The obstacles ahead for both sides of the coin are filled with peril. The time is a hand. The Water Tower is close. Let us take part.

Chapter 23: Madness Takes Us

Toon minions were blown back as the large pompous dark clouds of dust sprung up from the bottom of the ship. The slew of wind that rushed by slammed debris and the majority of the patrons against the walls of the vessel. The looks of confusion that sprung from the onlookers didn't last long before they were rushed and swiftly dealt with by way of forceful vigor.

As the surprise attack below the ship and across the interior went on, at the front of the ship the alarm was blaring. The front window was wide and expanded across the control center as the masked man sat at his chair. He could even hear the screams of his men as they tried to fight off the invaders. He didn't care much really. The entire point behind this ship's creation was to combat any military force that might still be an active threat when they invaded Burbank.

This thing could crash and burn right now and he wouldn't care. These military fodders weren't doing so hot. Whoever invaded the ship just now had to have been someone extremely special.

Whatever.

He stood up from his chair and looked outside the window.

The entire city was on fire.

There were plumes of smoke, fallen buildings, red and orange auras flowing, breathing, and mixing with the essence of the crimson sky above. The vessel was down there and all of it leading up towards the Water Tower at the center.

"It's beautiful. Isn't it guys?" He smiled under his mask and picked up the picture at his side, his arm resting behind his back in a collective manner before he took the picture out of the frame and folded it up. With a deep breath he stuffed it into his pocket and grabbed a pistol from the top of the control panel. With one swift motion he pointed it at the window and fired off several rounds through the glass. Each shot rang out like a violent scream before he made one rough punch at the weak window pane and watched it completely fall apart. The air from the outside rushed in and blew into his face, smacking him with intense heat.

He was sure there was enough bloodshed outside that the wind might have just smacked some of it into his face without him noticing.

"SIR! There's intruders headed right for the inventor's dec-! SIR?!" One random minion came in and screamed toward his boss as he disappeared over the edge, drifting fast towards the city below.

"I think it's finally time I stepped in. It's been a long time since I've let myself have any fun."

"Where is the idiot who's running this ship?!" Slappy demanded, holding one of the minion's up by his collar.

The kid she was holding up passed out after about four seconds when she started yelling at him. She wasn't used to not being so rough. It's not like the situation didn't call for it of course.

She turned swiftly and grabbed another one of them. "Alright. Hopefully, you're slightly less of a wimp. Tell me!"

"E-Erm…" The toon dog trembled and pointed down the long corridor. The hallway stretched downward and steam seemed to radiate from it.

Slappy lifted her eyes in wonderment. This just kept getting stranger.

"Hmm. It seems there are some really heavy duty industrial complexities down that way. This smell of burning steel and melted iron. Oh I know it all too well." Brain said as he made tiny steps towards the area in question with Pinky walking by his side.

"So the plan is that we reach the boiler room place where the power of the ship springs from and destroy it so that this evil metal whale stops blubbering?" Pinky tried to give his own spin on the plan.

Brain shook his head but remained firm. "Yes. More or less I suppose. The point is to get this ship to stop moving and land it if we can. It's destroying all outside opposition which means no help is successfully getting close enough to destroy it. The range of insanity radiating from that Water Tower is what's causing the people of the city to go crazy. It won't be long before the rest of us succumb to it. Taking this ship down before that happens is essential."

Pinky put his finger to his lips. "Hmm… yeah, I suppose a bunch of crazy people being in control of a ship like this would be a pretty bad thing. Just think of all the fireworks we'd make!" Pinky spread his arms out to help emphasis how massive a show he was anticipating.

Soon, they were joined by much louder footsteps from behind as Slappy joined them on their trek down the hall.

"Yeah well, let's just say I can't really say I'm all that anxious to see the world get turned into Swiss cheese. Where is the science doofus whose been making all this guy's mechanical crud?" Slappy marched faster and faster down the corridor. The glow of the hallway grew even more red and steamy until the three of them were sweating profusely. They reached the entrance to the room below and etched on it was a sign that said 'Boiler/Invention Room. There's loads of evil behind this door so proceed with Caution'.

