801341. Dating

Alright, so, remember how Hector started getting all buddy-buddy with that Iris chick a couple years ago (well, okay, a lot of years ago)? I... alright, I screwed up. I turned a blind eye to their friendship, thinking that if I ignored it long enough, it would inevitably go away. But I was wrong. So wrong, and now I'm paying for it.

Yesterday, Hector approached me with all the formality and jittery nervousness of a prison guard who fell asleep and let all the serial murderers escape. At first I thought he was gonna tell me he broke the toaster, but it turned out to be much worse. And that's not something I say lightly.

Hector, my clone, literally bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, asked me if he could go on a date. With Iris.

I actually didn't believe him the first time he asked, so he had to repeat himself. And I didn't believe him that time, either, so he ultimately ended up asking me thirty-two times before it finally hit me. And when it did, it hit hard, like a sucker-punch to the gut. I think I was actually out of breath.

Unfortunately, I was so enraged that it took me almost an hour to find the words to express it, by which time Hector had apparently had the good sense to sneak away and just take my silence as a "yes." Once I realized he was gone, I exploded. There was no way in HELL that any clone of mine was going to hook up with Merag's lookalike! I told myself that I would ruin their date or die trying and flew out of my room like it was on fire.

Luckily, I already had a few ideas about where to look... Hector's smart enough to avoid going on a date on my turf, so he'd probably pick somewhere he knows I don't like to go. Number one on that list would be the ice sculpture garden in the middle of Merag's territory, so I decided to start there.

But when I got there, instead of Hector, I found Nasch. And he was pissed. As soon as he caught sight of me, he stomped over and pushed me up against a giant ice sculpture that looked kind of like a cow. "WHERE ARE THEY?!" he frothed, a look of wild rage in his eyes. "Don't play dumb, I know you're behind this!"

Well, believe me, I would have liked to have been, but unfortunately, I wasn't. I told him I didn't know what he was talking about, but he just slammed me up against the ice again, causing a few large cracks this time, and yelled, "Don't give me that bullsh*t! I know you sent that clone of yours to seduce Iris!"

It took a moment or two for his words to sink in, but once they did, it was really hard to keep from laughing. I guess Nasch can be just as overprotective of Iris as he is of Merag. The fact that he totally had the wrong idea about Hector made it even funnier.

I must have looked like I was suppressing a laugh, because Nasch snapped and tried to punch a hole in my face. Thankfully, I was able to dodge in time, but the ice sculpture wasn't so lucky. The whole thing shattered with a beautiful crash, and, seizing my chance, I leapt at Nasch and tackled him to the ground.

The two of us rolled around through the sculpture garden, kicking and clawing and smashing each other into things for what seemed like only seconds but was probably more like twenty minutes, until suddenly we were both slammed flat against the ground by a huge slab of ice. I felt a blast of cold that sent a chill down my spine, and struggled to raise my head, only to find myself staring up at a very angry Merag. "Both of you," she said slowly, in a frigid tone, "need to chill the f*** out." It was the first time I've ever heard her say that word, so I knew we were in trouble.

So, yeah. In order to appease the furious Ice Queen, Nasch and I had to apologize nicely to each other and even... dare I say it... share a hug. By the time I finally managed to get away, the day was almost over, and Hector had already returned home from his date, which he says went splendidly. They've even planned a second one for sometime in the near future.

Well isn't that just fan-tucking-fastic.

Oh yeah, Nasch is definitely getting a point for this.

801342. Babysitting

So, it turns out the world might be ending after all. And no, I'm not joking.

Merag had yet another vision a few days ago, and then suddenly this crazy planet-wide earthquake came up out of nowhere and really shook things up.

Ha ha. Get it? "Shook things up?"... No? Aw, screw you.

Anyway, everybody was kinda freaked out by that, so Nasch, Merag, Durbe, and Mizael decided to go out and start assessing the damage. That left me alone in the palace with Girag and Alito.

I may have mentioned this before, but Alito has the attention span of a goldfish and is very easily bored. Over the years, he's gotten better at bothering people into doing stuff with him, but I usually just deflect him to someone else. However, today there was no one else available for him to annoy, so I ended up getting stuck basically babysitting him all day until the others came back. And it was not fun. At all.

The first thing on Alito's mind is always either boxing or dueling, and because he has little imagination, he thinks about nothing else until he has engaged in one of those two things. However, for some strange reason, Girag didn't really feel like boxing with him for the five billionth time, so he made me do it instead. And honestly, I don't really have enough arm strength to indulge that rabid nutcase for more than twenty minutes. I'm really more of a taekwondo person myself, anyway.

