Boogeymen III: House Of 1000 Cliches Chapter 4: Catering By Sue, a teen titans fanfic

Part 4: Catering By Sue

Oh I bet you think you're clever, cutting me off like that last chapter. Screw you! People want to think I'm a ripoff of the Shade with far less cultured class who loves to blabber on and on, fine, I'll damn sure fulfill their expectations! Now, let us begin this mass slaughter with the tales of other mass slaughters. Which one to pick? I'm quite partial to the Black Dea

They couldn't all be winners like him, Freddy knew, but even he didn't know just how many losers there were out there. Look at them all! In their half-baked costumes (those that wore costumes), all armed with knives (ok they were really armed with a lot of different weapons, but dammit too many knives), which probably took up 8/10th of the budget of whatever films they 'starred' in. And to think he could be considered part of this group! Freddy would shudder if such a thing were in him.

No, he wasn't like them. He was immortal! He was part of history! He had the golden touch! Hell, he'd yanked Johnny Depp into a bed over twenty years ago, and now Depp was raking in billions with that pirate character he had created, Captain Bird or something. He should personally thank Freddy for such a gift!

But as big a bunch of losers (in his own mind anyway) as they were, they had their uses, as Freddy cleared his voice and, his red and black sweater and fedora replaced with a general outfit's and helmet, he stepped up on his elevated platform, his 'master control computer' briefly pushed to the side as he addressed the crowd, his robed lieutenants around him.

"Attention hideous attempts at horror of the past, post-modern, and post-post modern era! As a whole, you are AWFUL. A waste of millions of dollars, both in terms of investment and the few idiots who actually saw you. Since most of you BOMBED. And BOMBED BADLY. And that's just counting the ones who actually made it into theaters: there's not point in mocking you straight to video losers!"

"Actually since our budgets were so small at least a few of us made back their money…" A random slasher said.

"SHUT UP! YOU'RE ALL LOSERS!"

"Why are you in charge? Didn't you lose last time?" Another random slasher asked.

"So did Patton, and he did a great job taking out the Japs! Now shut up!" Freddy snapped. "While all of you have managed a body count, you must remember this is not the usual crop of brain-dead teenagers! Though some have been infected with various attributes many of you will find familiar, the highly unusual nature of this group of dipshits has required that all of you go on the attack! To ensure victory!"

"Don't you have a slasher there already? Hasn't be accomplished nothing?"

"Yes! The Sugarman!"

"Why did we send Sugarman first? Nobody's even heard of him before!"

"NOBODY'S HEARD OF MOST OF YOU EITHER!"

"Then why did he get to go first?"

"He was expendable. NOW SHUT IT FOR REAL!" Freddy yelled. "Your usual talents will be in place, and your sheer numbers will carry the day!"

"Are you going with us?"

"NO! You losers want to be losers forever?"

"What about the ones in robes up with you?"

"Those are my lieutenants. They do not need to associate with you!"

"What's so special about THEM?"

"I picked the ones among you I wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen in public with!"

"We don't go out in public! That's why we're called slashers instead of serial killers!"

"Yeah!" Said another generic slasher (most were so obscure Freddy didn't have names for them, just descriptions, like 'Wolf Head' or 'White Face'. In this case the speaker had one of the worst slasher getup disguises Freddy had ever seen, consisting of a clown mask and a blue jumpsuit. And they wondered why he called them losers. Compared to Clown Jumpsuit, he was a friggin' piece of art (perhaps The Scream, HAH!). And another thing, why the hell were there so many clown slashers? Freddy counted at least five!). "We actually exist! We did our killings the old fashioned way! You had to kill everyone in dreams! When you got dragged out, you got your ass kicked!"

What followed was partially because of the comment, and partially for Freddy just being who he was, but mostly it was due to Clown Jumpsuit's horrid sense of slasher fashion.

KER-STAB!

"Anyone else want to question my qualifications?" Freddy asked, as he yanked his finger knives out of Clown Jumpsuit's now-quite-dead corspse. "Getting back to…wait a minute. Ker-stab? Is that the best special effects we can get nowadays? With all these computers? KER-STAB? KER-STAB?"

One of his cloaked lieutenants coughed. Freddy cut his rant off and warped back up to his throne.

"Now, under my guidance, I am here to set you on the right path, the path to victory and atonement! You…"

"Wait a sec, why do we need atonement?" Another slasher asked.

"Because there is a very serious problem here, just by you existing! And that is the fact that there are too many of you, all trying to be me!"

"Actually I'm trying to be Jason." Trevor Moorehouse said.

"Me too!" Jackson said. Freddy looked at the voices and did a double take, almost betraying his sudden startled state. They both looked like Jason, hell they were clones! Trevor Moorehouse even had a chainsaw for a hand!

"Wow, more then one?" Trevor Moorehouse said.

"Yeah, what are the ODDS man?" Jackson replied.

"RARRGGGHHHH!" Freddy yelled, as he thrust out his hand. Bolts of energy arced from his glove, and two seconds later two more slashers had become piles of ash on the ground.

"And there will be no mentions of that big rotting dog again!" Freddy snapped. "Now, since I have no desire to keep killing you because you keep interrupting me, I will take questions now! Consider them carefully! Yes, you with the axe."

A dozen slashers looked confused.

"THE CLOSEST ONE!" Freddy snapped, annoyed so many had axes (if it wasn't a knife it was an axe).

"Yeah uh…what about them costumed kids? You know, the ones that would make more sense for us to be carvin' up? I mean, if we don't do nothin', won't they eventually interfere?"

"Oh no, not to worry! Those kids will be our next target as soon as we deal with the trigger group. It's some stupid fine print in the contract that we have to kill them all first, don't ask! Until then, I have sent something to keep them busy!"

"What?"

"Oh just something that was handy."

Once about a time, there was a man named Bruce Campbell, who created a cult hero character with a director named Sam Raimi. That hero was named Ash Williams, eventually scourge of undead monsters everywhere. Unfortunately, the evil he had fought had cost him his right hand, which had been possessed by a malevolent spirit and forced Ash to do impromptu surgery on it. Unfortunately, said spirit had hung around, and hence the hand now had a life of its own.

You'd think that wouldn't be much of a threat.

"ARGH!" Savior yelled as he was poked in the eyes, Three Stooges style. As he was stumbling back, Ash's Hand ran down his body and then tied his shoelaces together. Which was really something considering Noel's boots didn't have laces.

While Savior was being introduced to the floor courtesy of said phantom laces, several different kinds of blasts exploded on the floor as Ash's Hand scampered across it, running on its fingers at a pace that would put Thing (the Addams Family one, not the Fantastic Four one) to shame, as it ran up on a table and onto an ancient looking book. Necronomicon Ex Mortis. The Book of the Dead.

"Nimble little bugger isn't it." Terra commented, and fired a spray of pebbles.

As the book abruptly vanished, along with the hand, and reappeared across the room.

Right next to Gauntlet, who swatted the hand away before it could react, opened up the book, and tore out a page.

"You're going to live in my scrapbook, next to Cassandra Cain's hair and three scraps of Superman's cape." Gauntlet said, as he looked delightedly at the page…as Ash's Hand leapt through the air and punched Gauntlet in the face, sending him stumbling back into the other Titans as the hand bounced back to the book. And it then proceeded to flip them off.

As the trapdoor that had NOT been there in the floor before burst open and a hideous demonic female entity, corpulent and disgusting, erupted forth.

"I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL! I'LL SWALLOW YOUR-!" It proclaimed.

And then it screamed as a storm of projectiles blew it apart. As a hail of disgusting meat splattered on the floor, Robin grinned and produced another Birdarang as it unfolded in his hand.

"NEXT."

"I also sent something after that other group. Not that they'd interfere. Just to be a prick." Freddy chuckled.

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!" Brother Blood screamed, and then hid behind his chair, even as Gizmo and several other Hive members commenced to blast apart the cloaked monsters that had invaded the Headmaster's room.

"What the FUCK ARE THESE THINGS?" Sabotage cursed as he violently broke the closest one's neck.

"They're goblins! Heaven help us, they're from the 'movie' Troll II!" Gizmo replied as his laser cannons blew several more away.

"Goblins?" Mammoth said as he smashed one underfoot. "But the movie's called…"

"THE FACT THAT THEY ARE GOBLINS WHEN THE MOVIE IS CALLED TROLL II IS AMONG THE VERY LEAST OF THE PROBLEMS THAT FILM POSSESSES!"

"Are they really that dangerous?"

"No! But the film is so goddamn bad! Why THEM?" Gizmo cursed.

"Is it really THAT bad?"

"It's not No 1 on the Bottom 100 of IMDB Dot Com for nothing!"

"The writer would like to indicate that that position is of the current time of writing." Buzz Bomb said as he popped onto the screen. "Said position may not be accurate whenever you next read this. By the way, since it's Troll II, there was a Troll I. Look up the name of the main character! What an interesting-"

"Less forth wall breaking, more vegetarian stomping!" Gizmo yelled at the bee-themed villain. "Are you all right headmaster?"

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!"

"Oh someone up there hates me." Gizmo said, and resumed blasting.

"So they're being kept busy until we deal with the trigger group. Any more questions? Yes, you with the axe…in the Santa suit…WHO IS CLOSER TO ME!" Freddy snapped. He thought that was Ricky Cadwell, the brother of Billy Cadwell, who had appeared in the (then) controversial Christmas horror film Silent Night, Deadly Night film, and who had also appeared in the incident last year. His brother Ricky had done the next two sequels, and had in turn followed his brother into being in a boogeymen attack. And just a note, there really was another Santa Claus slasher with an axe: Harry Standling, from Christmas Evil. And he thought the clowns were bad.

"Yeah. When do we get the spring-loaded cats?"

Freddy stared.

"…WHAT?"

"You know, the sprint-loaded cats! You make a noise and entice a victim into the room, and then BAM! Hit them with the cat! The cat jumps or falls out, and they think the cat made the noise, and they drop their guard and start to leave, and that's when you jump out of hiding and gut them!"

Freddy's stare grew cold.

"It's a classic!"

KER-ZAP! Ricky would not be following his brother after all, as he was now a pile of ash.

"Great, now it's Ker-zap." Freddy muttered. How the hell had films like Silent Night, Deadly Night gotten four sequels? Freddy had spent time setting up grotesque, horrifying scenarios, that were rife with pathos, gruesomeness, and terror…and these idiots were going for cheap jumps with spring-loaded cats. No wonder the horror genre had become such a joke.

"I have changed my mind! There will be no more questions, and no more talking! Time to strike!" Freddy said. "This will not be as simple as before! But is it doable all the same! To the survivors will go the victory and glory! You shall have a dozen sequels, and the best writers this pathetic industry can manage! You'll be the movies that ten year olds sneak into! So go out there, and make sure that you kill these so called villains! REMEMBER BOOGEYMEN PARTS 1, 2, AND PART 1: THE SPECIAL EDITION WITH OVER THREE HUNDRED PAGES OF ADDED MATERIAL!"

"Hey. No editorials."

"WHATEVER! CHARGE!" Freddy yelled, and with a roar all the slashers turned and charged off into the darkness. Within moments, all were gone.

Freddy took off his helmet, and with a flick of a wrist transformed it back into his fedora hat, as his general outfit morphed back into his usual attire.

"Of course, you morons are just as dead as that guy I just…ker-stabbed."

"…What?" One of his lieutenants said.

"Oh please. A hundred guys with essentially knives against people with the kind of firepower I saw them lugging in? History shows again and again that the hundred guys with knives might win, but it'll be Pyrrhic. The only guys to even get CLOSE to winning that were the Zulu, but the Browning Machine gun fixed THAT lil' problem." Freddy said. Though one couldn't really tell with the face covered, it was clear the lieutenant was raising an eyebrow at Freddy's analysis.

"Krueger, if you believe this, then why bother sending them in the first place? Why not send, say, that Japanese bat-wielding child again? Or better yet, why not I? Why waste time? I shall tempt them all into oblivion within the hour."

"Those stupid Japs have dominated MY world too long with their TV and scary girls shit! Lil' Bugger had his chance, he's done! And as for the losers, I figure they'll kill one or two of 'em, and really…those morons ain't forth a red cent for the lot of them. It's a public service to send them on a suicide mission."

"If it is a suicide mission."

"Yeah right, and pigs fly."

A few moments later, a pig with wings abrupt flew past Freddy. He turned and glared at his robed assistant.

"Why can't you be silent but violent like the other two?"

"If that was what you truly desired, I will not be here. But I will question your choice no longer, with one exception. How in the fiery pits of hell did you learn anything about history?"

"Wikipedia. Same placed I learned about THOSE soon to be dead dipshits."

"Which 'dipshits' are you referring to Krueger?"

"Take your pick."

Slade's face mask, showing only his remaining eye, was highly effective in concealing any and all expression…but the White Hole knew the particular kind of disbelief had definitely crossed his features.

"So you are saying that this atmosphere has singled Miss Sine out as a target, ostensibly because she is the only one among us who has experienced this problem before…and this is manifesting by the expansion of the size of the fatty tissues and lobules in her bosom?" Slade said, saying each word as if he had to consider just what he was saying.

"I don't understand the logic of it either." The White Hole said as she glanced over at Nightwalker, who seemed to be on the verge of a D-Cup by now. She was clearly doing her best to ignore it, as she unloaded the crates she and White Hole had struggled so much to bring in (Fortunately, with so much furniture already broken from the previous problems, as well as the debris from said broken furniture finally all cleared out of the room, there was more then enough room for all the crates, as the extremely large variety of guns was removed and placed on the remaining tables). Then again, maybe that was why she'd kept her helmet on and up, so no one could see how she might really feel.

And while Slade was looking, White Hole left, having clearly given him all the information she saw fit to share. Well, he could always speak to Nightwalker if he decided there was a hole in the information she had given.

"All right people, listen up. Anyone who has firearm experience, you most likely don't need to listen to this, but for those who don't, this is a matter of life and death. Mainly because I'll shoot you if you screw up." Slade said, as he picked up a handgun and began going through the general motions of arming it. "It is true that we have a very wide variety of firepower here. However, if you do not have experience with guns, or if your experience is very minimal, I strongly suggest you use a handgun in this model, and nothing else."

"Yeah, don't try a three-pointer when you can dunk." Adonis said. Slade glanced at him.

"Despite what you may think, using guns is nowhere near as easy as it appears in fiction, and if you assume that you can apply that given ease to yourself, you will be sadly mistaken."

"Yeah, anyone can hit a ball, but there's only one Babe Ruth!" Adonis said again. Slade was starting to get annoyed.

"In other words, don't try and duel-wield guns…"

"Unlike a baseball bat!"

"Don't try and fire a shotgun like it's a pistol…"

"Unlike a hockey stick!"

"Don't interrupt me again or I WILL kill you." Slade said as he aimed at Adonis.

"Like a…GAH!" Adonis said, as he hid behind the bar…which didn't really work too well, due to his size.

"And don't search out your choice of weapon just because of its size or because you like how it looks. Because if you choose a weapon you are ill-suited for and this becomes apparent, I will make sure you don't get a chance to use it." Slade said, as he put the handgun down. "Now, about those with their own projectile attacks. Kurai?"

"Not bad master, but better to be safe." Kurai said, as he began loading his own handgun. Well, at least he understood the situation: Kurai wasn't by nature fond of guns.

"Komand'r?" Slade said, offering the Tamaranian a gun. He may as well have offered her a handful of his own feces, from the look she gave him.

"You BASTARD!" Blackfire said, as she slapped the gun out of his hand (Slade caught it with the other, lest it hit the floor and discharge). "Have you forgotten who I am? Or shall I crush your throat to remind you?"

"Master…!" Kurai said, jumping to his feet, but Slade stopped him with a gesture.

"Your Blackbolt ability has recovered to the point where utilizing a firearm is redundant to you then, Miss Komand'r."

"Don't patronize me Wilson." Blackfire hissed, as she clenched her fist, as it glowed purple…

And then she fired.

A Blackbolt the size of a tangerine.

Which immediately began slowing down until within a few seconds it was moving at walking speed.

And faded into nothing before it hit the wall.

Slade watched it as it moved, and then turned his gaze back on the alien, who was trying to cover up that pathetic display with an extra layer of stubborn defiance.

"Hoo-rah." Jack said. "Too bad you missed the Fourth of July by a few months birdie."

Blackfire seized her bottle and hurled it at Jack…who caught it with one hand. Well, it seemed the seal had weakened enough to give full substance back to his appendages.

"Cheers." Jack smirked, and began drinking from said bottle. The Australian sure could hold his alcohol: he'd been drinking regularly all evening, without much of a trace of intoxication. Maybe it was a side-effect of his talent.

Though Slade's attention was more drawn to an utterly furious Tamaranian, who stood there steaming that her bottle throw had failed so badly.

"So what? I'll just let them get close! A hole that size can still cause a lot of problems! Like death! I'll save all your asses, you shits!" Blackfire said, and stormed off, heading back to the bar and its still numerous bottles of alcohol.

"Pride goeth ever before the fall." Slade said to himself. "As for the rest of you, having a backup in case of problems with this magical seal is recommended. Listen to these words, and you most likely have a better chance of surviving."

There was a brief pause, as Slade had finished speaking.

And Adonis dove back in.

"All right guys, this is it! The bottom of the ninth, fourth down with fifty yards to go, ten seconds on the clock, our best players in the penalty box! We need to a Hail Mary, drive it out of the park, and if we get a hat trick, we might just survive!"

And with a series of rapid clicks, virtually everyone in the bar was pointing guns at Adonis, even several people who Slade could have sworn had not previously armed themselves.

"Or…something like that." Adonis squeaked.

"Enough. Forget it." Slade said as he lowered his pistol, though he was very mildly mystified by Adonis' behavior. Why did the robot suited idiot keep interrupting him, and talking in all the sports meta…

A strange thought crossed Slade's mind. White Hole and Nightwalker had spoken of direct targeting done by the atmosphere, on top of the general suspension of more then a few aspects of chance and reality. Nightwalker was being targeted by her strange growth…and as Slade recalled from his conversation with Control Freak, horror films didn't have much in the way of storytelling, tending to use the same basic batch of archetypes over and over. And one of them was usually a sports player. A jock.

And Adonis was certainly talking like the old stereotype of a jock.

Then again, Slade thought, while his suit made Adonis look like a jock, the man inside it had never played or watched an actual sport in his life: he was a closet D & D player and mechanical enthusiast. So if the spell was trying to make him a jock…it didn't have much to work with.

Adonis might not be the only one. Blackfire was certainly overflowing with the certain shallow fierceness most people assigned a term to that usually meant female dog. And Slade himself had briefly been overwhelmed, acting the virtual opposite of how he usually did. He'd have to keep an eye on it, see if it was affecting anyone else in the group, though he couldn't see just where yet…right?

He'd give it some more thought after they finished up here. For the moment there were other things to do, as Slade headed over to Killjoy, who had commandeered a whole table to himself, all of it covered with heavy artillery. He was currently loading up a SPAS-12 shotgun, the same make and model Slade's was (though Slade's was heavily modified).

"Killjoy." Slade said, as the silent assassin glanced up at him. "When you are done arming yourself, I have a request. Assemble several groups of weapons, enough to be carried without difficulty. Variety is important; assemble the weapons in groupings for each and any combat situation you can think of. There are materials behind the bar: I want you to place your assembled choices in the burlap cloth provided and tie them up. For simple access to combat layouts. In return, feel free to keep any of these weapons you choose to."

Killjoy said nothing as he resumed arming his shotgun, but Slade knew that if he didn't want to he'd have given a clear sign. For all Killjoy's coldness, he knew how to survive, and he knew that working with the group, in as much as such a group could work together, increased his chances. Slade moved on.

The new one, Doctor Westminster, had retrieved another M-16, Nightwalker having ditched her own, and had laid it down on another table around a variety of firearm parts and a few other weapons, including grenades. He noticed Slade, and then his eyes flicked down at the table and then back up to Slade.

"Deathstroke."

"Yes?"

"What is this?" Westminster said, lifting a fancy looking attachment.

"A bit hard to define. You could say it was a tazer…or you could say it was a electrical blaster. It's somewhere in the middle. Very new, not available on the common market. Attaches to the M-16 where the M203 grenade launcher usually would. It doesn't have many shots, but it would work somewhat better then grenades in an enclosed space."