"Cute." Slappy mused before grabbing the handle. She immediately jerked it back when she felt the heat pierce her skin. "Hmph…"

With a quick gesture, she took off her hat and used it to cushion her hand as she went for the handle again. This time she easily managed to push the door open. When it happened, the three of them looked in and saw the extremely bright orange and smoke filled area up ahead and heard the ominous humming bouncing off all the metal in the room. All the machines were radiated and giving off a red afterglow. The steps they walked down were making the bottom of their feet sweat and when they reached the bottom they managed to get a better view of the central operations of the ship.

In the center was the controller. It was a large boiler looking machine that was being operated in a unique way. The machine didn't work through glowing neon lights, weird looking buttons, and levers that sprung from all over with no rhyme and reason.

There was exactly one lever at the side that was poised like a slot machine. The front was designed exactly like an organ. The person sitting at the organ operated the ship and all its devices by pressed on the keys. Right now he was humming to himself rather loudly. The three intruders began approaching the figure sitting at the organ with looks of determination etched on their faces.

"The building falls. Destruction calls. You forge ahead and then you cry. A world of flame. An endless game. The time at hand is mine to die." He slammed his hands on the keys and swooned as the sounds of explosions rang out across the city.

"You say you want to die? That's the easiest thing to do in the world ironically enough." Slappy said, with her arms crossed behind the man.

The person at the organ began to laugh rather hard. He coughed as he took in too much of the hot air. "Sitting here… it's not the best idea for someone who relishes in the idea of keeping their lungs healthy." He began laughing rather hard before coughing and hacking onto the keys of his organ.

"No. No I would suppose not." Pinky said with earnest. "Um… do you mind if we try and get by you so we can shut this thingy down?"

"Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. May. Bees. Bees. Lots of Bees in the month of May. May is in spring yes?" The man stood up rather quickly and let the chair he was in topple over and smash against the ground. "I wonder what spring looks like during the apocalypse…"

"Enough gab. Let us at that device or your goose is cooked… more then it seems to already be." Slappy threatened.

"Why exactly would you construct it like this?" Brain interrupted, truly baffled. "This ship, judging by the power flowing through this room, is running on some seriously dangerous raw energy. Long exposure to this much intense heat and radioactive vibrancy could lead to-"

"Keh-ha! I had this magnificent idea. I wanted to go out in a way that was artsy. The world is ending. The other toons feel that their revenge is enough. Truly it may be enough. Whether we live or die, it doesn't matter. You should know this. Anyone whose joined the side of the master has relinquished their feelings and attachments to life for the sake of the mission. We all knew that when the boss succeeded, everyone would lose their marbles and their brains would shatter as madness took hold. Smash. Smash."

He grinned brightly and turned to face the three of them. "It's the same for me. I made the control center for the ship the same area as the place where the raw power that flows throughout my beautiful creation takes hold. I breathe it in everyday and I allow it to flow through the pores of my body. It feels fantastic. I don't feel the heat and I never get exhausted. I live and breathe science. My science; the energy of my machines becomes a part of my internal system."

Slappy sighs and looks straight at him. "This never ceases to surprise me you know. Dying in the afterglow of your science eh? If there ever were a way to go out, I suppose it would have to be among the stuff you liked doing when you were alive."

The man's wide grin stretched across his face and he shoved his ugly mug towards Slappy. "Well, well. Now don't you seem to be rather… experienced."

"Old. You can say it. I say it enough myself."

"Fantastic." He said back licking his lips. "It truly is a wonder. What defines us, the motives we have, the way we choose to life out our lives. Its lead these poor lost souls to our dear grand master. Longing to no longer have a longing; dreaming to no longer have a dream. We abandon our sense of self and claim to no longer care whether we live or die for the sake of a mission that requires us to die. People do what they do in life for the sake of living. Is doing what we do for the sake of dying any different? If you were to ask me, I'd say its hypocritical. You can't actively work down a path towards death without a motive that strings you along, just the same as when you follow a goal with the intention of living. It doesn't work!"

The two mice began to make their way around the mad man but he quickly sprung two ray guns from his pockets and pointed them at the mice, freezing them in their tracks with beads of sweat at the sides of their heads.

The man splayed out his arms. "We can't abandon our sense of humanity. Or toon-anity. Hagha-HA! Heheheh. It's no use. No matter what! But we try! Oh do we ever try!"

"If you know all that stuff then why are you helping them?" Pinky asked. An inquiry like this came natural to anyone. Even someone like him was rightfully confused by this man's actions.

