((Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! I was sick for a while, and then swamped with makeup work. Hopefully that doesn't become a common occurrence in the future...

Anyway, enjoy!))

Chapter 1:

1. Cerebus (The long-running independent comic book Cerebus by Dave Sim)

2. Richard George (Also from Cerebus, as a parody of the Beatles' George Harrison and Ringo Starr)

3. Bacchus (The also long-running independent comic book Bacchus by Eddie Campbell)

4. Wednesday (The American Gods novel by Neil Gaiman)

Chapter 2:

5. Mario (If you don't know who this guy is from, then there is precious little I can do for you)

The sudden exclamation by the overalled entrant was met by crickets.

Not literally, of course, as crickets were not a normal part of the establishment's clientele, but figuratively, in the sense that no one said anything.

Even if it illicit no verbal response, heads were turned on the necks of the few patrons in the bar. Wednesday and Bacchus looked up to give Mario funny glances, then tried to resume their conversation. Richard the barkeep blinked and squinted under his all-encompassing bangs, then tried to resume wiping off a mug nonchalantly. And finally, Cerebus shot a drunken, icy glance at the door, and then resumed finishing off his drink.

Mario looked around the bar with a mixture of embarrassment and regret. The embarrassment was from having said what was in the Mushroom Kingdom that he had traveled from (and also in his bar-of-choice back in his true home) a normally well-received introductory exclamation. In return for having said it, he was used to receiving cries of enthusiasm and friendly chuckles, and quite often of late in the towns up north, requests for autographs.

The regret was from his choice of bar. While he wouldn't have expected a tavern to be filled to very much capacity in the morning, a crowd of… (he counted the figures quickly in his head) … 4, including the bartender, was not an encouraging sight.

Nervously, he coughed into his white-gloved hand.

A thousand prayers were answered the moment the bartender broke the awkward silence.

"Eh… oy wood 'ave assume'd it wad you. Oy mean…" he scratched his head. "Oydendidy thef issen too cawmen around teez parts."

Mario was totally unprepared for the accent, which he thought vaguely to be cockney. Or was it Scottish? Australian?

Pausing for a few moments to decipher his lingo– and also to reflect on how oddly familiar the bartender looked, although he had certainly never met him before– Mario replied, unsurely.

"Uh… yeah, yeah, you're right…" he made a sheepish grin. A grin he quickly retracted.

His voice, the same voice that he had, of course, made his exclamation with, sounded almost as if it came from two different people. It was mostly constant from word to word, but consisted of both a deep, masculine undertone and a high, distinct overtone. And he had never heard an end in his middle school days to the constant cries of music teachers begging him to join female-packed choruses.

Silently, Mario weighed his options. He could walk any number of miles to the nearest town (the bar being in an unusually isolated, country location), and perhaps find a bar that, if not more hospitable to his opening gag, then at least more filled up and with warmer faces.

But then another thought hit him.

No matter where you go in this country… there ain't gonna be a place 'where everybody knows your name.' he reflected grimly.

With a breathless sigh, he made up his mind and walked towards the counter.

His first instinct was to sit next to the grey, pig-like fellow. He was unable to deduce his species, but in the saccharine-sweet cartoons that he had grown up on as a kid, animals that could walk on two legs were typically creatures overflowing with friendliness and mirth as warm as their thick fur.

But this guy… An icy glare was one thing, and the fact that he was in a haven of casual inebriation another. It was the sword that did it in Mario's mind. And he knew that swords weren't something you used for chopping firewood or sizzling bacon.

So instead, he opted for a place a safe 2-no, 3 seats away from him.

Taking his seat, he said to the bartender, "Um… so what do you have here?"

—-

After the temporary distraction, Wednesday's thoughts were put more in focus. That focus being the urgent matters he had planned on discussing with his drinking companion.

Turning back to Bacchus, he took a sip from his mead. He put down the drink quickly after doing so, grimacing from the taste. He had always hated mead. Still, his good eye glittered as he resumed their conversation.

"You might have some idea as to what I am here to ask you…" began Wednesday, leaning forward in his seat. "But hear me-"

"No." said Bacchus flatly.

Wednesday's good eye blinked, the glitter all but departed from it.

"Are times really so gritty and merciless," said Wednesday with a long sigh. "That even the god of drink and revelry has turned into a sourpuss?"

