to him.
"What the fuck!?" Gat screamed, speeding up and swerving out of traffic as the tiger growled and roared, clawing at Gat, blood spurting from his arm.
With the tiger interfering with his driving, Gat kept crashing into other skycars, angering the tiger and causing her to claw him more and more. Eventually he crashed into a building, falling unconscious as the tiger gnawed on his leg. This woke him up and he screamed as the tiger thrashed him back and forth.
After giving the tiger back to Angel and putting bandages on Gat's leg, the two went to Tuchanka, where the two went to a secluded area where Angel tied Gat to a post. While this was happening Gat yelled, "a fucking tiger!? You stuck a goddamn tiger with me!? On flying traffic!?"
"My methods may be brutal, Gat, but know they will help you in the end. Trust me" Angel assured.
Gat huffed, but sighed in defeat as he was finished being tied to the post. "So, what happens now? Angel?" Gat looked around, but couldn't find the Saint. He heard a screech when what looked like worms with wings landed near him, depositing three weird, crab-like insects, known as the klixen. The three scuttled next to Gat, and to his horror the three started spitting fire, lighting Gat on fire.
"ANGEL!" Gat screamed to the sky as the klixen burned him, furious as Angel. Was he serious!? He was seriously burning him alive for a training regiment!?
After ten minutes of burning Angel had come back and killed the klixen, then untied Gat and gave him a bottle of medi-gel, then lead him to what looked like a krogan version of a Nascar raceway, except instead of cars there were trucks. With spikes.
"This will teach you pain tolerance" Angel explained.
"THAT LAST ONE WASN'T PAIN TOLERANCE!?" Gat screamed.
Angel shook his head. "No. That last one was to teach you to be cool under the heat of pressure. Now go" before Gat could object, Angel pushed Gat into the raceway.
Gat grunted in pain as he kept flying everywhere, the trucks bashing him every which-way. Angel looked into the upper-left corner to see a yellow bar be filled.
"Oh, he filled the adrenaline meter" he realized as Gat spun in the air, controlling when and where a truck would hit him. This continued for about fifteen minutes.
Limping in a field with a steak tied to him, more bandages on Gat, he wearily looked at Angel, who was on a hill standing on a pyramid of cages.
"Okay, what now?" he yelled up to Angel, wanting to get the torture over with.
"We need to up your endurance. So run with the thresher maws" Angel answered.
Roaring was heard as multiple tentacles popped up from the ground, thresher maws tunneling towards Gat, who ran for his life.
Angel sighed. "Run now, my son" he whispered, than kicked the top of the pyramid, all the cages opening and varren bolting out, running to Gat. He managed to kill most with his knives, but some latched onto him and repeatedly clawed and bit him as the threshers caught up to him, bathing him in acid. Tentacles flew towards Gat, but he just cut them with his knives. The maw popped out from the ground and tried to bite him, Gat jumping right in the mouth of the maw. It screeched in pain as he cut his way into it's brain, cutting it in half and then using the knives to cut himself out of it's head, shouting 'YEAH!' at the top of his lungs.
"Good…" Angel said, nodding. "Good…"
HQ
"So what's this one?" Gat asked, most of his body bandaged at this point. They were in the kitchen, Angel handing him a glass of green liquid.
"A good diet is vital for the body. Drink it" Angel ordered.
"Alright, why not?" Gat wondered, drinking the liquid. He immediately dropped the glass as he rolled around on the floor, gurgling in pain and clawing at his throat as his mouth frothed.
"…A diet of pure thresher maw acid, krogan blood, gasoline, and a strange white liquid of unknown origin I found in some jars outside a brothel. I don't know what that last one was, but it was thick so I'd imagine it'd be harder to swallow and better train you to swallow wads of blood"
Gat screamed in fury and horror when he realized what the final liquid was.
"I feel like I'm gonna die…" Gat rasped, his throat entirely bandaged. They were now in the garage, and for some reason Grunt was there as well, a sledgehammer in hand.