"Sounds good." Westminster said as he put the attachment down.

"Your clothing indicates possible military training, but in the days of costumes such things are far from certain, so I must ask…" Slade began.

As Westminster rapidly assembled the M16, attaching and arming the entire weapon in a quick twenty second burst, and then slammed in a clip.

"Yes." Westminster said, as he sighted with the gun.

"Very well. How goes the recovery of your talent?"

"Slow. I'm running low on painkillers as it is…but if necessary I could probably produce some material. Not much, but some." Westminster said.

"Keep that in mind." Slade replied, as he walked on.

"Why do you keep hanging around?" The Sorceress asked, where she tentatively stood, leaning on a chair to help her balance with her underused legs.

"Excuse me?" Brick asked, as he opened up one of the crates and began placing the largest of the guns, full sized gatling cannons, on a nearby table.

"Ever since the transformation. You've been hanging around me. And this is considering before this happened I was planning on punishing you for what you did to my safe."

"Technically, that was not me." Brick said. "That was…what my mind had become. And I am as little control of it as you might be. It is so heavily suggestible that it reaches the point of absurdity, and has, many times."

"That doesn't explain why you're hanging around me."

"This is a magic-based conundrum. You are the primary authority on magic here, as the Lord said before his sudden demise. And your closeness to the reaction seems to have dampened your abilities to an even further extent then the rest of us. Yet your expertise has not lessened. Should the solution prove problematic, your survival would probably greatly lessen any tribulation that results, even if you cannot cast spells at your previous levels." Brick said. "While weakened myself, my body is considerably more hardy then yours. It is for mutual benefit…so to speak."

"I hope you're not trying to curry any favor with me Brick. I'm in no mood…"

"Vogel." Brick said. "I am Dr. Henry Vogel. The Brick is the unfortunate accident of my desire to survive…much like this, minus the accident part. I should not be considered him."

"That's your name though. Brick. And so it shall remain." The Sorceress said. Brick/Vogel sighed and removed a type of gun he didn't recognize. He couldn't even find a trigger: to him it looked like a giant cross between a TV remote and a halogen light tube.

"What, praytell, is this Slade?" He asked as the mercenary passed by on his round.

"Nothing that will be of use to us, most likely." Slade replied. "It's a prototype. In theory it will essentially be a lightning gun. Westminster has a much smaller, more practical version attached to his weapon: this prototype would be able to fire shots at twenty times the power his attachment does. But it is just a prototype: the weapon battery is only good for one good shot, not to mention the heat melts the weapon more often then not upon firing. Not practical at all in our situation. Put it aside Brick, and when we're done selecting weapons place it back in the box with the discards." Slade said, as he turned to the Sorceress. "Ithlian. How are you feeling?"

"I'd be feeling a lot better if I wasn't surrounded by all this disgusting junk." The Sorceress replied.

"Ah yes, I see your great acrimony for science has not lessened. I do not really care to add to it, but that is beyond me at the moment. In regards to your strength and magical abilities."

"If I said I was 20 percent I'd be lying. But I am still more then a match for any nonsense this chaos manifestation throws at us."

You might not think that if I told you the details of that incarnation from the Japanese cartoon Nightwalker and While Hole faced, if their descriptions were any way accurate. Slade thought to himself.

"Good. I assume being the great master of all things magic, you have some kind of size reducing spell."

"I do, but why…"

"Let me finish. We are still sorting through and preparing ourselves. When we are done, I am going to place all the backup weapons and ammunition I wish to keep back in the crates. And then I want you to shrink them down for easy carrying."

"WHAT?" Sorceress snapped.

"You CAN do this, can't you?"

"That is irrelevant! You dare ask me to use my…"

"Yes yes. Your powers are pure and radiant, and these tools are filthy and tainted and abominable and all that. But if your lessened talents prove to not be up to the task of repulsing the threat, these so called filthy tools will be all that stands between you and death, more likely then not. So you consider your current level of power, and consider the problems facing us, and then you make a choice. You can hate or you can live. Best make it swiftly." Slade said.

Sorceress glared at the mercenary, at all the firearms on his person, toxic metal and chemicals…as the burning in her gut reminded her of the bitter truth. She was too weakened to fight properly for long.

"…shrinking those boxes will not be easy. It will most likely use up what power I have managed to restore."

"Then we will have to make sure we protect you well afterward." Slade said. "You may wish to arm yourself with one of these weapons though. Just to be as safe as possible."

The Sorceress glared daggers at Slade.

"Or do not. I am planning on surviving this, Miss Ithlian. Whether you do or not is somewhat to my concern…but not as big as it would be needed to absolutely ensure your life. Remember that." Slade said, and walked on.

Sorceress scowled after him.

"You know, he speaks the truth. Even if you do hate science and technology, one would think your life should come first." Brick said.

"Pah. You humans." The Sorceress said. "You mix up a powder and shove it in a tube and suddenly you think you've created some great power. No, all you've done is create a shortcut. That's all your accursed science is, shortcuts to understandings and beliefs, not a dredge of genuine enlightenment…" The female mage said, as she looked into the crate and then reached in and seized the first weapon she could. "And you look at it and instead of saying let's see what else I can discover you say let's just make bigger ones and ones with more deadly effects and maybe one day they'll be some purpose behind it all…"

The Sorceress trailed off as she realized Brick was looking rather nervously at her.

"What?"

"Uh…Sorceress? Ithlian, he said your name was? You may want to choose a different weapon…"

"Why?" The Sorceress said, as she hefted the gun she had selected. "Your weapons are all the same! You point it at the target and your little pieces of metal come out and…!"

BLA-BOOM! For a moment the Sorceress COULD fly again, as she flew backwards and smashed against the wall in a bone-jarring thud, as Brick recoiled to the side and then looked behind him. Fortunately for them, no villain had been standing near the wall that now had a great big hole in it.

Rabbits and hats were still dancing in front of the Sorceress' eyes as Slade leaned down before her.

"A clarifying detail, Miss Ithlian. Much like the fact that all your spells are magic does not make them the same, the fact that all these weapons are guns does not mean they all act the same. They exert varying degrees of force in their execution, and as a result, have varying degrees of feedback. Considering your frail frame and lack of experience, it is probably not in your, or our, best interest to select as your choice of a weapon, an elephant gun." Slade said, as he took the immensely powerful shotgun variant from the dazed mystic. "Seeing how it was designed to bring down a creature that has one of the thickest hides and skeletal structures on this planet, it emits a great degree of kinetic energy…more then I believe you are capable of handling. I suggest you select from the much smaller line of weapons."

The Sorceress stared at Slade with her glazed eyes, and then gave a shaky thumbs-up, as if she was simultaneously confused about the motion and what it meant. Slade took that as a good enough answer and walked on.

"Geez. For a second I thought he was trying to kill us all again." Mad Mod said from where he sat, as he adjusted his glasses (they had been knocked akimbo by the way he had jerked when Sorceress had accidentally fired the elephant gun). "I'm getting on in years, I don't need surprises like that."

"Getting on? You're younger then I am!" The Handyman said.

"Yes, but that's just because of my cane, and that's due to run out soon. Not that that makes me a weakling, but still…Slade would have shot me as dead as the rest if I hadn't been the only one to duck!"

"I still can't believe it." Light said from where he sat, his arms wrapped around him: one got the sense he was one more shock away from going into a fetal position. "I knew Slade was harsh, but that's…amazingly harsh."

"Nice work, doctor." The Handyman said. "Glad to see I didn't need to go to a big school, if that's all the vocabulary you got."

"Why you seventh-rate Bob Vilas! I'm still…!"

"Bzzzzzzzzz."

"AHHHHHHHH!"

"You'd think that would stop working eventually, but it doesn't, does it." Mad Mod commented at Light once again hiding under the table.

"Hey…!" Puppet King said as he walked over, a bit more sure on his feet now due to the Sorceress' hypothesized leaking seal on powers. "Why'd they give me the smallest gun?"

Puppet King held up a pistol that looked more like a toy then a firearm…as the villains at the table just looked at him, then looked away. No answer needed. Puppet King muttered under his breath and stomped off.

"You think we should do something about Slade's sudden proclivity to kill us? Before he decides the best way to test one of these many weapons is to use us as target practice?" The Handyman pondered.

"What? You mean try and disable him? Even kill him? Hah." Mad Mod said. "We wouldn't have had much of a chance back when Johnny and Atlas and the rest were still alive. Now, forget it. He's not placed above the rest of us in the accursed brat's eyes for nothing. And even if we COULD, we'd still have to deal with his two apprentices. Take care of all three at once? Forget it. Better we just keep an eye on him."

"And take into consideration the reasons behind his actions." Nightwalker said as she passed by. "To repeat it again, this isn't just a problem of monsters. It's a problem of surroundings as well. Being forced into a set of actions and beliefs, on a variety of levels and…face up here guys." Nightwalker said, pointing to her still-up helmet.

"Considering we can't see either, does it really matter?" Dr. Light said from where he had peeked over the table.

An orb slammed into the tabletop a few inches from Light's face, as he yelped and ducked under the table again.

"I didn't want this to happen. My tolerance is very limited on reactions to it." Nightwalker said. "From what I heard, the atmosphere played sneakily with Slade. It got behind his extreme distaste of the setup of all this and pushed him towards irrationality. While keeping an eye on him is probably a good thing, just remember he wasn't quite himself."

"Ma'am, with all due rebreast-RESPECT, RESPECT!" The Handyman blurted. "I can totally see him doing that to someone he thought was D-cup-DEAD WEIGHT, DEAD WEIGHT! Even when he IS in his right size, bra, boobies, Ah!" The Handyman said, clapping his hand over his mouth. Nightwalker glared at him.

"One Freudian slip is understandable. That many means you're either doing it on purpose, or you're being influenced. Take a moment to review yourself, Handyman. Slade's reaction to another influenced member of this would be merry band will probably be far more severe then mine in regards to my problem."

"Yeah, I did feel a bit off." The Handyman said. "It's probably because of lack of sleep, or maybe your giant tits. I mean, your jugs are huge! I mean, I wanna squeeze them! I mean…Mama!" Handyman said, and made suckling noises.

Nightwalker's punch echoed across the bar.

"Are you done quoting one of Carrey's better films, or do I have to actually hurt you?" Nightwalker said darkly.

"…Thank you miss, can I have another?" Handyman asked. Nightwalker threw up her hands and stalked off.

"The sad thing, Handyman, is I totally agree with you." Mad Mod said, as Handyman got up, rubbed his jaw, and sat down, even as Dr. Light peeked his head over the table again.

"About Slade or about the…"

"SLADE. SLADE." Mad Mod snapped.

"And that's forgetting the bigger problem." Light said. "Handyman, shouldn't you take a gun, since your gimmick gun only had one clip of ammo?"

"I tried to, but when I did Rose said we couldn't hurt them and trying was pointless. Then she stuck her tongue out at me." Handyman said, looking confused. "That gun would just weigh me down when the time came for running anyway."

"What? I was going to use you as my meatshield!" Light blurted out.

"Yet another good reason to run." The Handyman said, and got up and left before any more could be said.

"Argh. Arthur, you have got to learn-OWWWWWWWWW!" Light yelled as Mad Mod hit him on his head with his cane. "What was that for?"

"I called dibs on Handyman you rotter!"

"Oh piss off you French-Fry-wrong-name-caller."

"NOW LISTEN YOU…"

"See if I ever try to assuage anyone's fears ever again. Ugh." Nightwalker said, as she headed away from the now arguing table. She quickly spotted the White Hole, sitting in a corner, her back to the wall and her eyes closed. Resting after the nasty strikes she had taken from Lil' Slugger, whose chaos magic manifestation had proven to be quite taxing for the alien, especially with her reduced endurance. Then again, consider Lil' Slugger was supposed to kill (if he wanted to) anything he struck with one blow, the Blacktrinian had probably gotten off easy. Nightwalker located her personal briefcase of ammo behind the bar, and then headed over to the White Hole, picking up a handgun along the way.

"While I know your species has that hang-up about projectiles, I figure I'll ask anyway: would you like a gun?" Nightwalker asked. The White Hole flicked her eyes open, glanced at Nightwalker, then the gun (which was an M1911 handgun), and then back at Nightwalker.

"No." The White Hole said, as she rolled her shoulders.

"Hmmmm." Nightwalker said, as she checked the gun, put on the safety, and then stuck it in her own belt.

"I can hear it in your tone. You think turning down the gun is a bad idea. That I'm letting personal prejudices get in the way of something that might aid my survival." The White Hole said, leaning back with her eyes closed again. "You think I'm being foolish, maybe even wondering if this is part of my so called savage nature, that I prefer to rip and smash beings apart with my own two hands."

"…Not wholly." Nightwalker said.

"Ah, still honest. A rare trait." The White Hole said. "That is partly the reason Sine. But I have my own reasons for not taking up a gun. And I want to clear something up." The White Hole said, as she opened her eyes and adjusted her hat a touch. "My species lives for war. And for a very long time, all we know how to fight was each other. Our fighting tactics, our way of battle, became so deeply ingrained into our society it may as well be in our genes. It is that way that contributes to more then a fair deal of my reputation. We are a species that charges in, gets close, guts, rips apart, crushes into a bloody pulp, and does so over and over. This is, by many aspects, savage. But to us, it is not all it is, and most importantly, it is not all bad."

"War by itself is bad, really." Nightwalker said, as she reached into her briefcase and began restocking her spent gauntlet ammo.

"So you say. But I think I know why so many of you humans believe that." The White Hole said. "I've read up on your history, to try and understand why that traitor Hastionfarlock was so enamored by your species…I've read of your wars. How much you've lost your way."

"Lost our way?"

"You would say we Blacktrinians fight like animals. Maybe we do. But we rose to meet our opponents face to face. I looked my many, many victims in their eyes when I took their lives. Call it barbaric, but it was personal. I struck my foes down knowing full well my act. Many of my fellows did likewise. It seemed…proper, overall. A manifestation of survival of the fittest. You humans fought that way once too, but then you started coming up with new methods. Very well, we Blacktrinians have adapted other tactics as well. But we have always, ALWAYS preferred the one on one fight. The 'savagery', as it were. When you win that way, you know your victory is just and right. You have proven the stronger, one of the deepest laws of life." The White Hole said. "But you humans…you went in directions I can't believe. I remember reading of your first truly grand war, back in the early years of your 20th century…and being utterly stunned at how you chose to fight."

"I assume you're referring to trench warfare." Nightwalker said, knowing a little history herself.

"Many call me insane how I fight. No, THAT, your no man's lands, THAT is insane!" The White Hole stated. "To charge an enemy and grind him under your heel, that is a good way to win. Even if you take severe casualties, it makes…sense. But your way of fighting, going back and forth, thousands dying and bleeding into a morass of mud and rot, weeks and weeks going by while each side shot and shelled each other without gaining a meter either way, on and on and on, it's anathema! It's…blasphemous! So much wasted life, in such an artificial manner…it's not war, or battle. It's a meat grinder! Say what you will about us, we never pointlessly threw our lives away like the way so many human soldiers did in that conflict!"

"Did we get any better?"

"No, you just kept going sideways at an angle into worse territories, so to speak. When you had your second great war a few decades later you came up with an even better way to waste lives: you blasted everything from the air with bombs! I can see the tactical reasoning behind it, but that's no way to fight! Not to mention your explosives were so primitive and inaccurate that they were more often hitting benign, harmless targets and killing 'innocents' then striking what you wanted to hit! I won't deny that I have killed females, children, creatures that could inflict no harm on me in the least, but at least I did it because I meant to, because I felt it was needed, not because my weapon was so crude that it hit them instead of a proper target! And then you had your other war that is spoken of so much, Vietnam was it, where you let endless waves of babbling rabble claiming they wanted peace sabotage the efforts of the country's attempts to win. You will probably bring up your country's right to free speech, well, that is why I say free speech is so annoyingly ludicrous. Scum should not have a voice on matters they do not understand." The White Hole said, and paused to take a brief drink from her glass. "Of course, your leadership seemed to have little clue of what it was doing either. Sending their soldiers into such territory, a wild morass that killed the men as much as the enemy did. It would be like sending Blacktrinians to fight in an ocean! It just makes no sense at all! Not to mention all the insanity and other defects that appeared among the men sent to fight due to the horrid decision making all around. If Blacktrinia had been forced to fight a war like that, the public would have rebelled within a month and torn the leaders apart themselves! Instead, you just accepted it, reducing it to an endless series of chastising and nattering. Either kill the fools who sabotage your support or kill the fools who led you into such an improper situation, just don't sit there and accept it. And it's clear you've learned nothing in that regard from your more recent battles. So yes, Sine, you humans have lost your way. You call me a monster? Well I call you an imbecile and an addle-brained bunch of dolts to think this is how you fight battles. Now, really, which one of us is right?"

Nightwalker was silent. The White Hole adjusted her hat again.

"Even not invoking my opinions on your species in comparison to what I believe about war, think of it this way. I have worked centuries to become the fearsome individual I have been regarded as. I WORKED at it, Sine…certain issues aside of course." The White Hole said quietly. "And yet anyone, from the inferiors in this bar, those fools who tried to rob us earlier, on and on across your world and many others, who have earned nothing, who are WORTH NOTHING, could pick up one of those guns you offered me, and with one quick choice, one gargantuan stroke of luck, just aim it at me…and I would be dead. They could kill me. Such a tool makes waste into killers, without any of the skills or sacrifice such a gift should allow. So no, Nightwalker. I am who I am because of what I did, and I will not take up a tool that takes my mastery and makes it…commonplace."

The White Hole sipped from her drink again.

"Besides, you have your own unique weapon setup you've been arming all the while I spoke. Why would you want a gun? And if you do, why not just use a gun in the first place?"

"You said it, in a way. Guns are commonplace. For the world I seek to walk in and perhaps one day stride across like a colossus, those who have not sought some kind of protection from the weapon are weak and foolish and not long for the world. How does one get past these defenses? Well, one can aim for the head, as the head is often hard to shield, but the head is also a small target, hard to hit even by the skilled, and while armor is difficult, it is not impossible." Nightwalker said. "One needs something more unique, that operates under similar circumstances of firearms yet deviates enough to provide you with an advantage. Hence, my custom weapon system. However, in this case, having some backup firepower is a good thing. Especially since certain things are not working as they NORMALLY should." Nightwalker said, indicating her chest.

"Ah yes, I heard the males commenting on that."

"Almost as annoying as the problem itself. Perverts." Nightwalker said, as she began going over her chosen setup.

"It really is a roundabout way to ensure your death. If it can cause such a change in your body, while not simply cause a vein to rupture in your brain?"

"Ah, but why does the Lord not just blow up Titans' Tower while they're all in it? Because it would be far too simple. And hence, lack any real satisfaction." Nightwalker said. "It's not how these films work. People don't die because of sudden body failures. They die because someone pokes a few extra holes in them, or eats them, or something like that. And since they're so derivative of each other, they don't have much in the way of variety. Hence the same people always die, with minimal switchup. And since they can't waste time defining characters, they often just settle for physical attributes and certain actions. So trust me, suddenly looking like I've walked through the set of Nip/Tuck is a bad thing, not only because it marks me as a target for killers and annoying comments, but because it messes up the person I know I am."

"Well…I don't think it's such a problem. In fact, on Blacktrinia it would probably be considered an advantage."

"What? So if your boobs suddenly start spontaneously ballooning you'd just go 'Oh. well, que sera, sera.'?"

"Well no, but from my point of view it's not that much of a disadvantage, or that bad of a thing."

"Yeah well you've got a Miss Needleass body. I don't."

"…Miss…needle…ass…?"

"Injections through the buttocks is a popular way of injecting steroids."

"Oh. Well, I don't take drugs. Well, not those kind of drugs anyway. I have tried a few, but not in that vein…stopped because they didn't have much affect…though I did take one that made more horny then a Tamaranian on Tria-fruit…"

"…Okkkkkkkkkk." Nightwalker said.

"Well, I have lived a long time, done a lot of stupid things." The White Hole continued, almost in an overly swift manner.

"No limit on those in a lifetime."

"Hmmmmm. Yes." The White Hole said. "But apart from the stupid thing I've done, larger busts mean the same thing in my culture as it does yours."