Bacchus seemed for a moment almost to take Wednesday's words as an insult, the lines on his already wrinkled face tightening. Then, they normalized, and he spoke.

"They're not and I pray they never will be. You should see me when this place is actually crowded. Especially with that dancer…" He smiled faintly in reminiscence, before adopting a more serious tone. "I have a vague idea of what you want: me to cooperate with you and the other gods on some good works for the mortals ("Although given your idea of 'sacrifice' that rather astonishes me…" said Bacchus quickly under his breath). Fight the Dark One– the tartarus' this one's name again? Shai-Tan or Balthazar or-"

"The first one." Wednesday cut him off. "You know, up North, they say that saying his name gives you bad luck."

Bacchus gave Wednesday a funny look. A silence took seat at the table, and stayed for a long moment.

It was a silence named comedic timing.

"You know… I'd think that a god of all people would know enough not to trust superstition."

At this joke, both of them burst into raucous laughter.

—-

"Oy y'know. Scawtch. Awle. Beer. Whiskey." said Richard the bartender, answering Mario's question. Under his bangs, the bartender's expression was fairly nondescript. "A royther noyce seleckchun, really."

Out of habit, Richard scanned the barrels of beverage lining the wall. Mentally, he recited the liquor stocks of the establishment, as well as the incoming shipments to be had.

30 gallons of Ale (next shipment– 1 month and a half). 20 gallons of Beer (next shipment– 5 weeks). 17 gallons of Mead (next shipment– 2 months and a week). 12 gallons of Scotch (next shipment- 3 weeks). 2 gallons of Methlegin…

He was interrupted by the overalled customer's voice, and caught it just on the tail-end of its request.

"…have a beer, please." said Mario.

"Roytaway, roytaway." replied Richard. Fetching a mug, he proceeded to fill it with the vigor-inducing drink.

Meanwhile, Mario's eyes shifted nervously between the countertop and the gruff aardvark sitting only seats away from him. Should he attempt conversation? Was the aardvark in the mood it? Would he get beat up for it?

His eyes fell on the creature's shortsword. Pacifistic, happy-go-lucky forest critters seldom carried such cutlery, let alone openly display it.

Well… swords might be common around here. Especially if they have to deal with bandits or Trollocs or koopa- He forcefully derailed that train of thought, remembering his "encounter" with the thoroughly non-intimidating turtle outside.

Shaking his head to fully rid himself of the memory, he gathered up what was his– taking everything into consideration– fairy ample courage, and greeted the creature.

Cerebus at first pretended that the shaky "Hey…" hurled at him from the plumber's direction was nonexistent. Then, when it was followed by a slightly stronger "Hey.", he readily assumed that it was intended for someone else. And then finally, when the mustachioed man had the nerve to interrupt his bitter drunkenness with a solid "Hey!", Cerebus clenched his fists underneath the counter.

Reluctantly turning towards the man, Cerebus gave his reply.

"Whadda you want?" he said. A small, stray hiccup from his previous drinking session shoved its way into his speech.

Mario froze, uncertain how to respond. Then he gathered up a little more courage.

"Um… you go here often?" he asked, smiling nervously under his thick mustache.

Cerebus gave the man an indescribable expression. An uncomfortable silence followed the well-intended inquiry, during which Cerebus sized up the conversational intruder. He could make out an unexpected volume of muscle definition under the plumber's shoulders. But what he fixated more on was the bizarreness of his attire.

There was only one class of people Cerebus had known (or rather, heard of from unquestionably unreliable tongues) to wear such brightly colored garb.

"Are you a faggot or something?" he said, almost matter-of-factly. His voice was now free of hiccuping, allowing hm to emphasize the uncouth vocabulary.

Mario blinked. Several times.

Suddenly, the bartender arrived with his drink.

"Here you aw." he said, depositing the filled mug on the countertop. "Wot kinda dough do ya carry?" he asked.

In that moment, Mario thought of the bartender's accent as resembling that of a New York mobster.

"Um… what do you mean by that, exactly?" he replied. And then in the following moment, as the bartender spoke, Mario discarded that assumption entirely, and decided he was more of a Crocodile Dundee caricature.

"Yer cawency." he said flatly. Whether there was judgement under those thick bangs was hard to tell. "Wot cash do they ooze where you's from?"

Now Mario couldn't decide whether Richard was Crocodile Dundee or Al Capone.

"Er… I have gold coins." realizing that that was hardly specific, he added, "From the Mushroom Kingdom."