"For this reason and this reason alone! The fact that as the world is right now, we can't defy our morality. We always live for the sake of a purpose. Even the pursuit of death is a purpose. I want to see a world that erupts from total madness. When we DO reach this new world there will no longer be any reason! There will be no morality, no reason, no goals, no hypocrisy… ONLY MADNESS!"

Slappy narrowed her eyes. Now she knew who this person was. She was having trouble placing it for a bit but this certainly explained how the cloaked figure managed to find a scientist to build him all this stuff.

The man began to laugh even harder as his pupils shrunk and drool etched the sides of his mouth. "Oh what a glorious world this will be when madness takes us…"

"That's not happening. And it's going to take more than a skinny mad man with two double barrel ray guns to stop me from stopping this."

"Oh?" The man gleamed down at Slappy. The two mice beside him flinched.

"Brain… this guy… he's bonkers. And apparently a scientist at the same time. What irony." Pinky mused.

"Not a scientist Pinky. Technically the correct term is doctor."

"Not the kind that help with boo boos and ouchies right?" Pinky groaned.

"Right…."

The two of them heard the energy of the guns the man held charge up as Slappy stared him down.

"The Mad Doctor…"

"Where did that crazy dog go? Damn." Rita ran around another corner, mentally scolding herself for loosing Runt. They were going about and rescuing as many of the civilians as they could. The Goodfeathers took to the skies and pointed the ones in danger out from the air so that they could get to them in time before something horrible happened to them. Of course, some of them were already mentally gone so that they had to restrain a lot of them. It really wasn't easy and it was incredibly hectic too. It may not have been so out there to think that she might have lost Runt. Yet, she was still upset that it happened.

Thank goodness she spotted him around that corner. Her eyes widened in shock when she took notice of the figure he was sitting in front of.

Rita's run slowed to a walk and eventually she stopped to stand next to Runt with her look straight-laced and calm, despite her fluttering heart.

"Hello Yakko."

The crazed Warner brother was indeed right in front of them both. It was quite the intoxicating aura he had now.

Yakko leaned on a new axe he picked out from a collapsed fire truck. It was just as drenched in crimson red as his previous one though. Quite a number of creatively vulgar thoughts swirled through his head as he grinned at the cat and dog. "Boy, you guys wouldn't believe how many people I found and killed on the way here. It was real fun but I had to try and restrain myself. I want there to be as many people as possible around to experience this world wide killing spree of fun."

"Yakko…" Rita began.

"Come ooooonnnn! It doesn't sound cool to you guys? No laws, or rules, or school, or money troubles, or any of that nonsense. Just have everyone; every man, woman, child, animal, and toon going around and killing each other for the sport of it all. The world's a big place! It'll take at least a couple of months until everyone's dead and the world is just completely empty. Just a huge red-skied vacant wasteland with bodies laying all about-"

"Yakko-"

"Their corpses stiff with huge Joker smiles frozen on their faces-!"

"Yakko-!"

"Relishing in the fact that they died doing what they loved-!"

"Shut up!" Rita shouted at him. It got silent for a split second as Yakko surprisingly did what she instructed, if only to carry forth a mild interest in what it is she was about to say. Probably another long winded lecture about what he was doing was wrong and how horrible he was now.

What he actually got surprised him.

"We're going to save you." Was all Rita said.

That was it.

Yakko peered at her, stunned.

What was that?

"H-Hello? Is that all you have to say?" Yakko's pupils fidgeted a tiny bit. He suddenly looked a little unsettled.

"Yes. That's all I have to say. That's all that needs to be said." Rita continued before tensing up, preparing for what was next.

Yakko was dumbfounded. Fear is what he craved. Fear.

He needed more of it. He knew they were scared. It was obvious that they were. So why were they still going on about that bunk? Who cares about the murderer's well-being? The only sense of life he gets now is when he fucking kills you!

He was going to prove it once and for all! This was the end all be all and there was no turning back!

"You want to save me? Fine. You guys apparently think miracles can just come and go so let's test that theory and see if you survive this!" Yakko raised his axe and charged at the two of them! Rita and Runt jolted and doubled back. They knew this was coming. The confrontation with the insane Warner was what they had anticipated. Even so, their nerves still weren't prepared for the fear their bodies and minds invoked when he swung his axe down at their hides.

It seemed so foolish and yet they couldn't help it. That was still Yakko. Their friend…

CLANG!