"Maybe that's true, but it's irrelevant. I was fine with what I had. This is NOT a good thing."

"It isn't? I was under the impression seeming more appealing was a good thing to your species."

"Not like this! I was used to my body. This is an abrupt change. And that's not even taking into account the reasons behind it!"

"But if you had the choice, between who you were and what you could be, what would you do?"

"I'd rather be who I could be by my own choices."

"Point exactly. If you had your choice, who would you be?"

"Who I am." Nightwalker said definitely.

"…Hmmmmm." The White Hole said. "Well, I stand by my observation, but that's probably because despite what you believe the Blacktrinian race is by nature more maternal then demonic."

"Really? Then why not let the Titan Scalpel go, live his life as he wants, like any good mother would?" Nightwalker said, as she closed up her specialized briefcase, wincing briefly as she spoke the last words and realized how they applied to her.

"…it couldn't be like that. Not just because of…my problem. I had a reputation to uphold. It's what they've always said of me. I cannot admit defeat. After a while…I started to believe it myself."

"Not a good way to live." Nightwalker replied, as she fully closed up the briefcase.

"…I suppose not." The White Hole replied, as she leaned back, looking thoughtful. "I suppose not…"

Nightwalker sensed all had been said that could be said for the moment and left. The White Hole watched her go, thinking of Sine's complaints. Too bad she couldn't see the benefits. As far as the White Hole cared, having big breasts was not a bad thing. There were considerably worse things in Blacktrinian culture…far worse.

Slade was looking inside a mostly emptied crate while figuring out storage issues in his head when Control Freak sidled up.

"Hey, this looks just like Han Solo's blaster! DIBS!" Control Freak said as he snatched up a weapon on the table near the box.

"That's a gas grenade gun. We're in a poorly vented bar. Pick another one." Slade said. Control Freak looked disappointed, but did so.

"…Ooohh, this looks like a phaser!" Control Freak said as he grabbed up another gun/device.

"That's an Old One model magical scanner. Give it. NOW." Slade said dangerously. Disappointed again, Control Freak handed the device over, as Slade slipped it into one of his few remaining free pouches, the rest now filled with various supplies, mostly ammo.

"Fine." Control Freak groused. "Oooh, that looks like Indiana Jones' gun!"

"Now that one is actually a gun. Knock yourself out. Nerd." Slade said, saying the last word under his breath.

Control Freak was looking over his new toy when Nightwalker arrived.

"Slade I heard you planned to shrink these boxes down for storage. I request to know if my personal ammo storage can be included."

"We shall see." Slade replied. Nightwalker nodded, and then noticed Control's Freak not wholly careful movements with his gun.

"Control Freak, do you know how to use firearms?" Nightwalker asked.

"Point the hollow end at the person you want to stop living?" Control Freak replied.

"That's very basic you know."

"He was raised on television…" Slade began.

"AMERICAN television!" Mad Mod called.

"…AMERICAN television and actually LIVES in it most of the time. I'm surprised he can even handle basics." Slade commented.

"HEY!" Control Freak said, and almost made to point his gun at Slade, before Nightwalker grabbed his wrist and forcibly lowered it.

"VERY. BAD. IDEA." Nightwalker said. "Now pay attention Control Freak. This is not like a Schwarzenneger film. Guns can run out of ammo, or jam, or generally stop working, so you need to know what to do then and MY EYES ARE UP HERE."

"I'm sorry! I'm only human!" Control Freak wailed. "…So, ever considered becoming a Suicide Girl?"

KER-PUNCH!

"Now next…what was that sound?" Nightwalker said. To test it, she punched Control Freak again.

KER-PUNCH!

"…Oh what the…"

KER-PUNCH!

"…this is the best special effect we can afford?" Nightwalker groaned.

"STOP TESTING IT ON ME, YOU BIMBO!" Control Freak yelled.

KER-KICK!

"Now that just makes no sense at all." Nightwalker said.

"Yes." Kurai said, nearby and overhearing…incorrectly. "Trust me, she is not the bimbo."

"And what does THAT mean Kurai?" Slade asked. Kurai sweatdropped.

"Um, obviously that the bimbo of this , er, movie, issssssssssss…Blackfire!"

"WHAT?" Blackfire yelled from her position at the bar, as she started to get up.

"Step down." Kurai said, turning and aiming his glowing hand at Blackfire. "You couldn't fight me on your BEST day."

"Kurai, stop. No need to waste energy. Blackfire, you as well. And Miss Sine, perhaps you should remove your helmet if you feel certain members of this group are looking in the wrong place. Your insistence on leaving it up is beginning to make me wonder if you're really a mole of some kind hiding their identity."

"Fine, fine." Nightwalker said, as she reached up and began pressing the buttons to make her helmet disassemble. "But do we really need to be discussing this…"

And the helmet fully broke apart, assembling back into Nightwalker's shoulder armor as her hair swung down.

And suddenly, every villain nearby was staring at her.

"…What?" Nightwalker said, and looked behind her. She saw nothing except Brick and Sorceress, and turned back to find the villains were still looking. "WHAT?"

"It's been nice knowing you." Control Freak said, as he saluted and then walked off.

"What the…?" Nightwalker said.

"Miss Sine, please look at your hair." Slade said.

"My hair? What…" Nightwalker said, as she both looked down and reached up to push some of her long locks in front of her…

And immediately saw what had caused everyone to stare. The deep red of her flowing mane was gone. Every single strand had, at some point when she had put her helmet up, turned a brand new color.

Golden blonde.

"…OH YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!" Nightwalker shrieked.

"You are becoming more and more of a debauchee as you age, you know, Krueger." The robed lieutenant said as Freddy said on his throne and watched the screen, looking pleased with himself.

"Pshah. I was always like this, now I just have more wrinkles." Freddy replied.

"I believe your skin condition…"

"IT WAS JUST AN EXPRESSION NUMBNUTS!"

"Miss Sine, I really must ask for an explanation to this, as I highly doubt you decided to stop by a hair saloon on your way back here. The fact you did not seem to be aware of this only makes it more strange." Slade said.

"You know what it is Slade. It's the same problem that affected my…attributes." Nightwalker said. "Blonde is supposedly a sign of stupidity. And blonde characters in horror films usually follow that cliché, and don't live to tell the tale. It's going as much out of its way to ensure my demise as it can. But fuck that and fuck them." Nightwalker said. "Give me another gun."

"Are you certain you know how to use it?"

"Yes. Give me another gun. Please." Nightwalker said, spitting out the last word. Slade gave her two. Nightwalker checked them and placed them in whatever free access area she had. "Now what's the plan?"

"Oh no need to worry Miss Sine. I'm sure you'll pick it up should any trouble occur." Slade said, and turned and left. Nightwalker blinked.

And then she looked around herself, and found it wasn't just Slade. Everyone had heard her little announcement…

And Nightwalker, with a sudden chill, realized just how they were interpreting it. They saw the fact that she was so singled out as a threat, a possible hole in their own defenses. And if that was the case, there was only one solution. Look out for their own asses and throw her to the wolves.

Nightwalker's teeth set on edge. The situation had grown much worse. True, she hadn't really expected the group to be able to work together, like the Titans or even the Hive could. But she'd expected they would at least act in similar ways for the sake of their own survival. And they were, but unfortunately that similarity was working against her. With one more simple alteration, the changes forced on her had cut her off from any support…

…wait…perhaps not all…

Nightwalker glanced over to the White Hole…and her heart sank when she saw the alien was staring at her. Hell, the way she was looking at Nightwalker made her wish the alien was expressing the purposeful ignorance the rest of the villains were.

No sense in wondering. Nightwalker walked over.

"You heard what I said. And even if you didn't, you probably know what caused this."

"Yes."

"Will you side with the rest of them?"

"…Dragging an injured member of the part you are in may seem noble to you humans. To me, it slows us down. In the end, it's efficiency that matters. You should understand that by now Sine." The White Hole said quietly.

"All right. If you believe a sudden hair change makes you vulnerable, then have it that way." Nightwalker said tersely, and then spun and walked off.

The White Hole watched…and for a brief moment wondered if she should have just told the truth on why she had turned Nightwalker away. True, maybe the fact that the atmosphere was so overtly targeting her was cause for concern, and possibly even a small crack in her defenses…but the White Hole was too confident in her own abilities, not to mention in what she had seen in Nightwalker before, to really think such a weakness was anything but negligible, even ignorable. It wasn't her real reason.

Her true reason was what she had said. That there were worse things in Blacktrinian culture.

And one of those things was that Blacktrinians considered blonde women to be bad luck.

Now as silly as that may sound, let us not forget that humans think they're stupid by nature, so we are hardly in a position to judge, are we?

It was simply that: Blacktrinians thought that if you were a blonde woman, you were bad luck. Where this belief had come from had been long forgotten, but it was believed to the extent that the previous Empress of the empire had bleached her blonde hair white in order to avoid any possible repercussions, as she was already doubtful in her own abilities and her ability to rule the empire (White hair being considered somewhat unpopular, but less so than blonde). The Empress ruled the empire for a year or so, and actually did a pretty good job, even if she didn't do much in the way of conquering, but that could probably be attributed mostly to the fact that she was promptly usurped, because, according to the new ruler, she was bad luck for the empire.

Of course, said new ruler has swiftly run the Empire into the ground, but that's another story.

And the White Hole wasn't just following old legends: she had first hand experience at it. As the White Hole, in older times, she had been the leader of a group of men and women who were the elite of the Empire (they were essentially all White Holes, with Rebecca being the top dog). This elite ranged from special weapons experience to having some sort of unique power (like her own genetic superiority). One White Hole, whose name was the Blacktrinian version of Aradia Elegia, had blonde hair and claimed that not only was she the greatest mind that they had ever seen, she was also not a jinx.

As such she had dragged the White Hole over to the platform that she was working on one day, clambered up onto it, and started pressing some buttons on the pet project she was working on without explaining exactly what she was doing. The White Hole had stood there for a few minutes, unimpressed, before she turned and was about to walk away. Unfortunately, she hadn't left soon enough, and was still in the position she had been in when the last button was pressed and the accident occurred with the pet project she was standing on: a teleporter.

Blacktrinians, before this point, didn't mess with transporter technology for the simple reason that they couldn't get it right, and no one they had come across in their conquests had it either. Aradia had seemingly figured it out, and was going to demonstrate by teleporting a cup, but just as the White Hole began to leave she inadvertently knocked something over onto the target sensor.

As a result, when Aradia pressed the last button, she didn't teleport the cup she was planning to, but one of the greatest warriors of the Empire.

Styles woke up some months later, having been in a coma as her brain tried to reorganize itself. When she had enough strength back to go look for the blonde that had indeed proved to be bad luck, Styles found that Aradia had been transferred to the technology development division as their White Hole member…on the condition that she had dyed or gotten rid of her hair.

To the day she was killed by Nigel Hastings, her lungs had never felt right.

That was enough for the White Hole to believe it. And with all that was happening…now was not a good time to re-examine her viewpoints.

She had to be ready. Trouble was coming, and she would have to annihilate it.

Hell, why was she getting distracted by giving any consideration to Nightwalker in the first place? Even if she wasn't being targeted, she was just a human. Another member of that stupid, weak species. Hmmmmf. Maybe that influence was getting in her head as well. Well, that was done. She wouldn't give it any more thought. Nightwalker was on her own.

She would ensure her own survival. That was what she was good at.

Nightwalker tried to keep up a stone front as she headed over to the bar…yet she found herself depressed. But why? These were the bad guys after all. They didn't know anything of loyalty or camaraderie. Hell, they even lacked the basic grouping of the Hive. She should have been waiting for this shoe to drop.

Yet…the fact that she'd been isolated, essentially abandoned to her 'fate', just because her hair color had changed…

Her hand darted out and seized Control Freak, who had been standing nearby.

"Hey, fatty. Since you seem to have a reason to stay close, excluding several more obvious ones that just make me angrier, you may as well try and make yourself useful. Can that damn remote of yours change my hair color back?"

"Eeep!" Control Freak yelped. "Uh, um, I don't know! It's a backup, doesn't have the power of my primary one that got wrecked when this happened…but I'll try, ok?"

"You do that." Nightwalker said, as she let the nerd go. He straightened his jacket, produced his remote, and began fiddling with it.

He seemed to be serious about it, Nightwalker thought as she reached over and grabbed a beer from the wall. Well, maybe it was better to have at least the slightest bit of support, even if…

And then Nightwalker saw just why Control Freak seemed so intent on his remote. Because he was just pressing buttons randomly while he stared at her in his peripheral vision.

"You're incorrigible, you know that?" Nightwalker said crossly. Control Freak froze, caught in the act.

"Uh…fair exchange of services?"

KER-SMACK!

"OK, ENOUGH! WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE SPECIAL EFFECTS!" Freddy roared.

"Story doctor Bobcat has been reading too much of The Wotch webcomic these days. It's poisoned his pool of comic book sound effects."

"Oh." Freddy said. "Henh. Ask a stupid question…"

"Forget it." Nightwalker said, as Control Freak fled before he was struck again. "I'll handle the problem by myself. Just like I always have to in the end."

And so Nightwalker sat there, even as the bar continued to move around her, as Slade finally worked out which villains got which weapons, which backup weapons and ammo he wanted to keep, and which ones he wanted to discard. After that was done was an usually swift process of placing the guns and ammo back into the boxes (including Sine's briefcase, at her insistence before she returned to the bar and continued drowning her sorrows at as controlled a rate as she could muster) Slade wanted to keep (which did not include the several bundles of weapons Killjoy had made). Once that was done, the remaining unwanted weapons were loaded into the two remaining crates, and Slade tasked Brick with carrying them in the back to get them out of the way while he prodded the Sorceress to shrink the remaining boxes. Which, after much glaring and a few complaints, the Sorceress actually started doing, grumbling the whole time. She actually got the box down to the size of a Rubik's cube, which Slade slipped in one of his pouches (how he had room for anything else was a mystery, he had at least a half dozen guns, including two shotguns, not to mention grenades and extra ammo and his sword) and told her to move onto the next.

And in a nearby hallway, as Brick walked past lugging the box of 'useless' weapons, there was the sound of a toilet flushing and the Handyman walked out.

"MUCH better…" The Handyman said, as he adjusted his uniform, even as Brick emerged from the room he had put the box in.

"Tom? Is that you?" Brick said.

"No, it's Richard Nixon."

"Slade was looking for you…wait, did you just use the washroom?"

"Yeah…"

"Unattended? Tom, you could have rendered yourself vulnerable to attack."

"What? Please. If anything tried to follow me in there THEY'D be the ones on the ground, if you believe what people tell me about the smells I…"

"THAT'S ENOUGH. NO MORE NEEDED." Brick semi-gagged. "Go speak to Slade."

"Fine, fine." The Handyman said, as he strolled back into the main room and up to the masked mastermind. "Yeah Wilson?"

A gun was abruptly pointing in his face.

"…Yes MR. Wilson?" The Handyman squeaked.

"That's better. Listen carefully." Slade said, and then turned and said something to the Sorceress that proved inaudible to the Handyman, though the fact that the Sorceress' frown somehow deepened even more meant she clearly didn't like it. Handyman REALLY wished Slade would take the gun out of his face while he was talking to someone else, but he wasn't going to complain. "Brick has taken the weapons I have turned down into a room in the back, but just because I find they have too limited a use doesn't mean someone ELSE might. Therefore, I want you to follow him back there and use your tools to solder the crates up. Make them unable to be opened unless one has a gigantic can opener."

"Hey Slade, welding isn't easy, if you wanted a welder you should have recruited THE Welder…"

Slade cocked back the hammer on his gun with a very loud click.

"But then again, what good is a handyman if he can't improvise! I'll skip all the way there!" Handyman said in a tone overloaded with false cheer.

"Just walk. You'll need someone to watch over you, if only so we have some warning if something's coming. Rose, accompany him."

"Ok!" Rose said, as she put down the Uzi she was examining and headed over to the Handyman. Handyman wondered why she was looking it over, she had as many guns already as Slade did…and a look in her eye that made Handyman feel uncomfortable. Handyman decided he'd let her go first as Brick walked by with the other box, Rose walking along behind him…no, more like sashaying along behind him. Handyman gulped, and tried to look at the ceiling and think of London.

"You're certain sending her off on guard duty is wise, Slade-sama?" Kurai asked.

"I think I would know what my daughter is capable of, Kurai." Slade said, as he put another one of the shrunk boxes in another spare pouch, moving around briefly to test the weight of all his extra weapons. No, nothing that would prove discommodious to him yet. Then again, he was just that damn good. "It's a brief duty, and even if there is trouble, she knows exactly how to react to it."

"Sir, with all due respect, are you certain you know your daughter as well as you believe?" Kurai asked, tossing out a small feeler to see if Slade had puzzled out his daughter's 'condition' yet.

"And you would know her how?" Slade replied. Kurai froze, not having expected a counter question, not to mention you couldn't keep lying to Slade Wilson for very long before he picked up on it.

"Uh, um…I believe the term is…uh…er…" Kurai said, as his imperfect grasp of the English picked then to rear up and chomp him on the ass. "Uh…biblically!"

The way Slade's head snapped towards Kurai, his lone eye narrowing to a slit, clued in Kurai that he had picked the mother of all poor synonyms. Kurai sweatdropped so hard he nearly passed out from dehydration.

"That had better DAMNED WELL be a malapropism." Slade growled.

"Uh yes sir! Of course sir! I meant, uh, inadequately! What a mix-up! Whoa!" Kurai babbled. "Surely you possess the pineapple of knowledge of your daughter!"

"Pinnacle." Slade corrected.

"Whatever you say master!"

Slade looked at his apprentice a moment longer, then turned away, not wholly satisfied. When he had a spare moment to devote a thought to something besides the situation he was trapped in, he was going to take a closer look at his apprentice. Somehow Slade thought he wasn't being quite truthful with him.

"There you go." Brick said as he set the box down in the storage room, piled high with other (wooden) boxes of who knew what else, and not very well lit at that. "I will return to the main room unless instruction is given otherwise."

"What? You're not going to stay behind and watch me?" Handyman said.

"What? Hey no, that's my job! You can't fire me! I have tenure! …What's tenure anyway?" Rose said, and giggled.

"You see where I'm worried." The Handyman said.

"True Tom, but if I stay here, then I'd have to listen to her talk as well. And that is something I am not really wanting to do." Brick said, and left.

"…I liked him better when he was dumb." Handyman said, and then looked at Rose. "Are you feeling all right miss?"

"I'm feeling just great! How else would I be feeling?"

"Well, the exact words I am getting to describe my impression are vague, but 'brain' and 'damage' keep popping up…"

"Oh don't be silly! If I had brain damage, I wouldn't be able to shoot that coin out of your hand!" Rose said as she drew her sidearm.

"I DON'T HAVE A COIN IN MY HAND!" Handyman screamed.

"What? Oh, right. Good thing you told me, that coulda be AWWWWWKKKWARD." Rose said, and grinned. "You just do your thingamajiggie, I'll watch you! You have nothing to fear!…Wow, my gun is SO LONG!" Rose said, admiring her revolver. Handyman just stared, and then slowly turned around, wondering if it was too late to convert to Christianity or whatever religion would best aid him in getting out of this situation.

"Hell, not even Christianity." The Handyman said to himself. "Hell, I'll gladly convert to whatever works. Like Mormonism. Or Cthuluism. Yeah, that last one sounds right. Oh Dark Lord Cthulu, I shall write a series of boring, overlong books and inspire an internet meme in the name of thy glory, if you get me out of this!"

"THANKS, BUT I ALREADY HAVE ONE OF THOSE." Cthulu said as he popped out of the shadows.

"AsdfA ASdfasdAAsdfaALJKAJP!" The Handyman babbled, having forgotten the unfortunate effect that seeing or hearing Cthulu drove one mad.

"MY WORK HERE IS DONE. CTHULU AWAY!"

"Ugh. Bleh. What?" The Handyman said, instantly back to normal. "Ugh, I'd best get to work, lest I become the victim of something worse then Rose: another one-off joke." The Handyman said, as he pulled out his makeshift welding tools and got to work.