Angel chuckled at Gat's words. "Good. That's means it's working. Now I'm going to have Grunt here break every single bone in your body. Then I'm gonna use this syringe the zin gave me to instantly heal your bones. We'll keep breaking and repairing your bones until they are unbreakable. So this'll take a couple hours"
Gat sighed deeply, cursing under his breath, and said, "fuck it, come on already"
Grunt chuckled and roared as he ran at Gat and beat him with the sledgehammer, Gat grunting in pain as he had all his bones broken. Angel walked to his body and took a red syringe out, injecting it into Gat. He spasmed as his bones were instantly repaired, then Grunt resumed breaking his bones.
(End song)
Gat, his entire body in a cast with only visible thing being his blue, square sunglasses, groaned as he sat on the sofa in the living room watching TV. Angel stood beside him.
"You have done well, Gat. You are now ready to face any foe, as I have made you unbreakable. I look forward to the fights to come" with that, Angel left.
Gat sighed in the cast. What he just went through would have driven most men insane, but he was Johnny fucking Gat, he could take anything. He took all of Hell on and won, so he was positive he could take anything on now with Angel's training.
Hearing laughing, he looked at the elevator as Aaron and Boss walked in, both boisterously laughing.
"Aw man, that was awesome" Aaron sighed.
"Yeah" Boss agreed, wiping a tear he was laughing so hard.
They both saw Gat in the cast and stopped, Boss asking, "what happened?"
Gat mumbled something, but Boss couldn't hear it past the cast so he left and came back five minutes later with a syringe full of blue liquid and jabbed it into Gat, the liquid instantly healing his body and letting Gat rip the entire cast off in one go, all his cloths having been under the cast.
"Thanks" Gat said, holding a thumb up.
Boss nodded. "Sure thang man, but what happened?"
"Fuckin' nightmare is what. I wanted to train for the wrestling match. Angel was available and-"
"'Nuff said" Boss said, raising a hand. Gat nodded in understanding, remembering Boss was trained by the man too.
As Aaron looked at the two in confusion, the elevator door opened, Matt walking out holding a case.
"Gat, I got that stuff you wanted right here" he said, putting the case down and opening it, a drum roll playing in the backround as he lifted up a purple spandex wrestler uniform adorned with gold fleurs made of knives along with the Luchador mask of Killbane, remade so the green was purple, along with the gloves of the Apocafists, gloves five times bigger than normal hands that looked like hands, two gold rings with a fleur on each ring finger.
"May I present the ensemble of the Saints number one, the only…PURPLE STABBER!" Matt yelled proudly, the room darkening as mini-spotlights lit the suit up.
"I'm gonna stab you for picking such a dumb name" Gat threatened, holding one of his knives out and walking towards Matt.
The room returned to it's normal lighting as Matt cowered in fear. "Hey gimme a break! I worked with the time I had, you didn't exactly give me much!"
"I get burned alive all the way on Tuchanka and you didn't have enough time?"
"Just hear me out" Matt pleaded, but secretly he was fearing for his life as the knife was now a few inches from his eye. Gat sighed, relenting as he sheathed the knife.
"Alright, tell us the story of senor whatever-the-hell-that-thing-is" Gat said, gesturing towards the costume now on the floor while Matt gulped.
"It all started with a man down on his luck, framed for a crime he didn't commit, so he faked his death and fled to a planet inhabited by beings with giants fists. The man tore through armies of these mutants with nothing but two knives, taking the leaders hand's for himself. Thus began the legend of-"
"Purple Stabber, yeah yeah, I get it man, it'll work" Gat interrupted, Matt being deflated from Gat just brushing off his suit story like that.
"Guess now all you need is that tag-team partner. And knowing our luck we'll find out the progress on that in about three seconds" Aaron informed, and just like that the elevator door opened and Kinzie ran out, hair and eyes wild.
"Gat, Boss, Aaron…! Matt. Something horrible has happened that totally wasn't my fault!" she screamed, clutching Boss's shoulders and shaking him.
"Alright, alright!" Boss shouted, prying Kinzie off. "What hap-" he was cut off as a giant roar emanated from the city, smoke flying up as multiple explosions ensued. And Boss knew that roar…oh he knew that roar very well. A roar he could never forget.