Yakko stared ahead, blinked once, smiled and pulled his axe back. He had been stopped.

His strength had made him abnormally strong but he was still stopped. It wasn't anyone special who did it.

Just a random, angry faced guy in a S.W.A.T army suit, holding out an iron pipe to protect the cat and dog behind him. In fact there was another once beside him. Another came out of the woodwork too.

Oh my. It would seem he was being surrounded.

"I toldja to run an' hide!" Runt spoke. It sounded like he was scolding those officers.

"We let you try and talk him down and it didn't look like it was going anywhere good." The officer said pushing Yakko back a bit with his pipe. Yakko kept the grin on his face. Fresh blood made his veins twitch with anticipation.

"We're grateful to you all for saving us but this one kid… seems a bit too far gone…" The other officer said.

"You don't really believe that toons as a collective want all this for the world do you?" Rita asked. "Yakko was one of the nicest of us all and look where he is now. Please, don't do anything too rash."

Yakko twirled his axe and turned toward his destination. The Warner Brothers studio lot was just up ahead and the path in front of him were just a bunch of S.W.A.T members, trying to ruin his ride. This was all he could ask for.

"We can't make any promises." The man said reluctantly. He was starting to sweat. The infectious craziness of this place was starting to get to him along with everyone else. Yakko was WAY too close to the studio now. They were briefed on only what was important and that was that they couldn't let him reach the Water Tower. No matter what.

"Alright…" Yakko grinned and stretched his hands out, cracking his fingers. "Let's do this…!"

"GAH!" Wakko flew back and crashed into the side of a building. He managed to roll out of the way before Buster's next tentacle punctured his stomach!

The two of them had been going at it for so long now. Both of them were bleeding all over and extremely messy from head to toe but logic would dictate that Wakko was even more messed up due to the disadvantage he had concerning not having his mallet to defend against Buster's weird tentacles.

"It's no use you know. I'm not going to stop this. You can't dodge forever." Buster said with a straight forward air of mild concern for the amount of time he had left on his hands. Wakko forced a sweaty grin and grabbed a piece of broken glass from the ground.

"Yeah well… you can't fight forever…"

Buster's eyebrow twitched with obvious annoyance. The blue rabbit made several of his metal prongs spring out from his wrist-weapon. All of them were encased in just as deadly an attack element. One had lightning, another was baked in fire, the next were sprung up with sharp spikes, and the last was oozing something purple and hazy. Wakko figured it had to be some kind of mild mannered poison.

"How long do you think your feet can carry you?" Buster asked, sending them all out at once! He made them squiggle through the air and wrap all over as if to confuse Wakko about where they were going to strike him. Wakko back-flipped to the best of his ability; almost landing in a very rough uncomfortable position that could have broken his ankles, but he managed to keep himself together to avoid that.

With each attack, the street grew increasingly more uneven as pot holes and craters sprung up, shooting out lightning and fire and poison through the air. Wakko could only dodge. When he was too close to them to not manage a dodge, he used the piece of glass to block the attack and send it flying back a bit. The recoil was too strong though. Each hit he took twisted his arm harshly and only made his next attacks weaker.

Buster didn't have to do much but walk forward as he made Wakko dance. Eventually though, the inevitable happened.

Wakko tripped.

He fell back as he tripped over a fallen tire in the middle of the broken and burning street. His heart shot up to his throat in surprise when it happened with the spike covered tentacle thwacking him hard across the chest and all but drilling holes into his stomach as they knocked him clear across the way. He hadn't even recovered an inch of lost breath before the electricity tentacle slammed into his bleeding gut like a rocket and let off a burst of electricity that spend up his crash landing into the gravel ground.

Plumes of heated smoke rose up and wafted across the area. Wakko wasn't exactly in the best shape. To be honest, he was about a hair away from wondering how it was he was still alive but then he remembered.

"That's right. I'm a pretty rubbery toon." Wakko gawked out, scrambling onto his two feet yet again. He wasn't in a very comfortable upright position for long however. Not two seconds after saying that to himself a metal claw burst from the end point of Buster's arm wrist tentacle and clamped itself harshly around Wakko's neck. The intake of breath he was just about to make was suddenly choking him. That didn't feel good one bit.

Buster lifted Wakko from the ground and watched as he kicked his feet and clawed at the angrily clamped metal appendage that was currently stealing all of his fresh air.