And despite the situation, Handyman soon found himself lost in the task at hand, because for all the jokes made, he WAS a very good handyman, and as a certain mayor had once said, he loved his job more then he loved taffy, and he was a man who liked his taffy.

Of course, that absorption just kept him from noticing what happened.

"Ohhhhhh, a butterfly!" Rose said, as indeed a butterfly flew out of the murk around her. "Pretty! What a pretty butterfly…what is a butterfly doing in here WHO CARES! Come here butterfly! I want to catch you in my butterfly net!" Rose declared, as she began to chase the butterfly around…and right out the door. "Wait, I just realized I don't have a butterfly net!…Oh well I'll improvise…!"

And so Handyman was left alone, as he began to finish welding up one crate.

A footstep sounded.

And Handyman…did nothing, he was too absorbed in his work.

Another footstep.

Handyman kept welding.

A louder one, which sounded a lot more like someone stomping on the ground.

"Gotta avoid the cracks, poor workmanship…" Handyman said to himself.

A loud series of thuds and stomps, as if someone was doing a dance on the floor.

"…Settling pretty loud." The Handyman said, shrugging off the floor noises as if they were natural.

"Psttttttttttttt!"

"Is the crate leaking? Damn, I thought it was airtight."

"PSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!"

"Or maybe a pipe is leaking…"

A brief pause, as a figure in the shadows tore at his hair in frustration, and then he picked up a very small rock that just happened to be there and threw it.

It bounced off Handyman's head.

"Ow! What are you doing Rose…Rose?" Handyman said, as he finally looked up…and realized he was alone.

Another noise.

"Oh dear! A strange noise! Now I could just run out the very obviously open door away from that noise which I know nothing of…or I could examine the noise...hmmmmm, decisions, decisions…" The Handyman said. "Then again, it could be the house settling again…and that could mean water damage. Stupid handyman's code! I have to investigate…"

At least Handyman drew a hammer as he started heading towards the noise, holding it at the ready, as he slowly walked around a group of crates, the boxes consumed in shadows…

"Wow, this is just like back in 'Nam. Except I'm not thousands of miles away because I faked a broken leg." The Handyman said, as he took another step…

And then, with a yowl, a cat flew out of the darkness and right into Handyman's arms.

"AH! AH! What the…oh, it was a kitty! Oh aren't you a pretty kitty!" Handyman said, looking at the cat, which was mostly white except for a patch of yellow on its chest and black on its legs. "What a nice kitty!…Wait…"

"KITTY!" Rose squealed as she ran back in and pulled the cat from Handyman's arms. "Kitty! Kitty!"

"Oh great, you show up now." Handyman commented, as Rose petted the cat, which looked pretty stunned overall, clearly lacking several clues on what was going on.

"Yes, nice kitty…but where did it come from…more to the point, why did it fly into my arms like someone shot out it out of a…" The Handyman said as he turned around and looked behind the crate.

And found, lacking any other description, what could only be considered a spring-loaded cat launcher.

"What the…the hell? How could this be considered a good idea?" The Handyman said. "And that's not even considering the structural failings! Look at this, Rose! First off, they're using a model 36-A spring, which is good for mattresses, but you need a 47-D model if you want anything approaching a good liftoff! Second, they've got this superglued in, something like this needs some flexibility or else it just won't work. You know what I'm talking about Rose?"

"Not really." Said the voice behind him.

"Didn't think so." The Handyman said as he heard the female answer, as he picked the device up and handed it over his back. "Why would you? God, you're such a bimbo. Anyway, whoever made this was obviously a dumb SOB, or possibly a retarded five year old." The Handyman said as he turned around. "Such sloppy work…man…ship…"

And found himself looking at the Sugarman, giant butcher knife in one hand, spring-loaded cat launcher in the other.

"…SCARY!" The Handyman screamed, and ran.

"Hey wait! You were right!" The Sugarman said, in a clearly female voice. "He pretty much is a retarded five year old and SHUT UP BITCH!" The Sugarman yelled, back to his normal voice as he pounded on his head. "Now he's getting away! And he's doing the running thing again! Why couldn't you keep your mouth shut, but no, you just HAPPENED to be named Rose, you just HAD to reply…!"

"Do you two need a moment?" The Handyman said as he came back.

"DIE! Nyuck nyuck!" The Sugarman chortled, as the Handyman screamed and fled, The Sugarman in pursuit.

"Oh crap oh crap, I should have known all these boxes were a bad idea this is gonna be an impenetrable maze and I'm gonna starve to death and THEN they'll be sorry, yeah, they'll say 'Boo hoo! Poor Handyman! He was so sexy and wonderful! How we miss him!' and then an anthropologist will find me in fifty years and will claim I'm a new subspecies of Homo neanderthalis and get a big research grant and…" Handyman stopped for breath…and saw that he'd just run past the door that lead out of the room. "Oh, an easy exit!"

"HEY!" Sugarman yelled as the Handyman sprinted through the door. "Damn it, I should have read the fine print in my contract!" The slasher cursed as he stalked over to the door and tried to give chase at his forced walking speed.

"Hurrah! Now I'm gonna escape and then they'll call me a hero and then-!"

KER-TRIP! ("ARRRRRGHHHHHH!" Went Freddy.)

"Ow, I landed on my keys." The Handyman said, now sprawled face first on the ground. "At least I HOPE those are my keys."

"Finally! Someone listens to the rules!" The Sugarman said as he stalked up the hallway, as Handyman turned over, his eyes wide. "I've got you now! Killing you's gonna be…schweet. Nyuck nyuck nyu-!"

And then the door in front of the Sugarman abruptly flew open, ramming into his face with a sickening thud.

"…Crickey!" The Sugarman said, as he staggered away and then turned around and flopped onto the ground.

"I'm saved! Now everyone will thank me for warning them and…" Handyman trailed off, as he realized the person who had come through the door and stopped the Sugarman was not one of the villains.

The slashers were here, and the first had arrived, as looming over the Handyman, large knife in hand, was…Mad Mark Walters!

"…WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" The Handyman yelled. "What the hell is this? The author couldn't come up with something better? She produced THIS? How am I supposed to know who you are? How are the READERS supposed to know who you are? You can't just go find some random film in some mom and pop videostore's horror section and think it will serve! It's like having an onion for breakfast or requesting Free Bird at a wedding! Sure it COULD work, but it's dumb and unpleasant! I know that there must be BETTER slashers then this, at least from a film someone's heard of besides the author who seems to make it a point of pride to know these things! Then again, this is the girl who thought randomly having her OC sing Limp Bizket in her fanfiction was a good idea-YIPE!" The Handyman yelled as Mad Mark stabbed at him, as Handyman rolled away, the slasher's knife getting stuck in the floor. "You know, normally I'd run screaming again, but my sense of pride is just too damn insulted. TAKE THIS!" The Handyman yelled, as he yanked up and aimed…

…A caulk gun.

Mad Mark laughed nastily, as he yanked his knife out of the floor and lunged…

As Handyman shot the stream of sealant out of the gun and directly into Mad Mark's mouth.

The knife clattered to the floor, as the slasher recoiled, clawing at his throat, as the sealant filled up his mouth and nostrils and then covered his eyes, the special mix Handyman used hardening far faster then the normal material would, as Mad Mark clawed at his face, lunged for Handyman again, and then collapsed, suffocating on the foul glue.

The Handyman blew on the end of the caulk gun like the classic gunslinger from the Wild West.

"Fastest Caulk North, South, and East of the Mississippi!"

"Not the West?" Sugarman said as he shoved the open door that had slammed in the face closed.

"No, that belongs to Tool Man Ted. Curse him, I SHALL BEST HIM ONE OF…THESE…days…crap." The Handyman said as he looked at the once again standing slasher. "BREATHE CAULK!"

And the sealant sprang out again…and hit the ground limply, as what was left in the tube drizzled out on the floor before the Handyman.

"Oh. I'm out. I really need to start carrying reloads." The Handyman said.

"Eeek?" The Sugarman suggested.

"I'll do you one better. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeekkk…!" Handyman screamed as he ran.

"Hah. Run all you want! For this time, I…!"

And the door was shoved open again, slamming Sugarman dead center in his face again.

"I am so sick of doors…" The Sugarman said as he staggered away once more. "CURSE YOU WERNER VON DOOR, THE 17TH CENTURY INVENTER OF THE DOOR!"

"Is that curse in any way accurate?" The Sugarman said in a new prissy voice.

"HELL IF I KNOW!" The Sugarman snapped back, and collapsed…even as new slashers emerged, stepping over the body of their already vanishing fellow, and stalking down the hallway, one after another.

In case you were wondering where Rose Wilson had gone, she had actually taken her new cat friend back to the bar to show him to Slade and to ask if she could keep him.

Fortunately, about two seconds before she reached Slade (and tipped him off that something was not quite right with her) Handyman ran into the bar.

"GUYS GUYS GUYS! THERE WAS THIS LAME GUY FROM SOME MOVIE THAT I SAW ONCE ON A DARE AND THEN SOME TRANSVESTITE IN A TYE-DYE OUTFIT ATTACKED ME AND THEN THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT THE DOOR BEING INVENTED BY A 17TH CENTURY GERMAN MAN AND THEN I…!"

The wall next to Handyman exploded as Slade shotgunned it.

"…Hmmmm. Sights are a bit off." Slade commented. "Well since you're still alive, you were saying something, Handyman?"

"Ugh…bad things are afoot."

"Pheh. Please. What could possible be…" Blackfire said.

As hands reached from behind the bar and grabbed her.

"ARGH!"

"What the…!" Jack yelled as another form rose from behind the bar and swung an axe at him.

As a window smashed open, and a door broke down, and suddenly there were pouring in everywhere, dozens of them.

The killers were here, and there was only so much blood to be spilled.

And as Slade watched all the garish figures erupt into the room, his eye briefly flicking over every corner, anyone who might have been listening would have heard him sigh deeply, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders…even as one of his hands stole down to his shotgun, made a very minute adjustment to it, and then cocked it.

And then Slade snapped the shotgun up and blew Cut-Throat in half.

"Someone's going to pay for all this." Slade said as he cocked the shotgun, ejecting the empty shell, as he swirled around and taught Zipperface the equation that shotgun plus upper body equaled dead slasher.

As Jack grabbed the axe, glaring into the shadowed features of the Hooded Killer from Urban Legend.

"Fuckin' rude, mate."

The wood of the axe shattered under Jack's fingers, as Jack formed vicious claws with his other Grimmer hand and slashed it out, blood spraying from inside the hood of the slasher as Jack ripped his/her throat out. It splattered on Jack's face, as he grinned.

"If it bleeds, we can kill it!" He declared, as he grabbed his scotch. Even as the Hooden Killer collapsed, the psychotic Australian finished what was in the bottle and then smashed it on the edge of the bar as another Jack, Jack Sr, lunged at him with a large, bloody hook.

Jack dodged and introduced Jack Sr's face to his broken bottle, followed by introducing his chest to a spiked crushing hand.

"There can be only one!" Jack crowed, and then ripped Jack Sr's head off for good measure.

Even as Blackfire broke most of her grabber's ribs as she elbowed them in the sternum, and even as blood spewed from Marty's mouth, she broke his neck so fiercely she nearly twisted his head off.

"FUCK YOU!" Blackfire shrieked, clearly very unhappy at being grabbed. "You wanna fuck with me, huh? You wanna fuck with Komand'r of Tamaran? I'll show you what happens to those who…!"

The Meateater lunged at Blackfire with his barbeque fork.

And Blackfire ducked under the stab and let him have it with a Blackbolt in the chest. Bits and pieces of what were organs and bones blew out the back of the slasher as he collapsed, his weapon clattering uselessly on the ground as Blackfire hopped over the bar.

"Who else wants some? Who else wants to see what I'm made of! You wanna fuck with me?" Blackfire said, and then cursed in Tamaranian as the Wolf Man stabbed at her with his knife. She grabbed his arm and dislocated it with one swift snap, and then grabbed the Wolf Man by his crude mask and introduced his head to the bar. The fact that the tough wood shattered probably wasn't a good sign as the Wolf Man collapsed.

"Yeah, that's right! Who's the queen now? I'm the queen! The rest of you are just living in my world, and I've decided I don't want you riding my coattails any long-!"

And with the slightest grunting noise that could almost be annoyance, Killjoy whirled as he drew a gun, aiming it at Blackfire.

"Ger?" She whimpered.

And then Killjoy his stance and blew a hole through the forehead of Evelyn, who collapsed behind Blackfire as she jerked. She whirled around.

"…An old woman as a killer? Man who would have thought…" Blackfire began, and then more slashers surged through the door Evelyn had come from, and Blackfire snarled another Tamaranian curse as she avoided another axe swing…and then dove to the ground as Killjoy opened fire with a second gun, as he blew holes through Irving Wallace, 'Richard Nixon', and the Scarecrow (not the DC villain as he had a MINI-scythe instead of fear gas, only to find one shouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight). Blackfire muttered another curse, and then rolled over, grabbed 'Richard Nixon's' knife, and stabbed it down into the masked man's body to make sure he was dead.

"What are you standing around for you two!" Slade snapped as he shotgunned the Eye Surgeon into bloody hamburger. "The faster we get rid of these stupid manifestations the less irritated I'll be later!" Another shotgun blast blew a giant hole in John Rudley.

"Hai, Slade-sama!" Kurai said. "These foolish would be killers are no match for ME!" Kurai snapped, as he slapped his hands together, interlaced his fingers, and then pointed the primary fingers at the shape of a gun at the nearest killer and fired, as the Red Devil abruptly lost his head, his axe falling to the ground. "Rose! Support!"

"Just a minute! Run kitty! It's not safe here!" Rose said, as she gently put her new cat down. The cat looked at her for a moment, and then ran off.

As the fog in Rose's eyes abruptly cleared, as she whirled around and snatched a 9 MM Uzi off her side.

"LET'S ROCK!" She yelled, and opened fire. Bullets tore through Matthew and the New York Ripper, even as Kurai focused another blast in his hands and blew The Motorcycle Killer in half.

"So what should we do?" Adonis asked Dr. Westminster, who had been staring at the struggle until then, a bit overwhelmed by the sheer surreal nature of it all.

Then he reached into his pocket, grabbed his last painkillers, and downed them.

"You can do whatever you want. I'd like to live to see tomorrow." Westminster said, as he focused, snarling, and then bone burst through his right forearm, melding and shifting out in gruesome fashion, until it had completely covered the limb and then some. "This should…"

And then a pickaxe slashed down, and Westminster snapped up his arm and yelled as the end of it buried itself in the bone shield, as Westminster stared at the gas-masked face of Junior, and then, snarling again, he yanked Junior forward, slamming him into the bar as he yanked his shield free of the pickaxe, even as a new blade of bone stabbed out through his left hand, as Westminster rammed it into Junior's kidney as the slasher squealed in agony.

"That hurt me more then it hurt you!" Westminster snapped, as he leapt back, forcing the bone blade out of his hand as he snatched up his M-16. "Let me rectify that situation!"

And with a brief spray of bullets, Junior hit the ground in a spray of blood and gore and did not get up.

"God I hate my job." Westminster said, and turned and opened fire into the crowd of slashers. Within a second a slasher in a clown costume was down on the ground, blood pooling from the extra dozen or so holes Westminster had put in his body.

"He killed Cheezo, Dippo!" Said a second clown-suited slasher.

"Let's get him Bippo!" A third said, as the two charged at Westminster.

Westminster blew Bippo away before his gun jammed, and he cursed and dodged away from Dippo's knife stab, as he tried to get the gun to work again…and then his eyes fell on Slade's special attachment.

"The quality of your products better be accurate Slade!" Westminster cursed, and pressed the firing button, as the device hummed, even as Dippo stabbed again…

And then a bolt of electricity shot out of the attachment and blew Dippo across the entire room, leaving him a smoking ruin on the opposite side.

"…" Westminster said, as he adjusted his hat. "…Ok, I'm satisfied."

"RARUGGGHHHHH!" Gunther Stryker bellowed as he swung a machete at Westminster, as he leapt back and cursed, trying to get his gun unjammed.

The White Hole watched as the attackers came…and then, with a brief, fierce grin on her face, she stood up from where she sat, glancing briefly at her mace…and then leaving it as she walked into the fray.

It didn't take long for trouble to find her, as Stitch Mouth stabbed at her with his knife.

One slashing blow brought the knife into the White Hole's grasp, as well as removed a good part of Stitch Mouth's hand.

"I…am Rebecalnatrac Styilnifanalan! The White Hole! The Terror of Turgferd-III! The Butcher of Bay Rivelto! The Last Gaze of the Gods! And YOU have NO idea how to ACTUALLY USE A BLADE!" The White Hole snarled, and then proceeded to do something so hideously unpleasant to Stitch Mouth with the knife that FF Dot Net would have to invent a few new ratings for me to begin to describe it. Mad Mod, who had been caught between Slade and his apprentices and hence was somewhat protected by their line of fire, was trying to decide what he should do when the White Hole started. Then he decided he would be sick, and was so.

Nightwalker swallowed. Freddy had said he was running the show, and he sure wasn't messing around. Forget one at a time, Freddy was throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick.

As The Tenkiller Murderer came at her with his knife.

Nightwalker fell and rolled off her stool, as she slashed out a leg and tripped the, er, slasher, and as he fell to the ground Nightwalker pulled out one of her guns and used it, the Tenkiller Murderer jerking under the bullets and then going still. Nightwalker leapt up, as Eric attacked, swinging his cane taken from his mother's body, his face hidden behind the clown mask he wore, as Nightwalker juked and dodged backwards as she tried to get the gun up…

Eric smacked it from her hand with a cry.

And then Nightwalker got pissed and kicked him in the testicles, and as he recoiled she yanked out her second gun and emptied it into him. She snarled at the body and threw the empty gun down on him, as she pressed a button on each wrist to arm her gauntlets.

"Anyone ELSE want some?"

And then Nightwalker suddenly found herself floating.

"WHAT?"

As Slausen, a slasher with the highly unusual power of telekinesis, hurled Nightwalker into a nearby wall.

"Miss Sine?" Brick said, as he saw Nightwalker's form violently crash into the wall nearby.

"Forget her! These damn manifestations want her so bad, they can have her." The Sorceress said, as she crouched behind Brick, gasping. "Damn Slade! If he hadn't forced me to use up so much of what I'd regained I could have…now it's just…damn Slade!"

"What can you do?" Brick asked, and then twin slashers came at him, the Logan Twins to be precise. One had an axe, the other a machete.

And Brick had his hands, as he grabbed both slashers and slammed them together with bone breaking impact. He let them go, and with a disturbed look on his face brought his foot up and then down in a brutal stomp, and the Logan Twins were no more.

"Thanks." The Sorceress said.

"You want to thank me? Help Miss Nightwalker. I really should have said something earlier. She doesn't deserve this."

"Ugh, you are supposed to be practical in these situations, not sentimental…" The Sorceress began, until Brick gave her a look. "Fine, if it keeps your wall of muscle between me and them. I still have a few tricks." The Sorceress said, as she traced the air. A glyph appeared, just like when she had cast her shield before and when she had used her shrinking spells on the boxes, except this one was glowing red. "From the hand of Surtr, BEGONE!"

And the Sorceress plunged her hand through the glyph and a fireball burst from her hand, flying out and catching Slausen as he burst into flame, flailing about briefly as Nightwalker regained her feet and senses, and with a snarl of her own she let Slausen have it with a spray of orbs, blowing his fire-weakened body to pieces as his wax mask and wig fell to the ground and burned.

"I can maybe do that twice more. You better have made it worth it Brick." The Sorceress said…as Brick swatted the Burned Gypsy, a giant himself, away like he was a fly. The slasher hit the wall with a messy wet sound and fell, as Slade turned around and emptied two shotguns blasts into his chest to make sure he didn't get back up.

"I do my best, m'lady." Brick said, as the Sorceress stared.

"Ack! It's my horror movie collection brought to life!" Control Freak gasped as the slashers poured in. "…Oh I hope Slade didn't hear me say that." Control Freak said, as he grabbed his new gun and added its own voice to the many shots already exploding through the bar…but of course he hadn't listened to a word Nightwalker had said and swiftly ran out of ammo with his shots having hit nothing. "Awaqk! Why do the ones who ruin my fun always have to be accurate?"