"Kinzie…what happened" Boss demanded, his face going serious as he looked at the city in the distance.
"Well, I might have-"
"You said you didn't have anything to do with it!"
"I said that to divert guilt from me! And this is what happened…"
A blue background covered in purple fleurs appeared with yellow words in the center, a man with a French voice saying monotonously, "one. Hour. Ago"
The background faded away to reveal a laughing Kinzie, some zin scientists in the same room as her as they all looked at a giant pod, the scientists looking nervously at it while Kinzie smiled. They were in the mothership in dark space in the science labs, and Kinzie had been working on Gat's partner.
"Is this the best idea?" one scientist asked as he fidgeted.
"Of course it's the best idea!" Kinzie shouted, snapping her fingers. "It's perfect, with his DNA and memories in this along with the enhancements it's the perfect partner. Now I just need to activate it…"
She pressed a few buttons on a consol as the pod hissed, pink fluid leaking out as a figure dropped on the ground, rising on it's feet to an impressive eight-foot height.
"Zinyak…" the figure grunted in a voice that sounded like Gat's, but immensely deeper as he looked around.
"Relax, relax, Zinyak is dead, we won! I knew I should have used more recent DNA…look, I can explain-"
"ZIN!" the creature roared, barreling through the terrified scientists as it tore through the walls, Kinzie running and calling after it. She looked in shock as it barreled through the portal leading to the HQ in Illium.
"Ah damn it, Boss is gonna kill me" she muttered, dragging her feet in dread as she trudged through the portal.
"One. Hour. Later" the French voice said with the background flashing by.
"YOU MADE A CLONE OF GAT!?" Boss shouted in fear, shaking Kinzie as he went through with a bout of insanity going through him. "This is bad, this is bad bad bad…It's Tag all over again…"
"The clone that nerd made of me?" Gat asked, remembering the story Boss had told them about the clone the geek had made during their time in Steelport.
"Why, Kizie!? Why would you create something that would make me relive the horror of those three or four dlc missions, it's been so long I don't even remember that was like three installments ago…!" Boss sobbed as he sunk to his knees.
"I thought it would help! No-one else wanted to do it so I just made something Gat could relate with. But…"
"'But'…?" Gat asked, slightly livid that Kinzie would actually do this.
"Well I used DNA from you before Boss killed Zinyak, so he's gonna kill any zin he sees. Actually he's going to kill any alien he sees"
"And we're on a planet full of aliens, damn" Aaron swore, rubbing his face.
"And…that's not all" Kinzie muttered, staring at the floor. The looks from the other three egged her on, and she murmured while staring continuously at the floor, "I may have given him some biotics, too"
"Aw that's great" Boss dryly stated, throwing his hands up and going into hysterics. Normal Tag was enough work calming down, but this! This was insanity in the Boss's opinion. "We got Tag #2 going around the city killing any alien he sees, and now he's jacked up with magical space voodoo. Fuck, we're fucked. -Sigh- we gotta stop him before he destroys the city, come on" he sighed, realizing his day wasn't over as Boss ran towards the elevator with Aaron in tow.
"Wait, Gat!" Matt called before Gat could take off, the hacker giving Gat the Apocafists. "These will help. Trust me"
"Uh, sure…thanks Matt" Gat thanked, nodding as he took the gloves and bolted for the elevator while Matt gleamed in pride.
The trio followed the sounds of mass panic, mayhem and destruction, going the opposite direction of the fleeing citizens. They slid into an intersection between some buildings, and saw Tag with their own eyes. He looked exactly like Gat, even had the same cloths, except he had the body build of Oleg, and was currently tossing cars around.
"Damn Gat, he's what you would look like if you went on steroids" Aaron commented.
"Pft, yeah right" Gat scoffed, then got serious. "So how we gonna take him?"
Their radios fizzled as Matt's voice came through. "Gat, the Apocafists!" he instructed. "They'll do the job!"
"Matt, how the hell-"
"Just do it!" Matt ordered, interrupting Gat. He rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses and put the gloves on, getting in a boxing position.