The blue bunny looked at Wakko's face. He saw his teeth grit. He saw the sweat pour down his face. He saw how much tatters were in his shirt and his signature cap. He even took notice of the blood pouring down Wakko's leg and down the underside of his cap.

With a large sigh he shot a spark of electricity through his metal claw and began to witness that battered body he just observed gain a new injury from painful, searing electric shocks that coursed through his system and almost dried up his blood and sweat at the same time.

Wakko grinded his teeth and bit his shirt, in an attempt to not accidentally bite his tongue off from the intense jittering of his jaw and teeth. His grip on the metal claw was even tighter now.

Eventually, the electric flow stopped and Buster let Wakko's limp body hang in suspension above the ground. He didn't look anywhere but his face now. It truly wasn't the physical presence he was interested in. He wondered what was going through the mind of a person with a body in that bad a shape but with a brain as whacky, unpredictable, and as hopeless as his.

"Do you have any more friendship baloney to spew out at me?" Buster tilted his head a bit to the side, awaiting Wakko's answer should he be ever so inclined to provide one.

Wakko gurgled and foamed a bit at the mouth. Buster's claw was dripping with his saliva now. Now that was a funny visual. Too bad he still wasn't much for laughing.

Buster sighed when he didn't get an answer. He didn't know why he had decided to wait even. What could he possibly still want to hear from Wakko? Maybe he was interested in more defiance. Maybe seeing him still try to struggle for a ray of sunshine would be enough to finally get him to laugh again.

Buster sent out more of his tentacles, making the tips of them unfold into two more claws. One was charging a slew of fire. The other was charging a slew of electricity.

"I'm going to show you just how the old world works Wakko. The choices we get to make are governed by those of other people. Everything, from what we wear, to where we life, to whether or not we choose to live with it or die. Our way of life and death will be all our own when the madness takes us. There are actually idiots out there who think they can create a perfect world, whether by forcing it through some evil plan or destroying it or whatever. It's really stupid when you think about it. Why can't we just live without thinking about either of those things huh?" Buster asked, as if truly expecting an answer.

Wakko's eyes were closed. He simply dangled in Buster's grasp, twitching a bit from the pain.

"It sounds great right? Just being your goofy, whacky self and getting to do whatever without any wheel of morality or code of conduct bogging you down right? Now when that crazy sitter comes over, not only can you whack her something fierce and not feel a thing but she won't care either because she'll be just as crazy and insane. Everybody wins. It sounds like a lot of fun right?" Buster asked again, prying a bit deeper to see if Wakko would at least grunt.

Wakko did. He coughed a little too, clearing a little of the foam around his mouth away and forced his mouth to stay closed. His eyes cracked open and he saw the electric and fire claws opened with charged attacks about to take hold. He also noticed the energy lining them up, going straight to his wrist weapon.

It seems everything Buster did was literally connected to that wrist weapon...

... Of course…!

"I tried to kill you before but I'm feeling generous. I don't really care one way or another how this all ends for me but I took on this new task to see the follow through for this. I want this to succeed so badly. You have no idea how many stories I looked into surrounding our injustice after Babs died." Buster growled.

Wakko finally spoke. "Th…That's too bad… y-you should never do something like that after the death of a loved one… seek comfort in your friends… cheer yourself-"

"Ah. There it is; more of that mushy gunk. It's obviously a little late for that though. When she died you didn't hear about it did you? Course you didn't. It didn't exactly make the news. When I found her body, I took it and we disappeared. No one cared and I had a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn't. I'm the one who had to bury her. I'm the one who had to look into where to go and what to do afterward. I finally found the answer so you'll excuse me if I don't take your nonsense at face value."

"What… what are you gonna do?" Wakko asked.

"I'm giving you a choice. Either live in the new world and see how far the madness will take you… or choose to die. If you choose death you'll get a different choice on how it comes to you; electricity or fire." Buster leaned in a bit closer.

Wakko looked toward the ground. He looked back at his tail and wrapped it around a pretty large piece of rubble.

"Funny how the bad guys never offer the option the good guy is going to choose." Wakko said with a grumble.

"They do. Sometimes… I just don't like entertaining the failure of a full realization of a good plan. Not anymore." Buster said, his eyes heavily focused on Wakko.