Giggling madly, Harry Standling ran at Control Freak, his axe swinging.

"Ack! Get away!" Control Freak yelled, as he tried to run backwards…and then fell on his ass. "AHHHHHH!" He screamed, as he pulled out his remote and pressed a random button.

And found Harry suddenly running backwards. Literally, as his actions reversed themselves.

"………..Of course." Control Freak said as he got up. "These are from movies! Of course my remote can command them! HAHAHAHAHA! I'M IN CONTROL! I'M IN-!"

Giggling madly, Harry Standling ran at Control Freak…again.

"Hah! Déjà vu!" Control Freak said, and aimed the remote…

But nothing happened.

"…Eek. I forgot how small the battery is in this thing." Control Freak said, as Harry Standling got in close, his axe swinging…again.

"GAH!" Control Freak yelled as he jumped to the side, doing an immensely awkward roll that made it look amazing that he didn't just fall flat on his face, and as Harry whirled towards him Control Freak ignited his four-bladed laser sword and swung out. Harry was caught in mid-cackle, and fell to the ground in several burned pieces.

"Mental note: survive now, gloat later…ok maybe a little more: hahahaha! As soon as my battery recharges itself a bit I am sur-YIKES!" Control Freak yelled as a blade slashed out and carved across his laser-blade handle, abruptly shorting it out and nearly costing him a few fingers. The geek supreme screamed and ran, barely dodging another slash as he fled from Egger's Mother, her arm scythe nearly having caused him to suffer abrupt weight loss as she barely missed eviscerating him with her second attack.

And on a final note, one should know that all these events happened roughly simultaneously in the twenty seconds after the slashers had attacked.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" The Handyman yelled as he ran around frantically among the chaos. "They're everywhere! And…ALL OF THEM ARE AS UNKNOWN AS THE FIRST! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!" The Handyman screamed. "They couldn't bring back some of the better known names? Instead you just keeping tossing new name after new name on the screen assuming the readers will have some clue what's going on? What's the point? These guys are only from movies in the most tentative sense! No one knows most of their films! And those who do really need a life! I mean, slashers on the surface supposed to be dangerous…!"

And Gus Gilbert swung his hammer at Handyman.

Who ducked, and in a graceful motion snatched the hammer from the slasher's hand and let Gilbert have it on the side of the head. Gilbert fell, as the Handyman drew another hammer from his belt and rained down blows on the thrashing body until it was a bloody, unmoving mess.

Handyman stared at his now gore-soaked weapons.

"…ARGH! It's worse then just tossing out random names! It's causing out of characterness! Everything about this scene is wrong!" Handyman screamed as he ran among the carnage again. "We are not helpless teenagers engaged in various levels of debauchery! Why would anyone send these kind of horror characters after us! They're everywhere! They outnumber us ten to one! Why is that fact NOT MAKING A BIT OF DIFFERE-!"

And then Handyman crashed into the bar, literally, as the momentum of his impact caused him to flip over the side and sprawl onto the floor beyond.

"Owwwwwwwwwwww…no fair, the previews indicated these was supposed to happen to Slade…"

"Uh…" Adonis said, as he watched the butchery. "I'll just cheerlead, ok? Yeah, yeah, rah rah rah, GO TEAM!" And for those of you who have never seen a man in a giant robot suit dance with pom-poms…just be grateful.

"…Ok…." Dr. Light said, situated near Mad Mod and hence also somewhat protected, as he tried to fight down the roiling in his guts. "You've seen that they can be killed. Most of your power is in your suit. You can do this Arthur. You can finally be known as something a little more…though one must ask how you could be known as anything less." Dr. Light said, as he concentrated, feeling the circuits hum in his arms, as his hands exploded with radiant power. "Now I shall show them why they should have stayed in the shadows-!"

And then, pitchfork stabbing at him, the Beekeeper charged at Dr. Light.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!" Dr. Light screamed, as he turned and ran, diving under the nearest table.

"…shameful, really." Mad Mod said, and took careful aim with his lone gun and fired. The Beekeeper recoiled back, having been hit in the shoulder…as Kurai blew him apart with another small blast, even as Rose began firing into the next slasher…

As her gun clicked dry.

"Shit!" Rose cursed, as they swarmed at her and Kurai. "KURAI GIVE ME SOME COVER!"

"EASIER SAID THEN DONE!" Kurai snapped back, as the winged slasher from the last of Rose's ammo, White Face, swung his axe at Kurai. Kurai dodged and drove his palm into White Face's simple white mask, feeling a crunch beneath his hand, but even as he did that a knife slashed out, cutting a small piece of meat out of his shoulder, courtesy of Jane the Psycho Nurse, even as the child-like Miho jumped on Kurai's back and tried to drive his scalpel into Kurai's neck. "ROSE! WOMAN! EXPEDIENCY! IMPORTANT!"

"DON'T CALL ME WOMAN!" Rose fired back, not a trace of the previous airheadedness in her voice, as she brought up an MP5K submachine gun and opened fire. The bullets White Face didn't catch with his chest, Jane (the Psycho Nurse) caught with her face, even as Miho drove his scalpel into Kurai's collarbone. Kurai yelled in pain, and then grabbed the small form and hurled him over his head, and even as Miho flew Kurai charged up another blast and blew him to pieces in mid-air.

"I didn't know they were allowing midgets into the job these days!" Kurai cursed as he grabbed the scalpel and yanked it out with a snarl. "Oh I'm sorry, is that politically incorrect now? What do they like to be called?"

"Who cares?" Rose retorted, as she ejected the clip to take a look of the number of bullets: only 11 or so. She'd held down the trigger too long, damn, as she snapped the clip back in.

As more slashers came for them.

"WHY THE HELL ARE SO MANY TARGETING US?" Rose yelled, as she aimed her gun and fired the last of the bullets, reducing The Prowler's chest to a shattered wreck.

"I don't know!" Kurai retorted, as he realized he needed a bit more time to gather himself, and with more slashers on him he improvised, grabbing up the prowler's pitchfork and driving it straight through Bobbi's throat. "Why the hell are you asking me…"

And then Kurai remembered.

"NO SEX. Sex kills you."

"Oh now that's just not fair." Kurai said, as he realized his first time had painted as much of a bullseye on him and Rose as the atmosphere was purposely putting on Nightwalker. Of course so many of the slashers were attacking them! IT WAS THE DAMN RULES!

"YOU STUPID INFERIOR YANK FILMMAKERS!" Kurai yelled, as he gathered another surge of energy and blew the Headhunter's machete wielding arm off. Surprisingly, the slasher kept coming, slamming into Kurai and knocking him to the ground as he tried to crush the Japanese warrior's throat, as Rose dropped the submachine gun she was using and pulled out her long revolver. BOOM! Raymond found a hole sprouting in his head, while his son Andrew found two more appearing in his chest, both monster-masked slashers collapsing among their peers, probably wishing they'd worn armor, as Kurai bellowed and blew the Headhunter off him so violently he nearly vaporized him. Unlike the arm wound, that kept the demonic creature down.

"When I'm done here, I think I shall go burn down Tinsel To…" Kurai trailed off as he saw who was coming next, a big one, tall AND wide, dressed in a policeman's outfit.

"Rose! Shoot that one!" Kurai yelled as he got up, as Rose saw him as well. She grinned and aimed.

BLAM BLAM BLAM! The last three bullets in her gun fired out, slamming into the big one's chest.

He did not go down. In fact, he kept walking, even as unpleasant liquids (was that blood? It didn't seem like blood…) began leaking from the holes.

"NANI?" Kurai said as the giant slasher kept coming. "Stupid woman! No wonder I always had to do all the work! HAI!" Kurai yelled, as he charged up what he could muster and fired it out, blowing a small but notable hole in the slasher's stomach.

He staggered back a bit again…and then kept coming. As Kurai gaped, he realized he could see right through the slasher from where he'd hit him.

"What are YOU?" Kurai said.

"Cordell." Matt Cordell said, as he drew his own gun and put two bullets in Kurai's chest.

Kurai, spun around from the impact, stared in confusion at Rose…and then Cordell, once a living cop, now a powerful and vengeful zombie, put another round in his back, knocking him to the ground.

"OH SHIT!" Rose said, having been too surprised to reload, and dove for cover at Cordell fired at her, bullets tearing into the ground behind her.

In a better situation, Slade may have noticed the trouble his daughter was in, but at the time he was too busy with his own troubles, though in his case the trouble might be how long he could keep his composure under the endless assailment of stupidity he was facing…including the badly burned face of a slasher dressed in a classic Uncle Sam outfit, who was charging at Slade with a very sharp-ended flagpole.

"DIE YOU COMMIE BASTARD!" 'Uncle' Sam Harper yelled.

Slade decided putting a giant hole in Uncle Sam's chest was the better option. Unfortunately for Uncle Sam, the fact that Slade had a higher caliber weapon then Rose did, plus the fact he didn't seem as solidly built as Matt Cordell, resulted in just that with a spray of rotten flesh and blood tacked on top of it.

Slade ejected the empty shell.

"I must say this, I may have committed many crimes under the law system of this country, but treason was not one of them." Slade said.

Snarling, Uncle Sam reared up.

Slade blew his head apart. That kept him down.

Slade ejected the shell again, as his eyes flicked back up the crowd still coming at him, albeit a bit slower then the one that had been rushing his apprentices, as Slade aimed…

CLICK.

Slade looked at his shotgun. He'd miscounted the shots? When was the last time he'd done that?

Realizing he was out of ammo, a cackle of various laughs swept the group, as Slade's eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"You can't beat us!" One of then laughed. "There's a hundred of us and only one you!"

And then the slashers charged.

Slade calmly put the empty shotgun down on a table.

And yanked out a DAO-12 Striker shotgun from behind him. A semi-automatic shotgun with a barrel of fresh ammo, better known as a 'Street Sweeper'.

Fire erupted from the barrel, as Terry's upper body exploded.

"Ninety-nine…" Slade said calmly, and then fired again and again, his gun blazing death with no more need to eject shells. Ironically, the second slasher he blew away was also called Terry, but she died as quickly as the first. The Mute Killer joined her on the ground, half his head missing. Craig found his body dripped as much blood as the dorm he had stalked as Slade blew him in half. Jerry Blake found there was no room for daddy as Slade ventilated his chest.

"If this wasn't so irksome to begin with I might have gotten a visceral charge out of it…" Slade commented.

As the Skier lunged at him, stabbing his ski pole at Slade's throat.

Slade jerked his body to the side and lunged, getting in under the slasher's weapon as he rammed his Striker gun up against the Skier's ribs.

"Like I said." Slade commented, and blew the Skier in half as well.

"Whoever even began to consider these concepts of worthy of spending a cent on should be the one's I'm shooting!" Slade said as he straightened up.

As the Psycho Scuba Diver fired a harpoon at Slade.

Slade snapped his head to the side as the projectile zipped past him, impaling in the wall just above Dr. Light as he started coming out of hiding, as he screamed and hid under his table again.

"I rest my case." Slade said, and returned fire. He didn't miss, as the Psycho Scuba Diver's bloody remains joined the others on the floor.

As Syd Snider stepped up. Slade frowned under his mask at that slasher's hideously maimed features. Somehow Slade had the feeling this one wouldn't go down as easily.

He fired anyway, nearly blowing Snider's right arm off. Snider staggered back a bit, then lunged at Slade.

Boom! A fist sized hole sprouted in Snider's chest. Boom! A huge chunk of meat was sheered off his right thigh. Boom! Snider's guts erupted from his stomach, but he kept coming, as Slade's eye narrowed. BOOM! The top of Syd's head exploded, but he was still coming, his long knife in hand, as Slade pulled the trigger again…

Click.

Count wrong once, shame on you. Count wrong twice…

"…DAMN IT." Slade said, as Syd stabbed at him.

And Brick's fist came down, crushing the resilient zombie into a pancake.

"Some of them are annoying that way." Brick commented, and stepped away, leaving Slade to stare at the mess of flesh the slasher had once been.

"That doesn't even begin to…"

The long curved knife slashed at Slade's head.

The Striker clattered to the ground as Slade drew his sword in one swift motion and blocked the attack, as he stared into the wax mask of Vincent, the expertly made disguise covering up Vincent's own facial disfigurement.

"…As much as I loathe it, I actually recognize you." Slade said, as he shoved Vincent away. "But only because I felt such disgust that Hollywood would soil Vincent Price's name by remaking his film into a piece of garbage starring an empty headed heiress."

Vincent responded by drawing another knife.

"Because if your industry isn't making garbage, it's tarnishing the films that actually succeeded!" Slade said, as Vincent slashed at him and sparks flew from their weapons.

As Puppet King, lost among all the warring bodies, finally managed to get his gun pointed up.

"Now I…!" He said, and fired.

Blowing him head over heels as he fired into the wall and lost his gun, all in one fell swoop.

"Uhhhhhh…" Puppet King said, as he got up. "Why can't anything go my…"

And then a giant stone axe swung down at him.

"Mommy." Puppet King said, and then wailed as he was smashed through the air and flew across the bar to crash face first into another wall, as the Caveman Hermit swung his axe up, found another target, and lashed out with the heavy, sharp weapon.

The White Hole caught it.

"You call that savage?" The White Hole said.

The stone blade shattered as she crushed it in her grip.

"THIS IS SAVAGE!" The White Hole snarled, as she lunged in and sank her teeth into the Hermit's shoulder, tearing through flesh and bone as it bellowed in sudden pain, as the White Hole clamped down on the neck and arm of the slasher and simultaneously bit, sliced, and yanked, as she tore the slasher in a 30 degree line, ripping him into two at an angle in a gigantic spray of blood which soaked her.

She licked her face as her eyes gleamed.

"Amateurs." She hissed, almost amused.

As Matthew (not the same Matthew, like Terry there was two) attacked, swinging his shovel at the alien.

She ducked that blow, and as the weapon swung overhead she charged in, grabbing Matthew by his arm and yanking it off in one quick jerk. Matthew screamed, blood gouting from the dismembered limb, as the White Hole slashed down and sliced Matthew's leg off at the knee. More blood sprayed, as Matthew fell…right into the White Hole's arms, as she lifted him overhead and then tore him apart in two swift movements, the body thudding into the floor in another spray of blood and viscera.

"If this is what humans consider to be frightful, no wonder they're so pathetic." The White Hole said, as she shook blood from her body…

As a cross was thrust in her face, as Father Jonas found his chosen victim (well, the creature he was going to save by destroying in his mind) was far more formidable then expected.

"GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN!" He howled.

The White Hole looked in amusement at the priest, and then she grabbed him by the shoulders and twisted him so hard his flesh and spine tore themselves apart as she rotated him at the waist 180 degrees.

"As you wished." The White Hole said to the now back of the head of the quite dead zealot slasher's corpse.

As an arrow flew through the air, impaling itself into the White Hole's shoulder armor, the point actually make it all the way through and piercing through the White Hole's skin, as she blinked at the sudden sting and then turned her head at the shooter.

As Cherub cocked another arrow and fired, the shot zipping through the air right at the White Hole's face.

She jerked back as it struck her, staggering just a bit…

And then looked back up, the arrow impaled through her eye patch, as blood began to run down her face. But not deep enough. Far from deep enough, as an arrow was more like a sword then a bullet, and her Blacktrinian muscle and bone had treated it as such, as she reached up.

"Should have aimed for the remaining eye." The White Hole said, as she yanked the arrow out, more blood flowing from the wound…but she barely seemed concerned at all, as she grinned, a grin demons from hell would have trouble matching.

Cherub began nocking another arrow.

As the White Hole turned, seized Father Jonas's head, and ripped it off, the head yanking free of the corpse as the spinal column trailed after it (Sub-Zero would be proud), and with a terrifying shriek the White Hole let the priest's body finally fall to the ground as she hurled the head and spine directly at Cherub.

It impaled through him even as he began pulling back his bowstring, and he staggered back himself, his featureless mask not hiding his surprise at being struck down by such a bizarre weapon…

As the White Hole pounced on him, and Cherub found he hadn't even BEGUN being struck down, as the White Hole tore into him with a ferocity no animal on earth could match.

"Fuck. She's actually making me look bad." Jack commented.

And then Jack was suddenly jumped by a very large and extraordinarily ANGRY German Shepard, nearly knocking him down as it leapt for his throat.

"ARGH! FUCK! I know this genre of horror was going to the dogs, but this is bloody ridiculous!" Jack yelled, as she tried to keep the dog away from him long enough to charge his hands into something more effective…and then he was jumped by a shrieking, deformed girl, stabbing at him with a butcher knife.

"ARGH! FUCK YOU!" Jack snarled as the blade took a swipe across his arm, even as the dog tried to keep ripping his throat out. Jack staggered around, as Julia, the deformed girl, shrieked and stabbed at him again…

As Jack twisted and let the dog take it instead. It let out a canine shriek of pain, as Jack kicked Julia away and hoisted the dog up.

"Bad doggie. Play dead." Jack said. Just what he did to the (admittedly rather nasty to him) dog I will not tell you for the sake of dog lovers, but it was dead at his feet at the end. "Great. Now I'm going to get hate mail from PETA."

Julia dove at Jack again, screaming.

Jack punched her as hard as he could, and as she staggered back he focused hard and his left hand reformed, turning into a whirling circular saw.

"Couldn't make you any uglier anyway!" Jack yelled, as she rammed the saw into her gut and began slicing through and up, blood erupting and soaking his arms, chest, and face, as Julia let out another gurgling scream and finally collapsed backwards, thoroughly vivisected.

"Don't forget who was the original mad bastard on this show." Jack said, as he reformed his hand and looked for someone else to kill.

In contrast to the White Hole and Jack's rages, who were actually out-goring the slashers handily and easily, Killjoy was almost serene, a gun in each hand as he carefully watched his back while picking off his chosen targets (Slade had warned not to duel-wield guns, but that was directly mostly towards amateurs, who didn't understand that firing a gun in your weaker hand often led to your bullets constantly missing the target, not to mention the trouble of such things as shells ejecting into your field of vision. Killjoy was too good to fall subject to such problems, and he was ambidextrous anyway) in short bursts of firepower.

Four rounds blew apart the head of Tara, who probably should have invested in better protection then an old hag mask. The gun in his right hand clicked dry, and Killjoy expertly ejected the clip even as Black Hood ran at him, swinging back his axe as Killjoy lowered the other gun in his left hand and let it go slack in his fingers so he could properly grasp the new clip, sliding it from one of his pockets and slowly pushing it into the other gun.

Black Hood slashed at Killjoy's head.

And in mid-swing Killjoy, without looking, calmly lifted his left hand gun and put a bullet between Black Hood's eyes. The slasher collapsed as Killjoy finished pushing in the clip, racked the slide, and turned his eyes forward again.

As his new foe approached, a young man dressed as a baseball player…no, it wasn't Lil' Slugger again. This one was bigger, his baseball outfit ash white, his skin a dark dull gray, a long scar on his left cheek, as he swung up a metal baseball bat…that had a buzzsaw fused to one end.

At least he had a fairly unique weapon, as Killjoy aimed and fired.

The bullet went right through him…but not in the same way. There was no flesh and blood explosion. Instead, it was like the bullet went through a floating cloud of dust…dust that resumed the original shape. It was like Killjoy had shot a ghost.

The assassin cocked his head at this fact.

As the slasher swung his buzzsaw bat out, and Killjoy ducked backwards, feeling the air part under the razor sharp teeth of the blade, and he knew he wouldn't be allowed the same blessing.

"Wait wait wait. This was an army of slashers. What's a spirit doing in there?" The lieutenant asked Freddy.

"Because the film I got him from was called Devon's Ghost! Therefore, he must be a ghost!" Freddy replied, watching the carnage intently.

"…Did you actually check this film to confirm if he actually WAS a ghost or did you just assume that…?"

"QUIET! I MADE MY CHOICE! It's not like horror films have a great history of being accurate in the first place!"

"You mean like the several contradictions in your series from all the different writers?"

"I SAID QUIET!"

Killjoy dodged away from Devon and emptied his remaining bullets in the left gun into him, but the bullets passed through him like he was water, as Devon followed mercilessly, swinging his bat with deadly intent. Killjoy ducked and dodged, and fired three shots through Devon's head. He may as well have fired them into the floor, for all the good they did.