So I ended up lying on the floor in a puddle of worn-out muscles while Alito bounced off the walls, going totally nut-balls and breaking things. And of course, when Nasch and the others got back, good old tentacle-head immediately blamed me. I realize that whatever dire stuff they found out there probably put him in a bad mood, but come on. It's not very often that the palace is a mess and I'm actually innocent. Would it kill him to believe me just this once?!

801343. Mysterious (Annoying) Stranger

Anyway, when Nasch and the others did come back from their investigating, they were dragging a big brown sack with them. And it was moving and making noises.

Now, usually this is the kind of weird sh*t that I'd be doing, so I was a little miffed and more than curious as to what was in the bag and why they'd kidnapped some kind of large animal in the first place. Merag got all huffy and started saying that she didn't want anything to do with this "barbarism;" apparently she felt sorry for whatever they had in there, but not sorry enough to set the poor thing free. Durbe placed a comforting hand on her shoulder (that jacka**!), told her that it was a necessary evil, and said that interrogating "him" could help save the world and all that jazz.

As soon as I realized that whatever was in the bag was sentient enough to warrant a personal pronoun from Durbe, I got really, really excited. They were talking about interrogating, after all, so I saw it as a chance to do some state-approved torturing. Unfortunately, Nasch wouldn't let me take the bag back to my room, so I had to watch him open it with the rest of them.

Out tumbled a human man, an adult by the look of him, and pretty big, too. The guy looked like your typical rugged mountain man, and he was kinda scratched up. He must've tried to put up a fight, though obviously no human could ever stand a chance in a mano-y-Bariano fistfight. Still, I had to give him credit for trying.

Of course, it was pretty surprising that a human would be wandering around Barian world at all. I mean, as far as I know, those guys don't have the ability to teleport between dimensions. And no matter how low my opinion of Nasch, I couldn't imagine him or any of the others just popping over to Earth and kidnapping a random mountain man for the lulz.

When I asked about it, Durbe explained that they found the guy near the epicenter of the earthquake; apparently, he'd fallen through some kind of inter-dimensional portal. Merag thought it might be connected to all her creepy apocalyptic visions, but when they tried to talk to him, Mizael and Nasch got a little… impatient. Essentially, they spooked the guy, so he tried to run away and they had to shove him in a sack.

Honestly, I was intrigued. Not because this guy might help us "save the world" or whatever, but because I'd never gotten to rough up a human before. I wanted to question him so badly, and the others must have finally remembered how good I am at squeezing people for info, so they reluctantly handed Mr. Mountain Man over to me, provided Merag kept an eye on me to make sure I didn't go too far. Obviously that took a little wind out of my sails, but I was still pretty excited, so I dragged him down to the basement and pulled out my toolbox.

For whatever reason, the guy didn't seem quite as excited as I was. I had to strap him to a folding chair just to keep him from knocking my lights out - he seemed to like throwing punches. I told him to calm down and introduced myself, adding in a little "jyan jyan jyaaan ~" for emphasis. By that point, he'd settled down a little, so he eyed me warily, like a dingo caught in a trap. I asked him his name, and he said something Japanese. I didn't quite catch it at first, so I had him repeat it a couple more times until he started to get annoyed.

Turns out the guy's name is Kazuma Tsukumo. When I asked him what he did for a living, all he could tell me was that he liked "adventure," so I just kinda assumed he's homeless and bumming it. He explained to me that he fell through some kind of dimensional portal at the world's end (which is stupid, since Earth is spherical and doesn't have an end), and that he wanted to get back home and see his family. That wasn't much more than what the others had already found out, so I decided to press him a little more, this time using a little friend of mine I like to call Hitler, the mutated goldfish (courtesy of the Sea of Ill Intent).

In what I can only describe as a happy coincidence, the poison from the fangs of a mutated goldfish turns out to have the effect of making humans talk. Unfortunately, it turns out that Kazuka didn't have anything meaningful to say after all. He just blabbered on and on and on about the most idiotic things, like adventure, his kids, his smokin' hot wife, adventure, archaeology, dueling, adventure, rock-climbing, adventure, and "feeling the flow!" It was so annoying that Merag, who'd been watching quietly up until that point, told me to make it stop, that I was hurting him or something. I told her no, she had it backwards, but the guy just never shut up! After twenty minutes or so, he got to the point where he was just repeating "feeling the flow" over and over and over, so I lost it and hit him over the head with a nearby lamp.