Tag saw this as a challenge and threw a car at Gat, Gat punching the car with one of his gloved hands, the car surprisingly being propelled into a building from a punch.
Gat gazed at the gloves in awe. "Matt, I take it back. These gloves are badass"
"Told you" Matt gloated, smiling from his position.
Gas let out a war cry as he ran towards Tag, punching any cars sent at him. He jumped in the air and socked Tag in the head, whipping it to the side and stunning him, than rapidly punched him everywhere, the force behind the blows causing Tag to stumble.
"Finish him off! Slam the rings together!" Matt advised, Gat nodding and slamming the fists together, three five-foot long knife blades coming out of the knuckles of each glove, Gat grinning viciously as he pummeled/stabbed Tag, Tag groaning as he stumbled from the blows. Finally, he succumbed to his wounds and fell, Gat walking away victoriously.
"Well that was easy" he commented.
Aaron and Boss, however, had horrified looks on their faces. "uh, Johnny…" Boss warned, pointing behind him.
Gat turned around and, to his shock, Tag got up while growling, and even more shockingly grew another eight feet while his muscles doubled in mass while his wounds healed.
"The hell!?" the three shouted when bright blue biotics flowed around Tag, Tag performing a biotic charge up to Gat and uppercutting him, causing the man to fly so far in the sky he couldn't be seen.
"I got ya buddy!" Aaron yelled to the sky, jumping after Gat. Unfortunately Tag grabbed a struggling Aaron with telekinesis and slammed him into the ground, a Aaron-shaped hole going so far down all that could be seen was blackness as Aaron's screams faded more and more.
Boss stepped back when Tag looked at Boss and roared, Boss internally freaking out too much to do much of anything. Using this to his advantage, Tag threw a singularity behind Boss, Boss clinging for life on a light post as everything, including cars, were sucked in from the entire block, then the singularity exploded, sending Boss screaming into a high-rise building.
Flying upwards in the air from the uppercut, Gat reoriented himself and allowed his power armor to fold over him, excepting the gloves. He floated in mid-air as he aimed down at Tag, then flew towards him, hitting him with a death from above, the power of the apocafists making the mini nuclear explosion a full size, green colored one.
Gat was praying this would work, it just had to! There's no way the clone could take on that kind of power head-first !
But, again, Gat was proven wrong as the entire explosion, and the power behind it, was condensed into a small ball held in the hands of Tag. Gat slumped his shoulders as Tag threw the ball at Gat, the ball turning into a laser that slammed into Gat and blasted him farther than the eye could see.
"Power suit!" Boss shouted as he jumped out of the building, flying towards Tag, his power suit donned. Unfortunately as he was inches from Tag's face the force of the previous laser had propelled Gat across the planet, causing Gat to crash into Boss, sending both into a wall.
Aaron groaned as he climbed halfway out of the hole, dazed. A shadow loomed over him and he looked up in dread at Tag, Aaron chuckling weakly before Tag kicked him, causing his lower half to be ground through the concrete, having only been halfway out of the hole. He slammed into the pair of Saints, his head crashing into Gat's crotch, causing him to recoil in pain and slam his head into Boss's crotch, who groaned in pain and caused the pile of Saints to collapse, defeated. Tag stared at the pile, then roared at it, promptly jumping away over the buildings.
Five minutes later, Boss, having his entire body and pride wounded, groaned out, "Aaron, get Kinzie on the line"
"Got it" Aaron groaned out as well, crawling away.
"And get ZJ, too. I need my goddamn whipping boy"
At the Saints HQ, Boss, Aaron, Gat, and Kinzie stood in the penthouse looking at the damage Illium had suffered due to Tag By now half of the city was either in shambles or on fire, Tag's roars being heard throughout the city, usually prompted by explosions.
"Okay Kinzie" Boss said, holding a icepack to his crotch, "explain to me what the hell just happened"
"Weeell…" Kinzie replied nervously, tapping her fingers together, "I may have gone a bit overboard with the cloning process…"
"Explain" the leader ordered.