Under those all-encompassing bangs, the bartender's eyes might have widened.

"Dat's real far." he commented casually. "With th' awxchange rate for doze… I'd say yer set back 2 coins for that drink."

Fishing into the large pouch attached to his belt, Mario paid the man accordingly.

From his place a few seats away, Cerebus eyed the glimmer of gold as it changed hands with keen interest. 2 gold coins for a beer? Either the bartender was practicing acute highway robbery, or it was fool's gold that made those coins.

Unable to stifle his curiosity when it came to matters of money, Cerebus asked, "How can gold coins be of such low value?" he asked. A measure of passionate disbelief entered his voice as he spoke.

"Oh uh…" Mario wondered how best to phrase the Mushroom Kingdom's minting process (or rather– lack of thereof) without astonishing the aardvark to the point of anger. "Well you see… we just… find them."

"Find them?" the aardvark gave him a funny look.

"Yeah. All over the place. And sometimes, there are these big floating blocks…" he pantomimed the shape of one with his arm. "With question marks on them. And when you hit the blocks, coins come out of them."

An awkward silence followed, perhaps even more awkward than the one that occurred when Mario first tried to engage Cerebus in conversation. Mario's eyes strayed to the bartender, hoping for confirmation of the astonishing economic factoid. Richard's expression was, as expected, difficult to read under the layer of black hair. Turning back to Cerebus, he found the grizzled drinker to be having a whole variety of expressions, ranging from shock to disbelief to what Mario unmistakably and uncomfortably recognized as greed.

It was an expression on the aardvark that sent chills down his spine. And not for the last time.

Fortunately, the bartender provided another factoid to lessen the shock.

"Yeah, dat's royt. An doze trade awgreemen's and inflashun an' whannaw keep th' rates o' awxchange fixed."

Cerebus looked down at the bar for a moment. "Oh." he said flatly. There was a note of disappointment in his voice that hung in the air for a little while, before his bladder capacity caught up to him. In his efforts to dull out the words of Bacchus and Wednesday, he had consumed a lot of alcohol.

"Cerebus has to take a piss." he said gruffly. "This place got a bathroom?" Normally, he despised such rooms of indoor waste disposal, preferring to do his business outside as often as possible as an act of defiance to the perfumed city folk. But now he was merely eager to leave the plumber's company.

"Yeah. Righ' awcross th' room." answered the bartender cordially. As he polished off a mug with a white cloth, he pointed towards the door to the rest room.

Not bothering to so much as a grumble a quick "thanks," Cerebus got up from his seat and strode towards the restroom.

Suddenly, Richard remembered something.

"Way a minud! Way a minud!" he shouted to Cerebus.

Turning his head back with an icy glare, the only word that escaped Cerebus' double mouths was a cold "What?"

"Er… da bathroom, y'see…" The bartender rubbed the back of his head. "It's been having soom real issues. Th' plumbin', y'see…"

At the word "plumbing," even obscured by Richard's accent, Mario's eyes lit up. Abruptly, he shot up from his seat, tough, travel-worn shoes making a thud against the wooden floorboards.

"Did… did you say 'plumbing' ?!" asked Mario. Of course, he knew the answer to the question before he even asked it.

The bartender's lips curved a little under his bangs at the customer's sudden enthusiasm. Cerebus simply rolled his eyes.

"Uh… yeah." said the bartender. "Oy beleef so…"

Mario took a step forward.

"While, as look would have it, I happen to be a plumber!" he grinned widely, his mustache hairs seeming to glisten under his nose.

"Ah really naw…" said the bartender, uncertain how else to respond. His eyes were tempted to go back to scanning the liquor shelves, an altogether far more predictable task.

Mario was undeterred by his obvious lack of enthusiasm, and pressed on.

"I bet with all my tools," he gestured to the considerable variety on display on the belt around his torso. "…and experience, I could get the job done in a jiffy!" his smile only grew larger.

The bartender eyed him–behind his bangs, presumably– with uncertainty. This uncertainty was quickly wiped off his face when he remembered the typical fee charged for a plumbing house call. A fee that would likely be much reduced (perchance even nonexistent) from this overeager plumber.

Weighing his options, the bartender gave a friendly grin.

"Ya naw wot. Sure thing." he said, pointing to the bathroom. Clearing his throat, he added, "Unfortunately thaw, Oy'm 'fraid oy cawn't pay you for the jaws… liability issues an' all frawm a plawber withou' a local license…"

Mario's enthusiasm dimmed a little. Did he need a new license for where he was?