Needless to say, Merag didn't really approve of that, so she called in Nasch and I got a scolding. We weren't sure what to do with the useless Kazoo, though, so we ended up throwing him down a random dimensional portal and hoping that it would take him back to Earth.

So while I'm glad to have that jabber-jay out of my hair, I don't think it's fair that I got yelled at for doing what needed to be done and knocking him out. I mean, come on. I could've done a lot worse. Believe me… I could've done A LOT worse.

801344. Another Boring Meeting

Well, after that whole mess with Kenny or whatever that human's name was, Alito rushed in yelling about Durbe and Mizael calling an emergency meeting. So of course we had to go meet up with everyone in the conference room, and since Nasch was standing two feet away from me, there was no way I could slip away unseen. I've already gone into great detail about how much I hate these stupid meetings, so I won't repeat it here.

However, when we actually got to the conference room, I was in for a bit of a surprise. Durbe and Mizael had apparently rescued another human dude after I left to interrogate Kazuma, so they had him in a chair and were trying to keep him conscious. This guy was in pretty bad shape; he was bleeding everywhere, and the whole left side of his face was torn off.

Now, I would've maybe asked him who he was and what he was doing here before rushing into anything, but the others continue to be unbelievably stupid, so they started working on fixing him up. The task turned out to be harder than they thought, so they ended up having to scale him back a bit, by which I mean turn him into a little kid. Don't ask me how Barian medicine works, because I don't know, and I don't really care to find out, either.

Anyway, they couldn't quite fix his face, so now it kinda looks like a black hole or something swirling around over there. If I were him, I'd be pissed. I mean, there's no way he'll be able to pick up any chicks with that ugly mug. And apparently his friend Kaz's wife is pretty hot, so it really is a shame.

While the guy healed, the others all went out to pick up various medicinal supplies and try to figure out a way to get him back to where he belonged, leaving me alone with him. They really ought to know better by now.

To be honest, despite my bad experience with our last human visitor, I was still a little curious as to what the heck had happened to this guy. Mostly I wanted to see what could've torn half his face off, because that seems like it would be pretty useful knowledge to have. So I woke him up as nicely as I could manage and asked him his story. Turns out, some other human basically pushed him and Kazuma into a dimensional rift, which would explain where his face went. He told me his name was Byron Arclight, and he seemed pretty bent on revenge, so I figured this could work out in my favor. First I told him that if he was gonna return to Earth as an avenging space-Maximus, he needed a cooler name than "Byron," so we mixed up random Scrabble letters until we ended up with "Vetrix," for a total of sixteen points. Then I offered to give him wicked-cool Barian powers… for a small fee, of course.

Now, there's not really much that I'd want from a human; their whole world is pretty crappy. However, we found out recently that some pretty powerful Duel Monsters cards got scattered there; according to Merag, these "Numbers" could help save the world or whatever. I honestly don't care if the world gets saved or not, but I really wish everybody would get off my back about it, so the sooner we gather those babies up, the better. Unfortunately, we can't really interact with the human world in our true forms, so it'd be a pain in the butt for us to go look around for them. So I told Vetrix that I'd give him some sweet-a** Barian crest thingies if he went there and got a bunch of them for me. Might as well, right?

He was so excited that he went and rushed off before the others could even get back, which unfortunately prevented them from finding out about how productive I'd just been. So of course Nasch yelled at me for losing our "guest." Honestly, every time I actually get some work done, no one is ever there to see it. And Nasch wonders why I'm not particularly motivated.

Oh, well. I didn't severely mess anything up this time, so I guess that's a good thing.

801345. I Severely Messed Something Up

Turns out, the interdimensional hole we dumped Kazuma down actually led to Astral World. So, we essentially delivered a prisoner into the hands of our mortal enemies. Now he has the potential to really screw things up for us.

Nasch chewed me out in a major way. I mean, he didn't stop me from throwing Kazzy down that hole, but whatever. I've come to expect this sort of thing from him, anyway.

I just hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the butt.

Author's Note: And this chapter is finally finished! Woo-hoo! *falls over and dies*

For some reason, things this time were really disjointed, so I had a hard time writing this chapter. (That's why it took so long). There were also a lot of suggestions that I couldn't fit in, so sorry about that. Still, I did have fun including Kazzy and Byron, though obviously we have now strayed into "glaring inconsistencies" territory. This is essentially a crackfic, though, so hopefully nobody cares… eh heh…

Big thank you to Zero228 for 801341, Durbe the Barian for 801342, and DarkAssassin21 for 801343. As always, give me your suggestions! I couldn't write this fic without you guys! (Also, we're kinda nearing the end, so get 'em in while you can!)