"Well, a regular brute-style clone seemed, well…boring at the time, so I improved it. First there was the biotics, but that wasn't enough, so I gave him some genetic modifications, most of them revolving around his emotions; the calmer he is, the weaker he is, if he got completely mellow he'd go to Gat size and Gatish intelligence, but the madder he gets the bigger, stronger, and tougher he gets"
"So he's like the Incredible Bulk?" Aaron asked, holding up a comic Matt had made of a giant, muscular purple man in green shorts rampaging through a city.
"Or the one girl from Topaz?" Boss questioned, bringing up a video of the name 'Topaz', each letter having a girl with a distinctive color under it. For some reason 'z' was filled by a man in a suit, and oddly enough had robot arms and was twirling two katanas.
"Sort of, but he won't stop growing…which is bad"
"Bad? How bad?" Gat asked, shaking his head at Kinzie. He never asked for a clone of him, he just wanted a damn partner, in his opinion she went overboard. And she couldn't have went with a normal clone!?
"Well, the madder he gets the more his biotic power is boosted," she explained, "it could get to the point where he'll grow bigger than buildings. If that happens and he used or even flares his powers, he'll basically become a black hole so-to-speak, he won't suck in light but he'll have so much mass he'll produce a gravitational field that will suck everything in, the more stuff that gets compressed on him the more pain, more pain goes to more anger, more power, he could swallow up the entire planet"
"…So bad, got it" Boss got up, smacking his hands together. "I got a idea, and this sort of worked before, Gat go find Pierce, Aaron find Angel and ask him where to find some bees"
"What?"
"Just do it! Kinzie, I'll need a truck with a giant speaker. And a gun. And a suit…yeah this will work"
"We're really doing this again?"
"Yeah we're doing this again Pierce, now look attractive" Boss snapped, making Pierce grumble, tugging on the outfit that made him look like Johnny's late girlfriend, Aisha. The Saint was mainly mad because last time a 'Tag' incident happened they tried this, and it didn't even work; now they were doing it again?
Come to think of it, Boss was always putting him in situations where he almost died, so he was a pro in surviving them at this point.
Currently he was on the back of a truck with a microphone connected to a giant speaker on the truck, Boss driving it while Aaron sat at the back with a strange, tube-shaped gun. Which had bees swarming around it. Bee's Angel had gotten from Tuchanka that he was going to train Gat with, but decided against it and burned him alive instead.
"So…how are bee's gonna calm him down?" Aaron asked, tilting his head as he examined the gun. "Aren't bee stings gonna send him on more of a rage?"
"It worked last time" Boss shrugged, while looking at his beekeeper suit he had attained. Aaron was immune to venom and pierce needed to look presentable, and Boss hated bees and didn't want to be stung, so he got the suit. "And 'sides, those bees got killer venom in them. But to Tag they should act as more of a tranquilizer, so we should be good. If that doesn't work for you, I didn't write the mechanics, so don't blame me"
"Alright, fine then. Fuckin' bees to the rescue"
"Pierce, kick it" Boss ordered, Pierce sighing and nodding, tapping the microphone and causing feedback, then began to sing Aisha's trademark song, the song playing through the speaker.
Promptly following this, roars were heard, and with accompanying thuds the form of Tag leapt over the buildings. Only he was bigger than last time- MUCH bigger than last time, as he was now standing as twenty-five feet.
"HOLY HELL!" Pierce screamed, then screamed a high-pitched girly scream when Tag caught up with the truck and grabbed Pierce, staring at him while one of his feet held the truck down.
"Aishaaa…" he growled out, shaking Pierce a little, resulting in more girlish screams.
"Aaron, now would be a good time to fill his ass with bees!" Pierce begged as Tag shook him more and more.
"Right!" Aaron held the bee gun up and fired, spitting wads of honey and bees at Tag. However, this seemed to only succeed in making him stickier and angrier, the bees not even being able to Pierce his skin, and went to Pierce instead, who started stinging him.
"AGH! I TAKE IT BACK I'M BEGGIN' YOU STOP SHOOTING!" Pierce screamed as Aaron kept firing, the bees only going to Pierce.
Tag in the meantime focused his gaze on Aaron, who chuckled nervously and shook the gun a bit.