The buzzsaw grazed Killjoy's chin, and even as the blood began to flow he dropped his useless gun and reached into his coat. The next bat swing met a large hunting knife, as Killjoy deflected the shot and slashed Devon's throat. The knife phased through the spirit (who may very well have been a flesh and blood slasher in his actual movie, had it not been for Freddy's laziness), and Devon struck back, burying his bat in Killjoy's side, the blade biting through the armor he wore. Killjoy's only reaction was a mild grunt, as he rolled with the blow, spun up, and drew a Desert Eagle from inside his coat. The extremely high caliber gun was so loud to even be heard above the roar of the bar, but its shots proved as ineffective as the others.

"Sorceress!" Brick said, his ears drawn by the gunshots, as he saw how useless they were against Devon.

"What!" She snapped.

"I think your spells might be valuable here!" Brick said, as Devon slashed his bat at Killjoy again, the assassin ducking as the buzzsaw blade snipped off the end of his ponytail.

"And why should I bother?"

"It would be rather difficult for me to provide defense for you against a threat I cannot touch." Brick said, as Killjoy backflipped away as Devon buried his bat where the assassin had just been. The Sorceress' face scrunched up, but she saw the wisdom in Brick's words.

"Fine. But only for that reason." The Sorceress said, as Killjoy fired his remaining shots into Devon, with the usual no effect, as she traced a pattern on the air, and another glyph lit up. "MAGIC MISSILE!"

And a green blast of energy flew from the glyph, and as Devon charged in and swung at Killjoy again it struck him. With a soundless yell, the made-to-be spirit was blasted apart and vanished, his weapon clattering to the ground.

"…There's actually an incantation called MAGIC MISSILE?" Brick said incredulously.

"You humans are accurate in the strangest places." Sorceress replied. Killjoy glanced over at the pair, and Brick gave him a hesitant, almost shy wave.

And Killjoy snatched up the buzzsaw bat and hurled it at Brick, the tube whirling around as Brick jumped in surprise…as the bat flew past him and buried its buzzsaw end in the ski-masked face of The Wolf, who had almost snuck up on Brick. The slasher born from rumor collapsed in turn.

Brick stared, not sure what to say, as Killjoy drew another clip of ammo from his coat and slammed it in.

"…Baby…" Control Freak said, hearts in his eyes as he saw the Sorceress perform one of the most famous magic attacks from perhaps the most famous role playing game of all time.

And then Egger's Mother tried to gut him again, and he screamed and ran,

As Junior (yes, there was another Junior, just like there was another Terry and another Matthew), eyes wild, came at Blackfire, laughing in a joyful mania, his chainsaw roaring as the alien jerked aside, the chainsaw carving into the wall as Blackfire jumped back a few feet (her flight powers were as muted as her Blackbolts…but she hadn't survived merely on her powers in certain spots…)

"Oh boy! PP! Prime Pussy!" Junior laughed, as he pulled his chainsaw free and lunged again.

Blackfire threw a Blackbolt, or rather a grape-sized purple ball that would be called a Blackbolt the same way the stapedius would be called a muscle.

But it hit its target: the snarling chain on the chainsaw.

Which snapped, the momentum of the whirling mechanism lashing the chain out and carving a bloody line across Junior's eyes.

"AIYAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! YOU BITCH!" Junior screamed, dropping his weapon as he grabbed at his bleeding face, as he shrieked again and charged forward to kill the bitch who'd hurt him…

As Blackfire slipped around him, laced her hands together, and with every bit of strength she still had brought them slamming into the small of Junior's back. A dull crack sounded from the blow, and with a confused, pained whimper Junior collapsed on his face.

Blackfire stepped over his body, and with a disgusted snort she lifted and then stomped her foot down on the back of Junior's neck, producing another dull, wet crack.

"Prime? You better believe it." Blackfire said, and spat on the corpse.

You'd think from the last few scenes, that the attack was being repelled with relative ease. However, that wasn't the case for everyone…

The machete buried itself in the M-16 as Westminster stumbled back, as Gunther Stryker bore down on him, the slasher hissing beneath his Frankenstein mask.

"Rather persistent, aren't you?" Westminster commented, as he wrenched the gun to the side, knocking the slasher off balance as he backhanded him with his bone arm shield. Blood exploded from beneath the mask, as it was shifted away, and then with a snarl Stryker yanked his machete free as he staggered back, grabbing his mask and yanking it off.

"HOLY!" Westminster said, as he gazed upon Stryker's hideous features: An albino face with red eyes, a nose that looked more like two more noises mashed together, and a giant mouth without an upper lip that was filled with four oversized, sharp, curved fangs. "You looked better with the mask on!"

"GRAGGHHHHHHHH!" Stryker howled as he lunged and slashed with his machete, and Westminster realized he'd been a bit too stunned by the face under the mask and had left himself open…

So his defense was sub-par, as he got his bone shield up in time for the blade to strike the edge and dig deeply into it. Westminster hissed in pain, as he tried to get his M-16 up and use it as a bludgeon to get Stryker away. It worked…too well, as Stryker's blade has slammed into his shield at an angle and as the slasher yanked away he broke a fair piece of bone off of it. Westminster yelled as the pain tore through his arm, like getting the limb broken and stabbed at the same time. Snarling in glee, Stryker swung back the blade and slashed it at Westminster's head.

As the bone-controlling stranger ducked, the blade knocking his hat off, and then snapped forward, shoving his damaged bone shield up under the slasher's chin and yanking it to the side, as he used the now sharp end of the shield to tear Stryker's throat out.

"A good soldier uses whatever is at hand." Westminster said, as Stryker staggered back, blood gouting from his throat, as Westminster brought his gun and made a few more quick movements as he finally got it unjammed. "But I do prefer the classics."

And an explosion of bullets ripped Stryker apart.

"Ow, DAMN IT…" Westminster said, shaking his arm, as he looked at the wrecked shield: he could try and grow some more bone but damn if he didn't feel pretty limited already…

And the slashers weren't done yet, as Groucho Marx (or rather a slasher wearing a mask of the famous comedian) came at him with a long, thin sword. Westminster snapped the gun up and pulled the trigger…and encountered another problem: he had used up all his ammo in the last burst. "Oh my life."

Westminster recoiled backwards, dodging the sword…even as another beast came after him, an overgrown man-child that lunged at Westminster with powerful hands. Westminster found himself running backwards, trying to avoid both 'Groucho Marx' and Humongous as he tried to find a new clip.

And then, by sheer chance, he sensed movement behind him, and barely got out of the way as The Miner burst out through the doors behind him and swung his pickaxe at Westminster's back. If Stryker hadn't already knocked it off, that move would have cost Westminster his hat as the pickaxe barely missed his head, as the slasher stumbled past the newcomer. Westminster swung his body back up, rammed the butt of his weapon into The Miner to knock him aside, and then fled back through the door the Miner had come from, the three slashers in pursuit.

If Westminster was having a bad time, Nightwalker was having a horrendous one, as she tried to fend off the giant crushing hands of The Stranger, who had gotten the drop on her when she'd dove out of the way shortly after Slausen had been dealt with and Killjoy's bullets had found Devon a disagreeable target, deciding to hit whatever was behind him, which would have included Nightwalker had she not moved. But she moved right into the fire, as the Stranger had grabbed her as she'd jumped up and started strangling her, powerful hands crushing her throat…

The Stranger said nothing, staring into her face with creepily intense eyes, as Nightwalker gagged and thrashed, unable to position her gauntlets properly to fire, black was dancing on her vision, here she was, the dumb blonde, getting the life choked out of her FUCK THAT! If the White Hole couldn't choke her out, some fictional killer wasn't going to! She knew where her equipment was, her hands still worked, as she clawed at her belt but her vision was going dark the muscles starting to go numb needed air she wasn't just being chocked she WAS choking…

"CHOKE ON THIS!" Nightwalker somehow rasped out as she yanked out one of her orbs and snapped her arm up, shoving the small globe right into the Stranger's mouth and then immediately snapping her hand back and slamming it under his jaw, causing his teeth to close on it and break it.

As the heavily compressed glue exploded out, and the Stranger recoiled as it erupted out his mouth, going down into his throat and lungs as he staggered, collapsed, and thrashed on the ground, the foul adhesive vomiting from his mouth and nose.

Sucking air in through her aching throat, Nightwalker stepped over the body, aimed, and fired an orb through his ear and what lay beyond, as his thrashing stopped.

"Stick to the real blondes." Nightwalker said.

"SINNER!" Shrieked The Psycho Priest as he stabbed at Nightwalker with his knife.

Nightwalker shot him with an inferno orb, as the false holy man shrieked as he burst into flames.

"Cast the first stone and all that." Nightwalker said, and followed it up with an explosive orb that blew the slasher to pieces. She reached down, pulled twin new ammo clips from her belt, and even as she snapped her arms up her gauntlets opened, ejecting the old, expended clips as she snapped the new ones in.

John Doe lunged in, stabbing his weapon at her.

Nightwalker grabbed him by the wrist, stopping the needle that had been aimed at her about four inches from her eye.

"Huh, hypodermic needle. Don't see that too often." Nightwalker said, and broke John Doe's wrist with one harsh twist even as she did a knife-edge chop with her other hand, smashing the needle and the rat poison it contained. Even as John screamed and started to yell a curse, Nightwalker drove her fist into his face, snapping a quick combo of hard jabs that sent broken teeth spraying before she slashed out her foot and violently kicked Joe Doe in the gut. As he doubled over, Nightwalker grabbed his hair and flipped over him, and as she landed on her feet she yanked backwards as hard as she could, kneeling and bringing John Doe's neck down on her knee in one swift, violent movement. Even as his neck broke on her leg, she slammed her gauntlet down onto his throat, crushing his windpipe. With a firm shrug, she pushed the body aside.

"Then again, you don't see that either." Nightwalker said, as she stood back up.

And turned into another powerful hand seizing her by the throat, as Nightwalker looked in shocked surprise into the undead eyes of The Nun.

Then she rammed her gauntlet into the blasphemous slasher so hard the firing tube pierced through the nun's eye.

"And forgive me my trespasses." Nightwalker said, and blew the Nun's head apart, the body collapsing. "Though I don't much feel like forgiving anyone in turn, but I'm sure you understand my reasons."

And a whip lashed around Nightwalker's bloodsoaked arm, yanking it up as her head jerked in the direction of the strike…showing her her attacker: an inquisition priest right out of 1600's Salem.

"Oh why do I seem to be drawing these types?" Nightwalker asked.

"WITCH! WITCH!" Count Christian von Meruh shrieked as he yanked on his whip, trying to pull Nightwalker onto his cruel looking knife.

Nightwalker dug in her heels, stopping herself.

"SLASHER! LAME!" Nightwalker yelled back, and yanked as hard as she could, Meruh caught off guard by her surprising strength as she pulled him at her, even as she spun and slammed a powerful roundhouse across his face. The 'witch-hunter' staggered back, his whip dropping to the ground, and Nightwalker emptied her orb launchers into him, shattering his body with her normal impact ammo. He fell to his knees, blood leaking from his mouth.

"Infernal demonspawn…" He whispered.

Nightwalker drew her last gun and added several bullets for good measure.

"They always did pick the ones least suited for those jobs." Nightwalker said, sheathing her gun.

She sensed movement behind her, and whirled around.

Nothing directly behind her, though the battle continued to rage all over the bar…

As a pair of massive hands clamped down on her shoulders, and even as she yelled in surprise she felt her feet being lifted off the ground, as she screamed and jerked her head behind her, looking into the deformed, inbred face of Saw-Tooth, as One-Eye lifted her feet up due to his dwarf nature and Three-Finger grabbed at her, pulling her gun free even as he trailed his maimed hand over her body. Nightwalker thrashed, but she was unable to get free, Saw-Tooth had her in a firm grip and now with Three-Finger and One-Eye on her she couldn't get any leverage and where had they come from they'd literally popped out of nowhere like they'd…teleported…

Yeah, she'd really made a wrong turn here, as Three-Finger produced a long knife and began carving.

Oblivious to the rest of the bar, the White Hole was having the time of her life, even as Luthor the Geek tried to bite her with his oversized metal dentures. She almost let him, to show him the folly of trying to taste the napalm-like substance Blacktrinian blood was…but in the end she settled for grabbing him, seizing his jaw, and ripping it right off his face. Even as his eyes went as wide as saucers, she tossed the bloody piece aside and rammed her clawed hand up through the mass of gore she'd made, the talons exploding through the top of Luthor the Geek's skull. She yanked her hand from the mess and tossed the body aside, even as Zachary Malius came at her, his white albino skin setting off his pitch black eyes…

"No loitering." He said, as he swung his full sized scythe at her.

The White Hole met it in mid-slash with a kick, breaking the blade right off the weapon.

"No second chances." The White Hole retorted, and slashed out with her claws, her arms blurring as she ripped through flesh and bone like it was paper, slashing and carving at speeds hard for the eye to follow.

She concluded with one extra-vicious X-shaped slash that ended in a kneeling stance, as Malius literally fell to pieces before her, more blood spraying and soaking her form.

"No equal." The White Hole said in frenzied satisfaction, and whirled up as she heard the roaring buzz of a chainsaw.

Exactly why The Dean tried to kill the White Hole was unknown. She wasn't exactly his type of target, as he charged at her, chainsaw whirring as it struck the White Hole on her chest.

And promptly snarled on her armor. That was the problem with chainsaws. As effective and gruesome as a weapon as they seemed, they were usually meant to cut wood, and hence could run into problems when cutting other materials.

The White Hole slapped the Dean so hard his head nearly flew off, and as his chainsaw clattered to the ground she took a step over, grabbed the Dean by the shirt, and picked up his chainsaw as it roared to life again.

You would think a human being could not be fed a chainsaw.

You would be wrong.

The White Hole closed her eyes, letting the latest spray of blood run over her as the body near her feet jerked from the last of the chainsaw's movements. She felt like she'd finally come home.

She turned to find a new target.

As the bullet tore through her shoulder.

The White Hole was far more shocked then hurt. She'd been shot? How could she have been shot? These things didn't use guns! They used all kinds of bladed weapons but none of them used guns it defeated the whole purpose of being a…

More shots slammed into the White Hole, and suddenly she found herself falling, as the fact that she had been weakened was finally driven home: at full power, she was immune to the bullet weakness nearly all her species had. But that immunity no longer existed, as pain exploded through the White Hole's body, the bullet wounds burning as she let out a snarling howl.

Smirking, Officer Joe Vickers emptied out the bullets in his gun and stuck in six more as he went for the alien.

Slade and Vincent charged at each other, as their blades clashed, the slasher proving to be immensely skilled in swordsmanship as the two clashed their weapons together. Slade's eye narrowed, not liking the possibilities suggested by a slasher who wasn't out of their element with their foes not being helpless teenagers, as Vincent broke away from Slade and whirled his blades, spinning as he tried to slip around Slade's guard, as Slade blocked again, not believing it, bad enough the remake was shit but the slasher had to actually be skilled, as Slade pulled his sword away, twirled it himself, and went for a slicing blow to the hip that he turned into a masterful feint as he stabbed for Vincent's throat.

As Vincent caught Slade's sword between his blades, and as the mercenary's eyes widened he twisted, yanked, and lifted, and suddenly Slade's sword was out of his hand, being tossed up into the air.

Disarmed, Slade was defenseless, as Vincent whirled around, crossing his knives before him.

And found himself staring into the barrel of Slade's handgun. That 'defenseless' status had lasted about 1/3 of a second. And had actually been planned. No one disarmed him unless he wanted it.

After all, he was Slade Wilson.

Vincent's eyes went wide, and Slade emptied the clip into him, Vincent flying through the air and hitting the ground with a bunch of new holes.

Slade reached up and caught his sword with his left hand.

"This has gone on long enough." Slade said, as he ejected the empty clip, even as he flicked his wrist and a new ammo supplement slid down from a special holding compartment on his inner forearm and into the gun, as Slade slammed it home. "My patience is finished!"

And Slade walked back into the fray, heading for the closest slasher he could find, as the Fencer came at him, wielding not an epee but yet another axe, as he swung at Slade. Slade blocked with one arm, twirled the axe down, and yanked his blade free, causing the Fencer to stumble forward and past Slade from the continued momentum as Slade turned his gun arm around his body and fired several shots into the Fencer's back, and even as he collapsed dead Control Freak ran past Slade, screaming, as Egger's Mother continued to chase him….

Slade stuck out his sword and Egger's Mother decapitated herself.

Control Freak didn't notice, as he continued to run and scream, and Slade didn't bother to tell him as he stepped over Eggar's Mother and continued on…as he was confronted by a tall, thin slasher, with blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed all in black as he produced a switchblade.

"Never before have I seen such ferocious, refined skill. I wonder…can you kill me?" John Ryder asked.

Slade brought his gun up.

Ryder's hurled switchblade knocked it from his hand, as he pulled out another and attacked Slade, as the mercenary blocked the far smaller blade, but Ryder was immediately whirling it around, the knife a blur of gray, as Slade dodged and blocked, Ryder driving him back, a calm, cold grin on his face, as a small slice appeared on Slade's armor, and then another, and then another, as Ryder's look grew colder still, as he zipped around another slash and lanced the knife at Slade's face.

As Slade whirled around him in turn and kicked him in the back, hard, causing Ryder to stumble forward drastically. Ryder turned his head viciously, expecting Slade to be going for his gun…but instead, much to his surprise, he saw Slade walking away, like he was a non-issue. Did he think…

And then a shadow fell over him, and Ryder turned back around, as his eyes widened slightly. Now he'd seen why Slade had dismissed him.

"Oh." Ryder said, sounding strangely pleased in his surprise.

Brick's fist smashed Ryder through the air, and he crashed against a wall across the bar and tumbled to the ground in a broken heap.

"As inappropriate as I find the term Sorceress, I think we were just given the proverbial sloppy seconds." Brick said.

"What?" The Sorceress replied.

As Ryder began to move.

"…I struck him quite firmly. The fact he still stirs is a tad alarming." Brick said, looking at the slow motion of the broken man.

"Oh, do I have to do everything?" Sorceress said, as she dipped into the very meager power reserves she still possessed, reserves Brick was supposed to be helping her keep, as she traced another pattern on the wall. "Folly of Antoinette!"

A glyph appeared on the ceiling above Ryder. He glanced up with bloody eyes.

And then a guillotine fell from the glyph, and Ryder's wish for death finally came with bloody finality.

Though for all of Slade's efficiency, he seemingly couldn't deliver any in the direction of his daughter, as she shoved over a half broken table as Cordell approached. She yanked her twin katanas from her back and leapt to her feet.

"Gonna cut you into pork rinds you bastard!" Rose snarled as she slashed out, carving a deep wound across Cordell's arm and chest, but Cordell didn't seem to feel a thing. With his gun empty, he swung his nightstick at Rose, who backflipped away and sprang at the zombie cop, cutting more wounds across his side as Rose dodged another swing of the nightstick, took two quick steps to the right, and ran up the wall there (just avoiding a shelf that had a few knick-knacks on it, which would have struck her as odd if she'd been paying attention) and leapt off, slashing out her leg as she violently kicked Matt Cordell across the face. This seemed to stagger him, as she landed up close to him and went into a slashing frenzy, ripping wounds across his chest, stomach, arms, and even carving a deep slice across his face…

Before the nightstick crashed into the side of her head. Rose collapsed, having gotten too far into the frenzy and left herself open. She shook off the stars dancing before her eyes and rolled over as Cordell approached her again. He was bringing the nightstick up again, and Rose decided that he'd had the weapon long enough, as she slashed at it.

As a ringing blade noise sounded as Cordell pulled the covering of the nightstick off, revealing a blade inside it as the two weapons met.

"…WHAT?" Rose said. Cordell punched her in the face, but she'd seen that coming and rolled with the blow, getting back up to her feet as blood began to leak from her nose. "Who the FUCK HIDES A SWORD IN A NIGHTSTICK? ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE!"

Cordell slashed at Rose again, and she blocked with both blades, even as she felt the blow go down her arms, this slasher was frightfully strong, as she yanked her swords free and carved another pair of deep bloody lines across Cordell's chest…as Cordell stomped on her foot, pinning her in place and keeping her from retreating. Rose gasped, and managed to get her blades up in time to deflect the stab at her throat, but not in time to avoid the follow up backhand, causing her to collapse at Cordell's feet.

