A/N: Surprise! Didn't expect yet another update here so soon, did you? Well, for once, credit for this chapter doesn't go to The Cowardly Christian, but to the awesome Zeroth17, who first offered this chapter's plot as a suggestion, only to then write up an entire rough draft and send it to me. So, while I had to do a bit of editing to fill in a lot of gaps, I still say Zeroth deserves 80% of the credit for the final product; if it feels different from my style at any point, that's probably why. Though speaking of different styles, I feel like I should put up a rare trigger warning — Zeroth's work can get pretty intense, and this is no different, so be aware going forward that this chapter does contain excessive violence, gore, and other potentially upsetting material.

Also, the main reason for me writing this, is that today is Zeroth's birthday and he asked for it. So, happy b-day, Zeroth!

That said, read on! And be sure to check out Zeroth's own work if you like what you see here.

Disclaimer: Perhaps one day, when the planets align and the Old Ones rise, I will own Invader Zim. But until then, all I own are the OCs (except Kastrofi, he's Zeroth's).

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

New Adventures: Mature Edition

Entry 6: Dancing with Madness

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

It was a cool fall's day in Doomsvile, and in the Membrane house, Gaz was currently doing her usual stuff, playing video games and stuffing her face with pizza from Bloaty's, with her feet kicked up to the table and her eyes directed at her Game Slave. How she's not fat by now given her hedonistic lifestyle is anyone's guess, but regardless, it was a typical day for her.

However, her silence was ruined when Dib and Viera came down the stairs from where they'd been in his bedroom to the living room, chatting as they came to the kitchen. Whatever they were talking about, Gaz didn't know, and she didn't care, just focusing on Level 3 of Vampire Piggy Hunter Deluxe Supreme.

"Dib, relax," Gaz caught a part of Viera and Dib's conversation, raising an eyebrow as she turned to the kitchen, seeing the two standing there with a weird-looking leather-bound book in Viera's hands, "I know not to mess with things like this. Besides, if it's as bad as you say it is, nobody in the Swollen Eyeball Network is gonna want to touch it."

"What about anyone else?" Dib asked incredulously, "Sure, I know Steve's not gonna mess with it, but what if someone at skool gets the wrong idea and reads it? They could summon some kind of Shadow Lord or something!"

"Okay, okay!" Viera put her hands up, "Then I'll put it in a safe at my place and I'll make sure that it never gets out! Cool?"

"No, but…" Dib sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "Look, we'll discuss this tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," Viera conceded, sliding a hand down her face in slight exasperation, before she placed the book back in her backpack. However, just as she was about to leave, she noticed Gaz looking at her with a mild glare for disrupting her quiet solitude, and gave a scowl in response, "What do you want, Gaz?"

"Nothing," Gaz scowled back, before going back to her game out of spite, "Just looking at something small and insignificant."

"Oh, like your chest size?" Viera sniped back, going for the one insult she knew would get under Gaz's skin like no other. In response, Gaz suddenly went silent, staring at Viera before pointing to her and making a slow cutting motion to her neck. Viera ignored her and walked off towards the front door, with Dib walking back upstairs, neither noticing as the book fell out of her bag as the faulty zipper gave way at her sudden movement and fell to the couch where Gaz was sitting, the cushion silencing any noise that Viera might have heard.

Gaining a curious look, the violet-haired goth girl paused her game and took the tome into her hands. It was a brown leather-bound book with golden markings that took the form of a massive octopoid with tentacles and emerald eyes. There was a lock on it that was easily undone with but the flick of her finger.

Feeling her curiosity get the better of her, and looking around to see that Dib and Viera were both indeed gone, Gaz put aside her Game Slave and opened the book. Suddenly, all the lights in the room flickered slightly before stabilizing, making her blink before her eyes then took in the pages.

They were old, crisp at the touch of her fingers as the dust brushed on her skin, her eyes taking in the dark black chicken-scratch that was underwhelming against the horrific images that befell her sight. Each page she turned was like a wall of text and murals of horror, flowing like water through the rough paper and the images undulating at her fingers. Letting her legs take her up the stairs and into her room as her conscious focus was completely on the book, Gaz took in each page with an interested expression on her face.

Suddenly, as she shut the door behind her, Gaz blinked as she saw the text slowly warp into English, becoming more tangible, as it seemed like it skimmed through her thoughts and shaped itself to the form that was most comfortable to her eyes, almost akin to being alive in an elder sense. However, one page that she turned to caught her attention completely. It showed a massive form covered in black rags and a head covered in a dark hood that concealed its face, sitting on a throne composed of petrified human bodies, wearing a jagged crown and having minions that resembled clusters of limbs crawling all over in a frenzy.