"You know, uh, some people say that bee stings are a legitimate source of healing" he tried to defend, only to receive a scowl from Tag behind his sunglasses, and while Aaron was wondering how his cloths grew with him Tag flicked Aaron, sending him screaming through some buildings. Tag then looked around, finding the tallest building his could find while still holding a sobbing Pierce and started climbing it, reaching the top in minutes and roaring to the city as he stood at the top, beating his chest like a gorilla.
Tag heard humming and turned around to see three zin Void hoverships flying towards him, each one being driven by a Saint, Randall, Ouro, and Gat.
"Alright boys, take him down!" Randall yelled as he fired the guns on his Void, the other two doing the same, firing purple lasers and plasma missiles as much as they could at Tag, Tag roaring in pain. He swatted Randall's Void, causing him to eject as the UFO crashed into the ground.
Ouro met a similar fate when Tag actually bit his Void and spat him into a building, Ouro ejecting too. Gat swerved away from Tag, Tag screaming in rage and charging with blue biotic energy, tossing a warp at Gat.
"Oh boy" he muttered, trying to dodge the warp, but it was useless as the shot kept following him, and eventually he gave up and ejected, the warp destroying his ride seconds after. Taking a radio out he turned it on and said, "uh Boss, yeah that didn't really work"
"Damn" Boss swore, "well at least if we all survive this we can make the footage into a movie or something. I'm thinking 'Prince Mong', maybe put him in a monkey suit"
"Maybe later Boss" Gat threw the radio away, groaning at yet another of Boss's marketing ideas.
Tag roared into his heavens, announcing his triumph while Pierce kept screaming in terror. He looked at Pierce closely, wondering what was wrong with his dear Aisha, when Pierce's Aisha Dreadlock wig fell off, revealing Pierce. Tag again screamed in rage for having been fooled into regaining his precious, and flung Pierce off the building, but fortunately Aaron leapt up just in time to catch him, the two tumbling on a rooftop.
"Heh…hoo…man that was tight. You oka-eugh…!" Aaron gasped when he saw Pierce's face, which had been swollen to the point of not even looking human due to the bee stings, his bloated tongue sticking out almost comically.
"Whath?" he asked with a lisp.
"Um…nothing. Anyway" Aaron looked up at Tag, and saw to his dismay the clone growing another five feet.
"Tho wa nao?" Pierce questioned, trying to get a feel for his numb face.
"I dunno man…" Aaron muttered as Tag leapt from the building onto the ground.
"Pan thee?"
"We ain't got no plan C, Pierce" Aaron scolded, then heard his radio crackle to life, Boss saying from the end, "Kinzie does. And it's fucking terrible!"
"Hey, it's the best I could come up with, gimme a break!" Kinzie retorted angrily.
Aaron looked over the edge of the building they landed on, and to his disbelief, saw three thirty-foot zin clones. And with their clothing they were Zinyak clones.
Aaron couldn't believe that, what would possess the girl to bring back their sworn enemy three times over!? The situation was dire, but did it really warrant bringing Zinyak's into the equation!? Boss was right, this was a horrible plan!
"I know it looks bad, but think about it, if Tag kills some Zinyak clones maybe it'll relieve some stress on him, shrink him a bit and give us time to think on what to do" Kinzie defended, hoping they would see reason in the plan.
Aaron threw his hands up, it was a dumb idea but it was all they had. "Fine, okay, yeah! Maybe this will- oh your fucking joking me Kinzie" Aaron deadpanned as he saw a red light charge in the three Zinyak clones' mouth's, a red laser leaving each one and hitting Tag.
"Lemme guess; you got carried away again?" Boss asked.
"…Yeah" Kinzie shamefully admitted.
"Your off the cloning team"
"Aw…"
One of the Zinyak's jumped at Tag, who roared and held him up by the throat, squeezing hard enough to pop the head and spine off, the body dropping as Tag held the head. Another charged him but Tag merely punched him and wrapped the spine of the previous victim around his head, then tugged hard, snapping his neck. The last Zinyak tried a last-ditch effort and fired another laser at Tag, who merely opened his mouth and swallowed the laser, blue biotic energy glowing around Tag as he opened his mouth, blue energy flooding from it. The last Zinyak looked at him in terror and tried running away, but it was useless as Tag fired his blue mouth-laser, the clone being engulfed and screaming as he was disintegrated, not even leaving dust.