Before he could reply, the bartender chimed in, "Oy mean… yuz cud still give it ah go if ya really wannoo." he offered. "I won' need ta tell anyone 'bout yer lack of certificashun if you do a good 'nough job…"

Mario jumped on the offer. Literally, he jumped a rather impressive foot into the air. Gleaming, he gave the bartender an over-the-top thumbs up.

"Believe me, I'll make those pipes sing!" exclaimed Mario, the pitch of his voice leaning more towards the high side to counter his manly lowness.

"Well then, woy nawt get to it?" he gestured encouragingly to the source of distress.

"Alright!" said Mario as he dashed to the bathroom, only narrowly avoiding Cerebus as he got out of the way.

When he was safely out of both eye and ear range, Cerebus announced, "I'll just piss outside." And with that, he proceeded out the door.

—-

There was a stirring below the bar. A special stirring, and deep, deep below.

Not only past the countless layers of packed dirt, miscellaneous stones, and crawling worms, but running parallel, opposite, and in particular, upside down to the reality of the bar's world, two men were climbing.

The cliff face they were climbing was almost perfectly steep, but the men were trained in climbing to such an extent that this present part of their jobs could scarcely be called a work hazard. Even the skin-chilling, nerve-numbing, pitch black for untold distance all around them made their climbing task still somewhat less hazardous than the day-to-day work of their shared occupation.

One of these men was dressed for formal occasions, in a black suit and tie that seemed thoroughly unsuited for the grueling work of scaling the nondescript cliff wall. Hidden under the folds of said suit were several firearms, whose names he could list with ease, along with a deadly knife. These weapons had earned him the title of "Bogeyman."

But his real name was John Wick. From New York.

The other man, who was the better climber of the two, and was now waiting somewhat impatiently for his companion to reach his own height, is difficult to describe in appearance. Slung across his back was a long steel katana, while placed onto his thigh was a silencer-equipped pistol. A black scarf and bandanna covered the lower and upper halves of his face, white bandages lined the back, and a pair of blood red sunglasses covered his eyes. Beneath all of this, however, he had a face as bland and featureless as a sand dune in a desert. People said he was mad, very mad, in that he was both not always sane and not always calm. They may have been right.

But his name was Hank J. Wimbleton. From Nevada.

Wick was not used to this much climbing, but his legendary stamina and determination held him up as he shined a flashlight in one hand up the cliff and held onto his suction cup with another.

"How much… longer… till we reach the warp pipe?" he asked in between hard breaths.

Hank looked down on his climbing companion with an unreadable expression, his own flashlight gripped in his free hand as well. Even without the concealing gear, his blank face would have been indecipherable.

"Soon." he replied flatly. Controlled breathing on his part from his greater experience in this one area allowed him to speak normally.

However, neither Hank nor John would underestimate for a moment each other's skill sets, which they both humbly assumed to be about equal. And both men were difficult to impress in the area of tactical finesse.

As John Wink blinked in the light of his flashlight, he found out that "Soon" meant "Sooner than he expected."

Their lights were illuminating a large structure of rusting, green-painted metal directly above them. Cautiously, they dragged their flashlights across its surface, finding it to be the circular, holed object that the directions inscribed on the stones had led them to.

"Going up, John?" It was Hank that spoke, startling John. A joke from Hank was a rarity, something which John found odd given the sheer absurdity of his life.

Smiling wearily, he replied, "Nah. Just following the guy above me."

As they climbed upwards into the pipe, John felt a prickling sensation all over his skin. Goosebumps dotted his flesh, and he experienced what he thought to be a mix of static electricity and chills.

And before he could even blink, as they entered the impossible blackness of the hole…

—-

The toilet that Mario had begun to observe began to rumble inexplicably. Stepping back, he tried to find the source of the shaking, his plumber training leading him to check the sides for spills, leaks, jutting out pipes-

With a momentous crash, the toilet popped off the floorboards, and the floorboards themselves popped out of the ground.

Leaping out of the way, the startled plumber inadvertently made way for the heaving, panting forms of two full-grown men as they burst out of the pipes below.

One of them, dressed in strangely formal attire, immediately looked up at him and asked, in a voice laced with heavy breathing, "Where…are… Odin… and… Bacchus?"