"Kastrofi, The King Dancing with the Mad," Gaz found herself reading aloud, "Born from the dark depths of the abyss, the Dark King ruled over the world through planting dark thoughts in the minds of mortals and tempting their darkest impulses with whispers of power and wealth, before being banished from this realm by the cosmic tides of stellar convergence, awaiting the time when he may return. Until then, he resides in a realm of endless decadence, which takes the form of an ever-expanding carnival. If one can summon the strength of will to temporarily conjure him, they can make a pact with the Dark King for power beyond their dreams."

Gaz scoffed, thinking that Viera had made this thing just so she could mess with her. But she couldn't get the thought out of her head, no matter how much she tried to think of something else, so she decided "what the hell", and that she might as well give it a try. The worst that would happen was nothing, and then she'd just smack Viera for it.

Tracing her finger to the part of the page that had a ritual on how to invoke Kastrofi's power, Gaz hummed as she opened a drawer filled with all kinds of drawing utensils and ink bottles, before grabbing a single one and popping it open, grabbing a paintbrush from the drawer and dabbing it into the ink. And with a breath, she brought the wet brush up to the wall of her bedroom and slowly drew a circle.

"Hear me, Kastrofi, King Dancing with the Mad," Gaz found herself saying breathlessly as her arm dabbed the brush back in the ink and began to draw a pyramid outside the circle and magatama-like symbols around the edges, "Hear me, He Born from the Dark. Hear me, the Wearer of the Silver Crown. Come to me and grant me the power I crave. Come to me and see my soul. Come to me and grant me power beyond what I could ever dream."

After she was finished, the symbol was that of a triangle with a flaming circle inside it, with magatamas at the corners and the edges lined with eldritch text. She waited for several seconds, before she sighed and closed the book in disappointment as nothing happened.

"Tsk, I knew it was bullshit," Gaz scoffed at the lack of results, but disappointed all the same.

Suddenly, the symbol started undulating, bleeding emerald liquid that trailed down the walls. Gaz instinctively stepped back, setting the book down on her desk. It continued to heave and release black mist into the air as it pulsed like a heartbeat, and bleed emerald gunk that boiled as it spread across the floor, stopping just before it could touch Gaz's feet. Eventually, light began to bleed from the lines of the symbol as it unfurled like a blooming flower, as the smell of old books and decaying flowers flooded Gaz's bedroom. A stream of black mist came through and began to slowly form into a familiar shape.

It was a tall hulking figure, draped in ragged black shawls that hid a thing of almost unnamable hideousness. The head was hidden in a hood that shaded its face in an impenetrable darkness, marred only by the numerous blood-colored eyes that glimmered faintly. A jagged crown of silver was wrenched on its head as if coiled like a noose, shining like a congregation of diamonds bathing in sunlight. The only vestige of a body visible were the thick pale tentacles on the floor, slick with a clear, oily fluid. Gaz shivered at its presence, feeling rushing airy presences slithering against her skin, hearing eerie cries of things beyond her sight.

"Who are you?" An airy melodic voice issued from whatever hid under that hood with the red eyes.

Gaz, shaking in her shoes in rare fear emanating from her base-most animal instincts, attempted to steel herself and answered, "My name is Gaz. Gazlene Membrane. And I summoned you."

"You summoned me? Why?" The King slithered towards her, brushing a pale gelid hand against her cheek, making her shiver at the cold touch of his flesh.

"I…" Gaz grit her teeth as she gave her answer, "I want power."

Kastrofi gave a hmph, before he grasped her arm and then drew a symbol on it in oily ink that immediately entered the skin, which resembled the head of an octopus with emerald eyes.

"I give you the power to shape yourself to any form," the airy voice of the King came to her, "In exchange, you give me your soul."

Gaz shivered again, not in cold but in pleasure as she growled, "Deal."

She swore she heard the King smirk, before she felt a rush in her blood, like she had just been injected with something that didn't pierce her skin. It was so potent that she could barely stand, falling to her knees just a few moments later.

A laugh from the King lasted a second before he said, "I expect I'll be seeing you again soon, my little morsel of a mortal."

Time seemed to pause for a moment that lasted a lifetime, and then resumed as she saw that the symbol was gone, and that everything was the same as it was before she used the book. Gaz groaned as she stood back up, noting that the tattoo was still there. And with but a thought, her fingers turned to claws and then back to normal fingers at another thought.

Gaz smirked. She knew what she would do next with this.

XXXXXXX

Gaz grinned as she stared at her reflection in the mirror that she stood nude before, doing poses and stances as she took in her new body. After spending a few hours testing her new shapeshifting powers until she was sure she had total control of them, Gaz proceeded to use them to give herself a body that most women would kill for. Finally, she was rid of the flat-chested stick figure that Viera had mocked her to her face about so many times, and which she knew so many others derided her for behind her back when they thought she wasn't listening.

Was it petty to use shapeshifting just to sate her insecurities about her figure? Yes. Was it worth it in her mind? Absolutely.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S GONE?!"