And, to everyone's horror, instead of shrinking Tag actually grew another twenty feet in anger, than stomped off to destroy more of Illium as the Saints slumped in defeat.
"…Well thit" Pierce lisp-swore.
"Yeah, I hear ya. And we're going to be in a lot of thit if we don't stop him" Aaron agreed, then pointed back to the HQ. "Guess we should head back, think on plan D. Let's go"
"Okay, this will work I know it!" Kinzie said, holding up a syringe gun.
"It better" Boss warned, Aaron and Gat nodding in agreement. The Saints were battered and tired at this point, and at the rate Tag was going the city didn't have much time left, so they needed to hurry.
"Okay, this is the plan, inside this injector is the memories of the current Gat, and since they're both DNA-compatible I've added a little serum in there courtesy of zintek, which will give him the memories of Gat up to this point, which will hopefully make him see reason and calm down"
"Okay, but how are we supposed to get close enough to put that thing in him?" Boss asked.
"Well you and Aaron will have to do it, he's at the point where he's turning into a black hole, so Aaron, since you have the most power you'll have to keep a telekinetic shield around Boss to protect him while he injects the memories into Tag"
"And how am I supposed to do that? My super suit is still being repaired, and I'll be squashed if I try to go after him the way I am" Boss argued.
"Well yeah, but you did tell me you one time were able to get natural powers from drinking irradiated Saints Flow when going after the first Tag, so the boys in the lab whipped this up" Kinzie snapped her fingers, and on her queue Zinjai walked in, carrying a silver platter. He lifted the top off, revealing a single black soda can decorated in purple fleurs that said in purple writing 'Saints Attack'.
Boss did recall drinking that soda given to him by the nerd who made the first Tag, and remembered the incredible power he attained for about fifteen minutes, and gazed at the can. "Is this what I think…could it be…?" Boss gasped in a awed voice as he picked the can up with shaky hands.
Kinzie smiled. "You bet. We managed to hook up something that can temporarily give you super powers, and if you wear the suit with it it'll give you a massive boost, but since it's in the shop you'll have to rely on the soda alone"
"Oh hella yeah! My name's Boss and I approve of this irradiated carbonated beverage!" he yelled, opening the can and drinking it's contents down, then crushing it against his forehead as his body glowed purple, Boss laughing.
"Aw hell yeah, it's good to have this back!" to show off his power he threw a ball of purple and white energy at the wall, causing a large, fiery explosions.
Aaron looked at the can with a queer look. "What the hell do you guys put in this stuff anyways?" he asked.
"Not important! Come on Aaron, we gotta go!" Boss ordered, grabbing Kinzie's injector and running through the window, leaping off the helipad.
"Alright guys, me and Boss are gonna go stop Tag"
"How do we know you'll pull it off?" Gat asked.
"The planet will stay in one chunk" Aaron said bluntly as he leapt after Boss.
As the two sprinted towards Tag, Aaron a blue blur and Boss a purple blur, the two saw Tag smashing through the city yet again, now bigger than most buildings, and debris floating around him.
Boss threw a blast at Tag, getting his attention, the massive man lumbering over to them. The two went into action, Aaron putting a field around Boss as he leapt up to Tag, however due to Tag's gravity he had to fight against it, dodging the debris and 'swimming' towards his neck.
Aaron grunted in effort as he kept the field up. He saw Tag raise a foot and Aaron responded by bringing his sword out, stabbing the sole of his foot as he brought it down. Tag screamed in rage and tried to kick Aaron, but he used another telekinetic field to hold the foot at bay.
Boss finally reached Tag's neck and grabbed on, yelling as his fist charged with purple energy and jammed the needle into his neck, injecting the memories. Tag eye's widened and he screamed in pain, a biotic pulse sending both Saints flying. He gripped his head in agony as the memories flooded in, his gravity becoming more and more stronger as debris started slamming into him more and more, only adding to his anger and strengthening him.