His foot crashed down on her chest, driving the wind from her and pinning her again as she looked up at the nightstick-blade.

"It is done." Cordell said quietly.

And Kurai leapt from behind and smashed Cordell's head off with one violent energy-charged hand-chop to the neck, the cop zombie's head slamming into the wall as the body briefly stood a moment longer, and then collapsed to the side, Cordell having rejoined the dead-dead.

"As accursedly resilient as so many creatures are, I have yet to find one who can keep on going lacking a head." Kurai said. "And as much as I enjoy having you at my feet Rose, it is decidedly less effective for watching my flank."

"Kurai, wha, you're not dead?" Rose said.

"Please Rose. If one is going to be Slade-sama's apprentice, one would be a fool not to invest in proper protection. Front and back." Kurai said, tapping on the chest of his outfit.

"Oh, right, why didn't I-LOOK OUT!" Rose screamed, and Kurai whirled as Alex lunged for him, his knife aimed for Kurai's very unarmored throat.

As the bowling ball fell on the slasher's head.

KER-KLONK! ("THE SOUND TEAM IS FIRED!" Freddy yelled).

"…EH?" Kurai said, confused as hell as a now very dazed (to say the least) slasher staggered about, blood running down his face, as Kurai looked up.

"Mew." The white cat meowed, as it looked down in satisfaction.

"…The damn cat pushed a bowling ball on the slasher's head." Kurai said, somehow getting surprised despite all that had happened.

"OHHHHHHHHHH! YAY KITTY! SMART KITTY!" Rose celebrated. The cat mewed, almost in agreement.

"Uh, Rose? Killer still standing." Kurai said, and Rose snapped out of her euphoria.

"God, STILL?" Rose said, as she pulled out another gun even as Kurai charged a blast from what remained of his reserves and blew Alex away.

"I don't find this fun any more." Kurai said. "It hit the limits of stupid six pages back, but I suppose I can slice my way through one or two more things that want to kill me just because I had sex…"

And then came the next slasher gunning for their blood…Barney. No, not the dinosaur, but a truly special slasher all the same. You see…Barney was wearing a bear mascot costume. With knives in place of the claws.

Kurai and Rose stared.

"…OH FUCK THIS." Rose snarled, as she reached up to her chest, grabbed a grenade, and yanked out the pin. "HAVE A BALL OF BOOM!"

And she threw the grenade along the ground, the explosive device rolling to a stop at Barney's feet. He looked down at it.

The resulting explosion blew him into bloody and flaming scraps of costume.

"And if I ever find the guy who came up with you, he's next!" Rose yelled.

Doctor Westminster dodged another sword slash, even as Humongous punched him across the jaw, sending him flying backwards as he lost his M-16. Westminster lay dazed on the ground, and then the Miner swung his pick-axe down and Westminster cursed, rolling to the side as the tool dug into the floor. Even as he got up, he saw another slasher coming into the room…a slasher lugging a giant toolbox.

Westminster decided he could figure out what the fuck later, even as George Lusman (the Toolbox Murderer) dumped his box on the ground…and then, as the other slashers attacked Westminster, he began going through it, hunting for a proper killing weapon.

As Westminster barely dodged a crushing blow from Humongous, as he ran to the side and found there was no door there, and where was his gun, he needed his gun, he could feel a clip where he'd found it but he needed his gun…

Lusman pulled out a hammer, shook his head, and put it back.

If he wasn't in such an enclosed space he'd use one of his grenades but in here with his talent so weakened the shrapnel would cut him to pieces…

Lusman examined a screwdriver, then decided it was too small and put it back.

And he didn't have any other weapons…

Lusman examined a nail gun, but found he was lacking nails at the moment and put it aside as a maybe.

…Except…

The slashers were coming, he had no more weapons…except the bone shield on his arm, but it was too weak to defend against multiple targets, he needed…

Lusman pulled out a tape measure, looked at it, and then tossed it over his shoulder.

Something to catch them off guard.

And the only option made him wonder if he should just let them kill him, but in the end he decided life was better…even in agony.

"Arghhhhh…" Westminster growled. "The ironic thing is, I hate you less for trying to kill me…" Westminster said, as he seized the bone shield on his arm. "THEN MAKING ME DO THIS!"

And with an immensely loud cracking/popping noise Westminster tore the bone shield off his arm, a howl of agony escaping his throat, but he had the shield free, and they were coming to get him…!

Lusman hefted a wrench, decided it was too light, and tossed it back in.

As Westminster threw the shield. He was no Captain America, but at that range he didn't have to be, as the bone disc hit Humongous in the forehead and sent him staggering back, even as Westminster ran, as he barely dodged another slash from the Miner's pickaxe and kicked him aside, as he dove through the air and came down on his gun, rolling over as his hands seized it, scrambling for the clip, his fingers shaking at he grabbed it, trying to pull it free…

'Groucho Marx' stabbed at him.

Westminster dodged and slammed the gun across 'Groucho's' face, even as the other two came for him…

As he shoved the clip in and yelled as he jammed his finger on the trigger, the bullets erupting from the gun and spraying across the room in a crazy mishmash, but the slashers were in the path of those bullets too. Humongous' chest exploded, even as bullets raked across the Miner and sent him crashing to the ground as well.

'Groucho Marx' stood again, almost unperturbed by the gunfire…

Until Westminster swung the gun over his way. Then he didn't look so cool.

"Don't bring a sword to a gunfight." Westminster said, and blew 'Groucho' away as well. "There is a chance someone already used that line in some way. I don't care."

As George Lusman finally found a huge red plumber's wrench, weighing a good fifteen pounds, and with the great weight in his hands he stood up to strike…

As Westminster aimed the M-16 at him, his finger on the taser blaster.

"That's the problem with variety, isn't it?" Westminster said, and one giant blast of electricity later reduced George Lusman to a smoking corpse.

Westminster lowered the gun, taking deep breaths.

"I'm beginning to wonder…if I should…just go on disability…" He said to himself.

And then the sound of another chainsaw starting up, and Westminster's eyes filled with bitter exasperation as the new slasher came…and then his eyes widened. Dressed as a traditional farmer, Farmer Vincent might have looked unusual if he only had the chainsaw…but the fact that he was wearing a carved-off pig's head over his own made him look downright absurd.

"I heard…you speaking of…variety, young man." Farmer Vincent said, his chainsaw revving. "To which I say…it takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent fritters."

Westminster stared for a bit, and then he released a small, semi-insane laugh, and snapped up his gun and pulled the trigger.

Only to be rewarded with a dry clicking again. He'd blown all his ammo once more.

"…I do wonder about the karmic implications of these actions." Westminster said, and ran for it, charging out the door as Farmer Vincent gave chase, chainsaw roaring.

"…You know, we're not dead yet. You'd think the author would have us do something if she bothered to make sure we survive…" The Handyman said to Adonis as the war raged through the bar.

As the Nail Gun Killer popped up, his large pneumonic weapon at the ready.

"I TAKE IT BACK! I'M HAPPY BEING IGNORED!" The Handyman screamed as he ducked behind the bar.

As the Nail Gun Killer struck down Adonis with a plastic pink flamingo.

Did he really do that?

No you idiot he shot Adonis with a bunch of nails! What the hell were you EXPECTING?

No need to be snarky.

"I'm not even smiling." The Nail Gun Killer said.

As Adonis looked down at his chest…and at all the nails stuck in his mech suit, pierced in pretty good, but nowhere near deep enough to touch flesh.

And then he seized the Nail Gun Killer in his giant mech hands.

"Dude, this isn't so much for the whole trying to kill me thing, but the fact that your one liner wasn't good, or bad, or terrible, BUT THAT IT MADE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER!"

And Adonis promptly spiked the Nail Gun Killer as good as any celebrating NFL player ever did.

"TOUCHDOWN! HOO-RAH!" Adonis said, and danced. And for absurd sights, perhaps nothing topped a giant robot suit dancing amidst a bloody war between villains and slashers. Except maybe if he'd had pom-poms again.

Handyman peered out over the bar again, looking at the Nail Gun Killer's legs dangling out of the section of floor he'd been driven in.

"Nice, but I probably could have come up with something better." The Handyman said.

The legs twitched briefly, and Handyman yelled and hid behind the bar again.

Maybe if they had any sense at all, they may have heard Nightwalker screaming as the inbred cannibals began slicing into her…but their first effort was snarled by Nightwalker's armor. But Three-Finger eventually managed to slice a hole through that, yanking it open to expose Nightwalker's bare midrift. In sick glee, he pawed at the pale flesh…

As Nightwalker's eyes grew as cold as bullets, as she finally snapped, going beyond horror and straight into a zone of unrelenting rage, as she finally yanked a leg free from One-Eye and stomped down her ankle on the ground.

As a long blade sprang from her boot, and with one swift back and forth motion she yanked her foot up and drove it right through the remaining eye of One-Eye. The midget mountain-dweller squealed and dropped Nightwalker's leg, as the sudden shift caused Three-Finger's knife to screw up, and instead of stabbing/slicing Nightwalker where she was exposed, the blade instead brushed her hip as the girl twisted her foot and broke the blade off her boot even as she fully pulled her lower half free from Three-Finger, and as her feet hit the floor she shifted her weight and in an expert judo throw hurled Saw-Tooth over her, knocking Three-Finger aside in the process. Nightwalker fell to the ground from the toss, even as One-Eye collapsed as well, dead, while Nightwalker did a no-hands kip up, even as Three-Finger regained his sense and stared at her in confusion, not knowing how their fine meal had suddenly escaped.

Nightwalker glared at him a moment.

And then she snapped up her arms and fired three orbs into Three-Finger, giving him an acid bath.

Saw-Tooth got back up just as his brother staggered back, shrieking in agony for a few seconds before the acid caused his body to fall apart, melting away like it was snow under the beating sun. He turned his hideously deformed face on Nightwalker, who raised her other arm.

Click, click. She was out of ammo.

Saw-Tooth bellowed and charged her, producing a bloodstained axe from somewhere as he swung at her, but Nightwalker leapt to the side and rolled, springing up as she tried to find more ammo on her person, but Saw-Tooth was on her with the speed of vengeance, the wood floor splintering where she had just been as Nightwalker dove away again…

And spied it, lying off in a dark corner, apparently kicked aside and forgotten. The Lord's long, ornate katana, which he'd held only briefly before Freddy struck him down.

And since it was just lying there, Nightwalker called dibs, as she dove away as the axe splintered the wall, Saw-Tooth still on her to tear her apart, as she reached the katana in one more good diving leap, snatching it up and yanking it from the sheath as Saw-Tooth charged at her, bellowing…

Nightwalker turned around, appeared to start getting up, and then did a mini-leap forward, as she hit the ground and slid under Saw-Tooth's axe, as she reared the katana up and rammed it right through his side just above the hip, the bloody blade tip exploding out the other end as Saw-Tooth bellowed…and then, despite the blade shifting in him, he swung the axe down at Nightwalker again, who gasped and lost a lock of hair as she yanked her head to the side, as Saw-Tooth tried to stomp on her, Nightwalker frantically trying to get her body free from under his feet, even as Saw-Tooth kept after her, as if the sword stuck through him wasn't even THERE, as Nightwalker tried to get up and was kneed violently in her shoulder and neck, knocked sprawling on the ground again as Saw-Tooth shifted again to stay over her, as he swung the axe down, the blade biting into her ankle, the armor barely keeping her safe but not free from pain as she yelled once more…as one last flash of icy rage shot through her and she spun her legs, the axe pulled from her foot even as the motion resulted in tripping up the giant mountain man, as she whirled her feet under her, placed her weight on them, jerked to the side as Saw-Tooth tried to take her head off with a one handed axe swing…

And seized the sword handle, and in one swift twisting, yanking slash she spun around his body in a perfect 180 degrees and ripped his whole stomach open, the intestines and other organs spewing out in a cascade of blood and viscera.

Saw-Tooth went strangely quiet, as he fell to his knees, his guts in his hands, as he looked at Nightwalker as she rose up, blood dripping from the blade.

Her blade.

"…My name is Nightwalker." She said.

And with one swirling slash she chopped Saw-Tooth's head from his shoulders.

"And I spit on your grave." Nightwalker finished.

The cold anger faded in her, as Nightwalker tried to take stock in the immensely violent actions she'd just undertaken. Her kindest kill had involved stabbing someone through the eye, and then she'd melted a man into a puddle and carved up a third like he was a slab of beef…

…But they were just fictional creations, manifestations of dark magic.

…And considering what they'd done, how they'd touched her…she doubted any court would convict her.

She supposed she was lucky. Not many women could escape such a situation via such means, without scars on their soul.

And on that thought, Nightwalker found that she finally began to understand the White Hole's mindset…

And that she'd still have some use for it.

She re-armed her gauntlets just in case, but it was clear what Nightwalker was going to use as she started across the bar, bloody sword at her side.

And she was not spoilt for challengers, as the Driller Killer came for her, his whirring power drill aching for her blood.

She gave it her blade instead, slicing the power tool in half, and then carving the Driller Killer open from one side of his ribs to the other, and even as he spasmed she spun around him and rammed her sword through his back. She yanked it free and walked on…and Frank Zito saw her long hair, lovely hair, even the artificial color that it was, and came for her with his knife, dearly wanting to claim her scalp.

Nightwalker did him one better, as she blocked his stab, kicked him in the knee to knock him off balance, and then chopped the top of his head off in one swift slash. She walked on as he hit the floor, his brains oozing out like jelly.

And as Nightwalker was riding high, The White Hole had seemingly been laid low, as she tried to get up from her injuries, as Joe Vickers, another lunatic police officer (albeit one that was still alive in the traditional) approached her, smirking and aiming his gun.

The White Hole tried to surge up to annihilate him, and he shot her three more times, this time in the chest. The fact that her armor protected her didn't lessen the thunderous impacts, the ones she had once hardly felt at all.

"You have the right to remain dead." Vickers said, highly amused with himself. "Anything you say can and will be considered very strange because you're dead. You have the right to an attorney, but it won't do you any good because you're dead."

The White Hole surged up again. Three more bullets knocked her down, two of them hitting her in unarmored places.

"One Adam-12, one Adam-12, suspect is big, ugly, black-haired, and considered EXTREMELY fuckin' stupid!" Vickers said as he reloaded again. "You know, I do hate to shoot a suspect when she's down."

Then he aimed his gun at her, as the White Hole barely sat up, her lone eye going wide.

"Oh wait, is there anyone with a video camera here? No? Then of course I do!"

And then Vickers no longer had a hand, as Nightwalker chopped it, and the gun, clean off.

"…Hey! You're under arrest for assaulting an officer! And destruction of police property!" Vickers said, rather glib about losing his hand, as he pointed at Nightwalker to emphasize his words.

She chopped off his other hand.

"Case dismissed." She said, and kicked him in the chest, as he tripped and fell over, falling right on top of the White Hole.

Who had used those several seconds to recover, and as you might have guessed, was none too happy.

"Hello." She said calmly.

Nightwalker turned and looked around while the White Hole extracted her revenge on Vickers. Remember when I said FF Dot Net would need a few new ratings before? Well this one would probably require about a dozen more.

She rose eventually, looking at Nightwalker, who stood there, blade in hand, no new foes to challenge her.

"…I dismissed you as a liability and did nothing to make you think I changed my mind. I still have not. But I must ask, why go to so much trouble, especially when it seemed I was wrong and would pay the highest price for it?"

"Because I chose to." Nightwalker said, and let the White Hole reach whatever understanding she might.

Problems still plagued Doctor Westminster though, as he fled down the alleyway to escape from Farmer Vincent…at least until he suffered the greatest curse and greatest expectancy of all fleeing horror characters. He tripped.

"OWTCH!" Westminster groaned, as he heard the chainsaw roaring behind him, as he scrambled back up and turned around, a moment before he would have lost an arm to the whirring blade. How Farmer Vincent could see so well considering he was wearing a severed pig's head, who knew.

"You may as well stop runnin'. Though I must say, leaves the meat tender." Farmer Vincent said. Westminster staggered back, slapping at his body, trying to find any clip, but damn nothing, just his grenades, where was the other…

….Of course. He wasn't inside any more.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot sir." Westminster said, as he yanked one grenade free and pulled the pin. "Let me actually show you some hospitality. Welcome to my barbeque!"

And Westminster hurled the grenade and ran like hell.

It rolled to a stop at Farmer Vincent's feet.

"…Sigh. Youg'un's."

The explosion blew Farmer Vincent into the meat he so enjoyed making, as well as blew Westminster out onto the round outside the bar. He bounced once and then came to a stop, lying there and groaning.

"This is NOT my day…" Westminster muttered, as he painfully got to his feet, never thinking he'd have seen the day when he'd miss his bone armor, but his talent was far from being able to grow that back yet…

…It was too quiet.

Westminster flicked his eyes around, checking every shadow. Far too quiet. He finally found a new clip and snapped it into his gun, as he slowly looked around, peering down into the darkness of the road…

As an 18-Wheeler's high beams lit up.

"…No fair." Westminster said.

The horn roared, as Rusty Nail put his truck in gear and charged, roaring down the street at Westminster. He fired for a few seconds into the truck before he decided running was a better idea and did so, sprinting down the road.

As another set of lights lit up, and Westminster stopped dead as the monster truck roared to life in turn, the hideous (man hasn't that adjective been used a lot) Monster Man slamming down his stick (did monster trucks have sticks? Do you actually care? No? Good) and putting the pedal to the metal, tearing up the road.

Westminster whirled around, and then whirled around again. Cut off. No alleyways to flee into and the street was too narrow to escape via the sidewalk. He had no grappling gun, and he doubted Superman was going to drop out of the sky and rescue him. And he did not have a bazooka.

That left him two options. He didn't want to die, so that left one.

The trucks rampaged at him, closing in.

As Westminster reached down into himself, seized what little power he could muster, focusing it, reforming himself…

The truck horns honked, sounding like bellowing primordial beasts.

As Westminster knelt down, re-arranging the bone structure in his limbs, and then he sprang up like a grasshopper, his complex alteration of his bones allowing his legs to briefly becoming springs as he flew up into the air, beating the trucks by a few mere feet.

And without Westminster in their way, the trucks only had one thing left to hit.

The collision was catastrophic, as the dozens of tons of metal slammed into each other, each truck destroying the other in a thunderous wail of metal.

And just as they started to settle, Westminster landed on the twisted wreck the two giant vehicles had become, a brief surge of pain shooting through his legs, but otherwise unharmed.

"…Whoo." Westminster breathed out, not having been sure he had enough power for that trick to work. "Thank you Mister Jason Statham."

Westminster looked at the 'slashers' (as they did drive trucks, but they were close enough), Rusty Nail now a pulped mess in his truck cab while the Monster Man was a similarly shattered wreck hanging out of his windshield.

"Well now…that worked out about as well as could be expected."

And the Monster Man lunged up, grabbing Westminster's ankle.

Westminster yelled in fright and emptied his remaining M-16 ammo into the creature, the body jerking under the assault. Westminster fired until he ran dry again, and even that wasn't enough, as he seized his remaining grenades, pulled the pin, dumped them on the Monster Man, and jumped off the trucks.

"I'm really starting to hate the clichés in this film genre!" Westminster yelled as he ran like hell.

As the grenades blew, and then the gas tanks caught and erupted as well, as the night behind Westminster's fleeing form exploded into a brilliant blaze of fire and death.

And inside the bar…it had finally hit the last reel.

The Shredder (no, not the foe of certain mutant turtles) swung his axe at Jack, who once again caught it.

"Death to Snowboarders?" Jack said, reading the inscription on the axe. "Oh you got it all wrong mate!"

Jack yanked the axe free.

"You're supposed to be ON THE OTHER END!" Jack yelled, and turned the axe on the snow-dressed villain with the expected bloody results.

"Man, I am missing out! Come on!" Control Freak said, as he furiously fiddled with his laser sword, trying to get back in the action as his remote battery still hadn't recharged (though it was almost there).

"Young man, you look rather pale. I should take your temperature." Dr. Giggles said to Killjoy, as he raised his scalpel and spiked thermometer.