Gaz jumped when she heard that scream from the kitchen. Throwing on a bathrobe to hide her new figure for now, she left her room and walked over to the stairway, peeking down to where she could just see Dib frantically waving his arms around in front of a concerned-looking Viera.

"How could you lose an ancient book of dark magic bound in human flesh?!" Dib demanded, "It's not like misplacing your keys!"

"I don't know, I think my bag opened up on the way home and it dropped out somewhere!" Viera replied, "I came back here as soon as I got home and realized it was gone, but I didn't see it on the street anywhere. So, it's got to be here somewhere, it's not like it could just get up and walk away… right?"

"Honestly, considering everything I've heard about the Tome of the Abyss, I would not be surprised if it did sprout legs and run off," Dib muttered, dragging his hands down his face in frustration, "Okay, look, I'll search the house and my neighborhood, you head back to your place to check the area around your house, maybe get Steve to help out."

"Right, okay, with any luck we'll find the book before anyone else does and is actually stupid enough to use it," Viera said, while atop the stairs Gaz's eye twitched at the insult that Viera had just lobbed at her without even realizing it.

However, knowing that marching down there right now and busting heads, while fun, would be running the risk of exposing her new powers before she had a chance to have any fun with them, Gaz just huffed out an annoyed breath. Ignoring the sounds of Dib's and Viera's voices as they continued to plan how to search for the book that they were unaware was right upstairs, Gaz turned and walked back into her room, focus already returning to how to best capitalize on her powers, probably followed by a few rounds of Gore of War 2 and some more pizza.

Those happy thoughts filling her mind, Gaz walked into her room, a fleshy tendril idly emerging from her back to pull the door closed behind her.

XXXXXXX

The next day, Dib trudged into the Hi Skool, exhausted and sleep-deprived from having spent the whole night having turned his house and a lot of his neighborhood's sidewalks and yards inside out looking for the Tome anywhere that it might have fallen out of Viera's bag, all with no luck. The only place he hadn't checked had been Gaz's bedroom, since there was no way that Viera would have ever set foot in there, and Gaz would have no interest in his and Viera's paranormal studies, so there was no possibility that the book could have ended up in there.

Plus, Gaz would kill him for going in her room, he thought as he approached the twins at their lockers.

"Any luck?" he asked desperately.

"No, we looked all over, and there's no sign of the Tome anywhere," Viera said with an aggravated sigh, tugging a strand of hair in annoyance.

"On the plus side, there hasn't been any sort of apocalypse yet, so that probably means no one's found it yet, right?" Steve asked hopefully, feeling out of his depth but clinging to his limited magical understanding.

"We don't know that for sure, but since the city hasn't been overrun by hellspawn yet, let's assume so," Dib said, rubbing his tired eyes to ward off a headache. Seeing how concerned he was, and knowing that it was partially her fault, Viera decided to change the subject before he drove himself up the wall with worry.

"Speaking of hellspawn, where's Gaz? I'm surprised she's not rubbing our faces in this out of petty spite," she asked.

"She said to head here without her and that she'd come along on her own when she was done doing whatever she was doing," Dib explained with a shrug, "Not sure what exactly that is, but I didn't feel like getting any broken bones by asking."

"Tch, probably just squeezing in some more time for her gaming," Viera scoffed, "And she calls us obsessive with our interests."

"Well, whatever the case, let's just… hey, what's going on over there?" Steve asked, looking down the hall towards the building entrance, where a large crowd of students had gathered, all looking at something and talking loudly in tones of excitement and confusion. Dib and the twins shared a look and walked over to see what it was, only to stop dead in their tracks and stare in shock as the crowd parted to reveal what had caught everyone's attention.

Gaz practically strutted down the hall, for the first time in her life confidently flaunting her looks as she showed off the body she'd shapeshifted into, accentuated further by the clothes she'd spent the early morning hours modifying to actually show off her body instead of concealing it. A shirt that had been trimmed into a tank top strained against Double-D cup breasts, while jeans that had been cut into short shorts hugged a now wide and firm ass and long, slender legs, everything joined together by a narrow waist that gave her a definite hourglass shape.

Yep, she looked damn good now, and judging by the smirk she was sporting as she walked through the crowd of stunned onlookers, she knew it.

"What. In the actual. Fuck?" Viera asked flatly, staring at her rival in utter disbelief.

"G-Gaz?" Dib stuttered as his sister approached, "Wh- how- what happened to you?!"

"Guess I finally hit an overdue growth spurt," she replied with a shrug, smirk widening at the clear confusion that response garnered.

"Overnight?"

"Don't think too hard about it, that's not your strong suit," she replied dryly, ignoring any response Dib might have to instead shrug off her backpack and look towards the crowd that was still gawking at her, "Now which one of you hormonal muscle-heads wants to be useful for once in your lives and carry my bag for me?"