The two Saints started to get lifted up and Aaron dug his hands into the ground to anchor himself, Boss holding on to Aaron's foot not wanting to be crushed.
"How much longer!?" Aaron screamed as objects whizzed past them, all flooding to Tag.
"Just a little bit more!" Boss assured.
Aaron nodded and looked at the ground he was grabbing as it started to crumble away. He kept shouting 'no' as he tried to grab something, but there was nothing to grab onto and the two joined the debris, screaming as they flew closer and closer to Tag.
But, just as they were nearing Tag, the memories had sunk in and all his anger had receded, his power being cut off, causing everything, including the pair of Saints, to drop. Tag groaned as he shrunk more and more, finally becoming regular human-sized, shaking his head.
Aaron and Boss groaned as they lay on the ground, the sound of a dropship rousing them as they saw a dropship land near them, Kinzie and Gat running out.
"Boss!" Kinzie yelled worriedly, barreling through Aaron comically and helping Boss up. They heard a groan and the four looked at Tag, who now looked like a perfect copy of Gat.
"Tag? You cool?" Gat asked.
"Yeah…yeah I'm cool" Tag said in a voice that mimicked Gat's, then cracked his neck, looking at all the destruction. "Oh shit, did I do all this?"
"You don't remember?" Aaron asked.
"The last thing I remember is being in that pink pod, then I started remembering Zinyak and it all kind of…went black from there, dunno what happened. Then it was like I remembered everything and calmed down, so here I am"
"Must be the memories we put in you, and it seems that while your in your 'Bulk' mode you lose all reason and rational thought…" Kinzie deduced as Gat went up to Tag, the two staring at each-other.
"Wassup?" Gat asked.
"Nothin' much. You?" Tag asked.
"Same" he answered.
Aaron and Boss sweat-dropped. "So does this mean we have two Gats now?" Aaron asked.
"Yeah. Except one had biotics and can turn into a giant monster" Boss answered, to which the both of them sighed. Boss's omni-tool rang and he opened it, seeing a message.
'Johnny Tag unlocked! Tag will now help crush the enemy of the Saints! Go to the phone section of the omni-tool and ring Tag up to destroy any and all in his way!' next to the message was a picture of Tag's head.
"Who keeps sending me these messages anyways?" Boss wondered, then forgot about it and closed the message.
"Well what now?" Tag wondered.
"Only one thing to do" Gat said, to which Tag smiled as the two fist-bumped.
"And in this corner!" the krogan ref said, "they're legends reach to the very end of the galaxy, they are the one, the only, PURPLE STABBER AND THE CRUSHING MENACE!"
A spotlight showed Gat in Tag in one end of the wrestling ring in matching purple spandex and apocafists as they beat up team after team of krogan, the crowd going wild. All the Saints were in the front row, seeing the Johnny's in action. He had finally gotten into the arena, and had gotten his tag partner to boot.
"Told you it'd work out" Kinzie smirked, smiling to herself.
"Kinzie half the city got destroyed" Boss deadpanned, shaking his head at her.
"Meh, still a win in my book" she said, all the Saints lowering their heads.
"Least he got his partner now" Aaron commented.
"Yeah, but at what cost?" Boss sobbed, burying his head in his hands. Rebuilding a city wasn't cheap.
Suddenly the doors to the ring were flung open, cops flooding through. One with a microphone yelled, "this is a underground wrestling ring! You are all under arrest and are to be detained as of this instant!"
Gat and Tag chuckled as they jumped out of the ring, bumping their gloved fists together.
"I think these guys are trying to ruin our fun" Gat said.
"Yeah. Let's show them how big of a mistake that is" Tag smirked, the two running at the cops, the screen freezing as they lunged at the cops, then faded out.
A/N- Ah Boss, breaking the fourth wall. Hey don't look at me like that, it's canon. And I hope the scene with Angel was entertaining enough, wanted to capture the 'extreme workout regime' enough. Look out for the next episode guys, cya!