"Oh… really…? Too bad…" Wakko chuckled. "I'm sorry buddy. You've had to deal with crushing defeat for so long. I'd have loved to have helped you out of it but I can't it seems. I hate the idea and I hate saying it even more but… it's probably true that you're too far gone…"

Buster simply blinked, keeping his serious looking face.

"… What you're describing sounds fun… but you made this decision completely forgetting the most fun thing of all. The joy of laughter!" Wakko grinned.

"What? Don't be stupid. You'll do nothing but laugh and have fun when you're crazy in the head." Buster said back.

"Sorry but there's no real joy in that. You're just talking about laughter with no substance. The real purpose to laughter and making people happy is the satisfaction of seeing them lifted out of a funk. It's like the joy of knowing you made a positive influence on their lives so that they know that they can brave the coming storm. That's the reason why laughter is so precious. If there aren't any cares or problems or other emotions left in the world, laughter is now the norm and it's no longer anything special. Here that? The world you want is nothing special."

Buster's eyes widened in anger. That happened to upset him quite a bit.

Wakko shot his tail up and went right for Buster's head!

A large slam rung out.

Wakko winced. One of Buster's claws stopped Wakko's tail as it was about to toss the rock.

"Hmph. You think I'm stupid. I saw your tail going for that rock." Buster snarled. Wakko grimaced as the claw squeezed his tail rather hard. "And if that little speech of yours was the best you had then you've really let me down. But then again, I suppose I should be used to that!" Buster shouted, ready to fire the blast from the electric claw.

Wakko smiled at him. "I don't think your stupid… but your imagination sure isn't very impressive anymore…" The Warner grinned and used what strength was left in his tail to launch the rock over to the wide open claw and successfully plugged up the hole that was about to fire it's round of electricity. Buster sent off a blast just as soon as the rock met the entrance, causing it to rumble and burst outward from the inside!

Buster stared at it in shock, noticing his claw spew out electricity casually and then rather violently before it burst apart! The force of it traveled back to his wrist weapon and made it smoke and spark just as well. "GRAH! Y-You idiot!"

"Idiot? Seemed like a smart idea to me!" Wakko said, lifting his feet up and latching them to the sides of the claw that was still clutching him. He pushed hard and made hard grunts as he managed to pry the claw apart just enough for him to slip through and plop onto the ground.

Buster pressed a button on his wrist weapon that made the malfunctioned claw detach from it. Plugging it up just as it was about to fire made it so that the energy couldn't travel anywhere and a huge force was locked within the claw itself. He should have kept his tentacles unopened! Dammit all!

"Whatever you're mentally scolding yourself for, it's just an excuse!" Wakko shouted, now up in Buster's face with a fist to the cheek to match! Buster was caught off guard and slid back. "I would have gotten out of that jam with or without you screwing up. Remember that!" Wakko practically yelled.

Buster's eyes shrunk and he made the fire claw shoot out it's blast at Wakko from behind! Wakko dived and managed to tackle Buster to the ground with the fire blast making a connection and sending the both of them flying to the side and rolling about in a struggle imposed upon them.

Wakko managed to grab the weapon on Buster's arm, holding it tight and pressing the button he saw him press to detach them. He made one of them fall but there were still more to get loose.

"No… you ARE an idiot… I can still control them when they detach!" Buster shouted, struggling for dominance and managing to place his hand over the palm of Wakko's hand. He tried to struggle for dominance over the tiny buttons but finally hit one that reactivated the detached electric appendage. Buster made it return to the shape of a sharpened prong and set it to attack mode.

"Damn it! Just cut it out! I'm not giving up!" Wakko shouted and pulled at the wrist weapon. Buster snarled and watched the metal prong face Wakko's back.

"I won't either." Buster said as it launched itself at Wakko. The Warner had heard the sound of it reactivating behind him though. He knew it was coming but hadn't worked out a way to dodge it without...

It was about to pierce his back at break-neck speed. That was the interval of time for him to make his decision and he wished it could have been a bigger one. It's too late though.

With a heavy heart, Wakko let go of the wrist weapon and rolled to the side. He couldn't die!

And he wished Buster didn't have to kill himself to try and make sure that he did.

Wakko heard a sickening sound. It was the sound of something sharp and fast ripping through someone's flesh and spinning to a stop once it struck the ground on the other side of its imposed target.

Wakko turned to look back and saw it. He winced but forced himself to look at it through now hazy eyes.