As Killjoy made his own diagnosis, that Dr. Giggles was about to suffer a fatal case of lead poisoning, and emptied his guns into the not-so-good doctor. Even more effective then eating an apple a day, or perhaps a pun in that vein if Killjoy ever spoke.

"Lousy piece of junk! Who built this damn thing?…Oh right, I did." Control Freak realized, and continued tinkering.

Madman Marz made the last decapitation attempt of the night, as he swung his axe at Blackfire…who dodged it, punched the lunatic across the face, shattered his kneecap with a brutal kick, and as he fell, seized his head in her hands and with one mighty clench crushed it between her fingers.

"…GUUHHHHHHHHH!" Blackfire spat, waving her hands in disgust as she fell out of the battle fugue and realized just how gross that choice of killing moves was, not to mention the gruesome mess that had been sprayed across her sweaters.

"Come on! Comeoncomeoncomeoncomeoncomeon…uh, right." Control Freak said, as he realized he was sounding too much like another overweight 'joke villain'. "Damn it, this will never work! If I could only have…oh…right…OF COURSE!" Control Freak said, as he looked at his backup remote, which had finally recharged. He aimed it at the laser sword and hit rewind, and cackled madly as the damage undid itself. "Yes! I'm a genius!"

Mad Mod hit Control Freak over the head with his cane.

"OW! What was THAT for!"

"Just reminding the bloody readers I'm still here in a manner which is entertaining to me."

As Quiltface power-walked for the White Hole…as the alien lashed out and tore through his chest, and as the power-walking slasher whirled around Nightwalker slashed out and cut a twin to the deep wound. The multi-faced slasher collapsed, and Nightwalker and the White Hole finished him off with a downward stab and a stomp, respectively.

There were still a few stragglers…

"Oh no, allow me!" Control Freak said, as he charged into the fray with his laser sword. His first target was Uncle Billy. "ARGH! YOUR MOVIE SUCKED! I COULDN'T SIT THROUGH IT! AND I SAT THROUGH GOING OVERBOARD AND LEONARD PART 6! Do you have ANY IDEA WHAT THAT SAYS ABOUT YOUR FILM?" Control Freak yelled as he cut down the man with the wretched clown mask. Next up: The Knight. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT WAS WORSE, YOUR FILM OR THE CHILD 'STAR'! I'D RATHER KILL HIM!" The Knight's armor and sword proved no protection against Control Freak's laser weapon. The worst was saved for last, as Control Freak went after The Flannel Killer. "HOW DO YOU MISSPELL THE OPENING TITLE CARD? THAT'S JUST PART 1 OF THE 19,000 THINGS WRONG WITH YOUR FILM! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THEM ALL, SO LET'S JUST SAY THIS IS A BETTER WAY OF BEING BEATEN THEN HAVING EGGS THROWN IN YOUR FACE!" And with those last angry words, the last slasher in that group was cut down and killed by Control Freak.

"There are movies so vile even Control Freak cannot find a single thing to like about them. The world is undoubtedly doomed." Slade commented to himself.

And Raw Sawyer swung his crowbar at Slade…who calmly aimed and emptied his gun into the supernatural slasher, who staggered back…as Kurai blew his right arm and a good chunk of his chest off, and then Brick smashed the remaining mess flat, and stomped on it for good measure.

And that left just one remaining killer…which was probably fitting.

There were several movies that really birthed Halloween, which defined the whole slasher genre. One was an Italian film called Twitch of the Death Nerve. Another was a Canadian film called Black Christmas. And the third was in many people's minds a 1977 film called The Town That Dreaded Sundown, based loosely on a real life event of a string of unsolved killings committed by a masked man in a small town in Texas just after World War II.

And here that killer was, known as the Phantom, as he gazed at Slade through the eyes of his hooded sack disguise.

Slade looked back with his sole eye.

And the Phantom jerked up his gun and fired.

As Slade dashed past him, his movement too quick for anyone to follow.

KER-SLASH!

And then, without a sound, the Phantom fell over, as Slade lifted his outstretched sword, swung it around, and placed it back in his sheath.

"How many casualties did we suffer?" Slade asked.

"Westminster's missing in action, but until he's confirmed dead…none." The Sorceress said, looking around at the villains, battered and bloody among the piles of bodies. "None at all."

"Well then." Slade said, as he ejected the empty clip of his weapon and popped in another. "I'd say that says it all, doesn't it?"

Famous last words.

As the last of them exploded from the entrance door, the biggest of them all, a slasher nearly as wide as he was tall, wielding twin giant axes, as he bellowed his wrath, bellowed the rage of Buddy, and charged…

And Slade, Rose, Killjoy, Kurai, and Nightwalker all opened fire on him, and the giant slasher was stopped dead by the sheer amount of ammo, his whole front exploding into a bloody mess as he was forced back, all the way to the door…

As another long blast of machine gun fire tore into his back, and with that Buddy collapsed forward, the last of the slashers, dead and gone, as Westminster stood over his body with his own smoking gun.

"Well then." Westminster said, as he tipped his not-actually-there hat. "Nice to see you saved me SOME of the excitement. But I've rather had quite enough already."

"More accurate words were never spoken." Slade said, as he looked around the utter carnage of the bar once more…as the bodies began to fade away, as well as their weapons and the mess they had left (though any damage caused to the surroundings remained, Slade noticed). White Hole actually looked rather disappointed to not longer be bloodsoaked, while Nightwalker looked annoyed that she still had sliced up stomach armor…

…Huh.

"Still alive, Miss Sine?" Slade asked Nightwalker. Nightwalker gave Slade a look.

"No thanks to you, Mister Wilson." Nightwalker said, as she found the sheath for her new blade, slid the sword home, and attached it to her back. "But then again, what else would you expect? On both sides."

"…Hmmmm." Slade replied, and walked on, looking for his normal shotgun (the Striker was replaceable, but the SPAS-12 had been personally rebuilt by him and wasn't). "If no one is critically wounded then, here's what we have to do. This was far more trouble then it was worth, so everyone is going to properly equip themselves to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Slade found his shotgun, which was considerably easier with all the bodies vanishing.

"That means you need to re-enlarge the weapon crates Ithlian." Slade added. He heard the Sorceress groan loudly, but he ignored it.

"Ah man. This is more of a pain then a chip shot! And I don't even know what a chip shot is!" Adonis groaned as he tried to pull the nails out of his armor.

"Barkeep! More scotch!" Jack said, sitting at one of the remaining stools, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. When Adonis ignored him, Jack made a semi-sarcastic comment about service and fetched himself another bottle from what was left intact among the ruins of the bar.

Westminster sat down nearby, trying to gather himself, his legs and arms aching like hell now that all the adrenaline was gone, and he was out of painkillers, damn, this night just kept getting worse…

"Funny how you took off and came back." Jack commented, as Westminster looked at the Australian. "I thought you would have run for it. Now why didn't you?"

"…Believe me, the trouble out there was bigger then the trouble in here." Westminster said. Jack just looked at Westminster, but the doctor liked the expression even less then Jack's words. There was a dangerous turning of gears going on behind those eyes, and Westminster wondered just why it was focused on him, as he located his hat on the floor and put it back on. Well, at least no one had stepped on it.

"Slade is right. It is rather surprising you came out of this alive." The White Hole said to Nightwalker, as the young vigilante approached a table with her briefcase of ammo (as the Sorceress HAD managed to start re-enlarging the crates despite her sourness and worn-out nature). Nightwalker looked at her.

"They can give me huge tits and bleached hair, but they can't change who I am. I'm a survivor. And I don't hold grudges. No matter the source. In the end, they're just not worth it." Nightwalker said.

The White Hole was silent, as Nightwalker continued to reload her weapons and ammo patches, but the look on her face showed she gave the matter considerable thought.

"Oh great, your overlarge bum is still alive? They really were pathetic." Mad Mod said as he picked his way across the bar, as Control Freak, who moments ago had been looking pleased with himself, found his good mood faltering.

"Hey, that was just…a test! I'm sure the next threat, you'll be begging for my help!"

"Right. I'm sure your exercise routine was an inspiration to us all." The Handyman said. "At least Dr. Light and I had the sense to hide behind something."

"Hey! I was going to get involved, but you idiots kept shooting everywhere! It was safer for me behind the table!" Dr. Light yelled.

"You just keep telling yourself that. I always did like a good game of Chinese Whispers." Mad Mod said. "Well I suppose it means that there's someone else to for these things to kill."

"Well, uh…hah! You have a gun! You said you'd never have a gun!" Control Freak said in a comeback that was beyond lame.

"I said that under the constraints that I would in terms of personal defense on my own terms be more creative then a simple firearm, but considering the aggro here that's been foisted on us, I sure as hell don't have a problem with using one, you twit!"

As a pair of hands grabbed Mad Mod from where he was standing in front of an open hallway door and yanked him in with a yell of "BOLLOCKS!"

Slade's head jerked towards the door at the sound of the yell, even as Control Freak and Handyman jerked away from the doorway in surprise.

"I think you missed one Slade!" Handyman yelled, and then hid behind the bar again.

"…He grabbed Mad Mod?" Slade said.

"Yeah!"

"Well, no great loss…but no sense having him skulk around if we can avoid it." Slade said, as he finished reloading his shotgun. "Kurai, Rose, Nightwalker, come with me. Anyone else can follow if they want, but if there's even the slightest chance you could be shocked into harming us instead of our target, don't bother: I'll kill you myself." Slade said, as he racked his shotgun and headed for the door, followed by his apprentices.

"Perhaps you should let the cat down." Kurai said to Rose, who was hugging it to her chest again.

"But he's so CUTTTTTTTTTEEEEE!" Rose squeed. Kurai sighed inwardly, almost wishing the battle were still going on.

It had been the Sugarman who had grabbed Mad Mod, having finally recovered from his little mishaps involving a swinging door and his face, as he'd taken the chance that the villains had dropped their guard and seized the nearest one, pulling him away with him.

Unfortunately, he was so caught in swiftly dragging the villain out of sight that he didn't pay attention to where he was going.

And hence dragged Mad Mod through an open door that lead to a flight of downwards-going stairs.

In case you were wondering, unexpected stairs rarely result in anything good.

"BLOODY HELL!" Mad Mod yelled as both he and the Sugarman tumbled down said stairs, finally crashing down at the base of them, Mad Mod's gun escaping his hand and flying off into the shadows. He'd hung onto his cane though, as he pushed his pained body up.

As the Sugarman, who had somehow fallen down the stairs without squashing or losing his chef's hat, rose to his feet himself, as menacingly as somehow who had just taken a tumble down some stairs because of his own stupidity could rise up anyway.

"I meant to do that." The Sugarman said. "Despair, asshole! You have only escaped the rank and file, and now you shall meet your end at my hands, the greatest god of death…!"

Mad Mod slammed the Sugarman with his cane as hard as he could.

"OW! THAT HURT!" Sugarman whined.

Mad Mod hit him again.

"Stop it!" Sugarman said in a higher voice, as he slashed his giant butcher knife at the British villain, but he dodged and slammed his cane across Sugarman's head again.

"You got dirt all over my suit! Do you have any idea how much you rotters have driven up cleaning prices?" Mad Mod snapped, as he whacked Sugarman again, sending him stumbling back.

"This isn't fair! Things were supposed to-"

WHACK!

"I demand you stop hitting me!" The Sugarman said in a deep, dangerous voice.

WHACK!

"Here we go round the Mulberry bush, the mulberry bush…!"

WHACK!

("At least we seem to have finally shrugged off that damn KER addendum!" Freddy said.)

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you?" Mad Mod asked as he chased the villain, hammering on him. "This is what they replaced Dracula and Frankenstein with? No wonder all you damn kids have oatmeal for brain…!"

And then, in a sudden flash of power, Mad Mod went from a young man in a black suit to an old man wearing a sweater and slacks.

"…Bugger. Daft timing." Mad Mod said, looking at his now elderly form. The Sugarman lowered his arms from his recoiling, and then he started laughing.

"Now you see why you cannot escape your death! I shall…!"

Mad Mod hit Sugarman as hard as he could with his cane again, sending him stumbling back with another pained yelp.

"I'm old, not decrepit you little bastard!" Mad Mod snapped as he stepped forward and hit Sugarman again.

"Do you have stairs in your house?" Sugarman asked in a teenaged-sounding voice.

WHACK!

"Stop pissing on hospitality! You can't piss on hospitality!"

WHACK!

"I'M TELLING!"

"That one sounds good." Mad Mod said, and thrust out his cane, Sugarman jerking back as he expected to get hit again…and then stopped.

"Huh?"

And then energy blasted out of the cane, striking the Sugarman and flowing back to Mad Mod, and in a flash he was young and besuited again.

"Heh, what do you know, even works on you." Mad Mod said…though the slasher didn't look old. Well, he was a manifestation, not an actual human being, at least the vitality drain had worked! "Now that I have the strength of youth again, it's time to resume my role as headmaster. And you've been a VERY bad little duckie."

"Ducks? I love ducks!" The Sugarman said in a young girl's voice.

"…You're a loony." Mad Mod replied, and slammed the Sugarman over the head with his cane again.

"Nyuk nyuk!" Sugarman said. Mad Mod smashed him once more, now having put the slasher in full retreat: he wasn't even trying to slice and dice Mad Mod any more.

"Ow. Please cease beating me, I was just in the pastry shop for a crueler. I'm a librarian by trade, and this all seems awfully uncalled for…" Sugarman said before Mad Mod slammed him over the head with his cane again.

"I'm noticing a pattern. Every time I clobber you good, you switch personalities. Let's see what happens when you run out!" Mad Mod said, and whammed the Sugarman with his cane again, sending him stumbling down the hallway and around the corner that had been approaching.

"These people aren't playing fair! AT ALL! It's like they don't LIKE being stabbed!" The Sugarman whined.

"Well, have you ever tried it yourself?" Sugarman answered…himself, as the slasher paused, and as Mad Mod came around the corner he turned his butcher knife around and actually gave his arm a good poke.

"Wow, is that what it feels like?" Sugarman said.

"STOP QUOTING FAMILY GUY, DAMMIT! AND STABBING US!" Sugarman then roared. His argument with himself would have probably continued, had Mad Mod not struck him with his cane again.

WHACK!

"Well this all seems a little unfriendly, dontcha know." The Sugarman said, sounding like a Minnesotan housewife.

"Oh do be quiet." Mad Mod said, and swung again.

WHACK!

"Oh yeah! Bring it on! Finally some good old fashioned PAIN!"

"…I wouldn't hit you if it weren't the only way to get to the next weird personality." Mad Mod said.

WHACK!

"What's the difference between an orange?"

"A rotten tomato is too good a review for you lot!"

"Tough room."

WHACK!

"This sucks! You suck! You're a stupid old man who doesn't know what the real world is about! It's about Linkin Park and cutting yourself and giving me money!" The Sugarman said as a perfect whiny teenager.

"You make a well reasoned and sound argument. To which I can only respond GET A GIRLFRIEND!"

WHACK!

"Say, great weather we're having, isn't it? Can I interest you in a new long distance offer?"

"BEGONE DEMON!" Mad Mod screamed as he began raining down blows in a frenzy. "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELLS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELLS YOU!"

The Sugarman staggered back after the last barrage, and you could almost swear you saw his head becoming a cartoon-like mass of bumps.

"Can I kill you yet?" He asked plaintively.

Mad Mod smashed him with another blow, sending him stumbling backwards.

"Well, you're awfully overrated! Don't know who'd bother makin' a movie about you, if an old man and a cane could beat you!" Mad Mod said.

"…Have you SEEN…some of the stuff that's been greenlighted…that appeared up there…that was actually GIVEN MONEY TO MAKE? I'm a frickin' elite!" The Sugarman protested.

WHACK! The Sugarman staggered back again.

"You're about to be a dead elite. The day is mine!" Mad Mod said as he adjusted his hand and raised his cane again, planning for his next ramming/lancing blow to actually crack the Sugarman's skull.

"Which one of you do I stab…" The Sugarman said in a daze, as the slasher pushed himself forward…

Mad Mod lanced at him.

And fell over, circles in his eyes.

As Mad Mod rammed his cane right into the electrical power box that had been hidden behind the Sugarman's body. The Englishman's eyes widened.

"Bugger."

And then a gigantic amount of electricity exploded through Mad Mod's body, his form jerking and thrashing as his hair stood on end and began to smoke, and as his glasses exploded the sheer backlash of the electrical charge blew his cane right out of the box, hurling Mad Mod against the opposite wall as his walking stick impaled right through him.

He jerked once more, and then slumped, his corpse still smoking.

The Sugarman slowly stood up, looking at what Mad Mod had done…to himself. The Sugarman hadn't done it. It had all been the villain's fault.

"100 slashers…and this is what was managed." The Sugarman said. "Bloody depressing, mate. Bloody depressing."

"Well then, so much for that." Slade said as he and his entourage found Mad Mod's body a few minutes later. "Forget the remaining killer, we'll most likely see him coming. Let's return to the bar and prepare ourselves, I do not believe we have seen the last of the night's problems."

"What happened to him…" Rose said, looking a bit ill.

"It appears that the killer rammed him into the electrical box, and once he'd been cooked well done followed it up by picking up the body and impaling it to the wall with his own cane. Quite nice, all around. At least he has some sense of flair." The White Hole said, as the villains turned and left, leaving Mad Mod's body stuck to the wall.

And in the nearby shadows…

"Man! Nothin' worse than gettin' credit for such a sloppy job! Nyuck nyuck!" The Sugarman said, as the shadowy Freddy projection appeared next to him.

"So tell me Sugarman, as I need to refresh my memory and all, how many of those villain fools did your army of fellows kill?"

"Uh well…if you count…and one should consider…and really, you had to be there…uh…less than we hoped for." The Sugarman said.

"Grahhh! This is what happens when you send the people without seven movie story arcs! You accomplish NOTHING, because you ARE nothing!"

"Hey, you didn't get anyone when you fought the Titans…"

"That was a fluke! I was cheated! The writer had a deadline! I didn't get enough screen time! She was setting me up for the big sequel!"

"You weren't even in the last one."

"The REAL sequel! Shut up! Get out of here loser! I'm done with you lot! I'm going to send in a winner!"

"Don't you lose at the end of every movie?"

"That's how sagas are made! Minor inconveniences like death!"

"Didn't Jason kick your ass? And isn't he not here? Do we HAVE any winners?"

Freddy slashed his ghost-claws out, and a bolt of electricity from the damaged power box tore out and gave the Sugarman a giant jolt.

KER-ZAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

"…Oh look the add-on is back." The Sugarman said.

"ARGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Writer's Note: Every single slasher that appeared in the giant battle is real, and actually appeared in (in some cases, more then one) movie. And the worst part is, if I hadn't decided a hundred was good, I could have found even more. I know. I'm scared too.

Next Time, In Boogeymen III!

"You're telling me this isn't human flesh?" The zombie said.

"No man, it's I Can't Believe It's Not Human Flesh ™." Zombie 2 said.

"…hey man, that isn't cool. I heard that shit gives you cancer."

"Don't you have to be alive to get cancer?"

"Point. And half the fat…WIN FREAKIN' WIN!"

"Didn't you hear guys?" Zombie 3 said. "It's just chicken breast painted red."

"…I didn't think people would taste like chicken…"

"Fuckin' newb. Come back when you've grown some maggots."

8888

And Jack looked at his new chainsaw hands.

"…groovy."

8888

"We're all mad here." The Cheshire Cat said. "You really should try it once, to see if you like it."

8888

"Kurai, will you marry me?"

"What are you, dense? Are you freakin' retarded? I'M THE GODDAMN KURAI!"

"…what does that have to do with anything?"

"Huh? What does what have to do with anything?"

"I'm so confused…"

"What, are you dense? Are you freakin' retarded? I'M THE GODDAMN KURAI!"

"It goes on…and on…" Slade said.

8888

Adonis sprayed something under his arm…and a moment later he was swarmed by dozens of zombies, as he went under with a scream.

WARNING: Zombies like Tag Body Spray too.

ADDENDUM TO WARNING: Or, more accurately, they like it at all. Women think it smells horrible.

FURTHER ADDENDUM TO WARNING: We're FRAUDS! FRAAAAAAAUDS! What have I done with my life?