Buster was on the ground with the metal prong pierced through his chest, scrapping violently at his heart. He hacked up a monumental amount of blood and looked back at Wakko.

The Warner crawled up to Buster and began dripping his forming trail of tears down onto the Bunny. Of course, the instant this had to happen, the rush of bad emotions and painful memories had to come flooding back.

It happened for both of them.

It yielded the same result.

They were both crying now.

A strong and thick air of silence wafted by between them with the only sound they could register being the quivering from Wakko. Buster's tears spilled in silence before finally speaking.

"… I can't seem to win… at all huh? Even after I got hit with this thing… I've broken my promise to myself not to ever cry over something that's happened to me ever again…" Buster's voice was in a whisper, his tears spilling out through his blurred eyes. He was holding this back for so long and yet he himself was oblivious to the fact that he had been.

Wakko's frown was the strongest, most fatalistic frown he had ever had in his life. Someone just died because of him. He thought that seeing his own brother kill people would have been enough but being responsible for the death of someone you once called a friend yourself was an entirely new feeling and one he really didn't need at this point.

There it was though. Staring him right in the face was his former friend, at death's door.

"… I knew the attack was coming but-" Wakko looked down, letting his tears hit Buster's bloody face. "-I hesitated to get out of the way. Even after everything you've done… I still want to forgive you."

Buster looked up at Wakko and kept the frown on his face. When he spoke, his words were shaky. "Maybe you can forgive me. Maybe even the world could forgive me. But even if I lived there would never come a time when I would forgive myself. Not for anything I did after Tiny Toons ended. And maybe even now… because of this I won't even get to see her when I die…"

Wakko rubbed his eyes as he blubbered over Buster's body.

"I hope I'm wrong… I at least… can I at least have that…?" Buster trailed. Anything would do. Just one little thing was all he wanted to go right for him. He knew he didn't deserve it but he couldn't help it. Trying to sacrifice all feeling was impossible. That wasn't ever more clear now that he was on the verge of dying. He coughed and hacked up more blood, feeling intense pain as the metal prong scrapped more of the blood out from his damaged heart.

Wakko grabbed his arm and held it tight. "Go on. I bet she's waiting for you. Just tell her you went crazy. She'll understand." He said, forcing a small chuckle. It didn't come out as a chuckle. More like a confused whimper.

Buster stared ahead into the sky. He still couldn't laugh. Not even a little bit. None of the memories of what he and Wakko used to do together off the set back when they paled around on the Warner Brothers lot were making him feel nostalgic. None of the memories of Babs back when they were working together on the set were making him feel content.

He couldn't feel any of those things because he wasn't the same person anymore. He wasn't Buster. His soul had left him a long time ago and now what was left was finally taking its leave as well.

Would dying help him regain the soul of whom he once was?

Why did he suddenly hope so? Why hope for anything anymore? Even in death there was still hope for what was to come? Even at the end, the idea of a new beginning was still fresh in his mind.

In that last moment, realizing this, Buster squeezed Wakko's hand. Wakko looked down at him, knowing it was a ploy to grab his attention.

Buster turned to Wakko and smiled.

It wasn't a laugh. He was still too far gone for something like that.

But maybe this was just good enough.

"I'm glad... at least you still had one of those left in you…" Wakko said.

"… It's only for this moment. I've never felt so relaxed in such a long time… " Buster gurgled, choking a bit on the build up of blood in his throat. He was still relaxed despite that. The metal weapon that was lodged through his body hurt like hell but he was still relaxed despite that. The street was really hot; burning even and yet his body was still relaxed despite that.

He was the most relaxed he had ever been in his life. It felt great.

"This... it's… really… … nice…"

Buster let his voice drown out. His hand went limp in Wakko's and the middle Warner laid it down once he realized it was drained of life. Wakko squealed out a helpless cry of anguish and punched both his fists into the gravel. Overlooking the body, he saw the smile on his face and couldn't help but notice how tiny and simple it was.

This whole time, Buster had wanted to die and he didn't even know it. Wakko had never heard of something like that. With a hard sigh and a quick wiping away of the tears on his face, he shut Buster's eyes and stood up, turning behind him to face the long road ahead.

"Yakko's just down this road… I've got to face him one last time." Wakko said, more determined than ever as he took off. This wasn't going to be the way the Warners ended their time in the sun.

One last time; the next meeting with Yakko will decide everything!