Virtually every guy in the crowd surged forward, piling over each other to get near Gaz, who merely tossed her bag to the closest one and continued walking down the hall. The crowd, meanwhile, devolved into a cartoonish dust cloud as they trailed after her, the backpack bouncing between them as they fought each other to be the one to carry it. This continued all the way down the hall until they disappeared around a corner, Team Save Earth watching them all the way and continuing to stare in confusion for a few minutes before turning back to each other.

"Seriously, what the hell did I just see?" Viera exclaimed, "I just saw Gaz yesterday and she was as flat as a board like usual, now all of a sudden she looks like something from the cover of a porno mag?"

"Just putting this out here, any chance she used one of those inventions you're always saying your dad leaves around the house?" Steve asked Dib, who rubbed his chin in thought.

"Maybe? He keeps a lot of weird stuff in storage, so I guess there could always be something that Gaz could use to do this to herself," he said after a moment, before shaking his head, "But you know what, I can't even deal with this right now, we have more important things to worry about than Gaz giving herself a makeover. Let's just get through the skool day so that we can focus on finding the Tome."

The twins made sounds of agreement and followed after Dib as he turned to make his way towards class, though Viera paused long enough to shoot a suspicious look in the direction Gaz had gone, before she headed after the others. Around the corner and down the connecting hallway, meanwhile, Gaz was snickering to herself as she recovered her bag from the pile of awestruck boys who had all knocked each other out trying to impress her.

"Heh, now I can see why all those brainless bimbos like flaunting themselves, this is fun," she said with a laugh, only for her mood to sour as a group of the popular girls came around a corner and frowned at the sight of her and the collapsed pile of boys, "Ugh, speak of the devil."

"Aw geez, it's true what everyone was saying," Zita said in disbelief as the girls looked Gaz up and down, "This is just freaky, even by your family's weirdo standards."

"Yeah, how do you go from looking like an 8-year-old to being built like this?" Jessica demanded.

"Trade secret, try not to hurt your empty heads figuring it out," Gaz snarked back, earning scowls in response.

"Hey, you think that you're hot shit just because you're, like, literally hot now?" one of the other girls whose name Gaz had never bothered to learn asked with a glare, "That you can come in and just grab every guy's attention and act like you're better than the rest of us?"

"Meh, I only put on that little show to make it clear that I'm got nothing anyone can dare make fun of anymore, I don't give a damn about whether these idiots think about me with their downstairs brains instead of the ones they're not using up top," Gaz replied with a dismissive shrug as she turned and started to walk away. However, she couldn't resist adding over her shoulder, "And for the record, I've always been better than you shallow wannabe supermodels."

"Oh, that's big talk coming from you," Zita replied in a mocking tone, "I mean, yeesh, Gaz, did you get so desperate that you decided to get plastic surgery or something? But then, I guess looking like a Barbie doll is better than looking like a guy."

Gaz stopped mid-step, before she let out a breath, and a smirk came over her face as an idea of how to respond came to her. Suddenly, Gaz's head turned backwards 180 degrees to face the other girl… only her face now consisted of a massive grin of hooked red fangs. This new maw-face peeled back as Gaz let out a deep hiss at Zita, a long worm-like tongue whipping out as she did so.

"GAH!" Zita screamed, eyes bugging out before she fell backwards and collapsed. The other girls, who'd been focused on prodding the boys to see if any of them were still conscious enough to berate for looking at someone other than any of them, snapped their attention back over to the arguing violet-heads only to find that Gaz's face had returned to normal and was now sporting a fake look of concern as Zita lay unconscious on the floor before her.

"Oh no, she passed out for no apparent reason," Gaz said flatly, "Better get her to the nurse's office. Or don't, I don't care."

Not bothering to see how Zita's posse was going to react to their queen bee's apparent freak out, Gaz turned and once again started down the hall towards her first class of the day, relishing the thrill of being able to break someone completely with such little effort. It was so much easier, and so much more fulfilling, then having to waste her precious time and energy on using her fists to break bones.

Oh yes, Gaz could tell she was going to enjoy this situation for a long time.

XXXXXXX

A few hours later, Gaz had decided she was regretting wasting her new powers on her looks.

Sure, it was very satisfying to know that no one was making jokes behind her back about being flat or boyish-looking. But she was keenly aware that there were still plenty of insults being aimed at her when they thought she wasn't listening, just now more along the lines of catty comments about the plastic surgery everyone seemed to think she'd gotten. Though those remarks were really just from the girls; the guys were mostly all instead making crude remarks about how sexy they found her now, when they weren't blatantly undressing her with their eyes, which made her skin crawl in ways that had nothing to do with shapeshifting.

Honestly, who knew that being this good-looking would be more aggravating than her previous state?

"And why the hell didn't anyone warn me these things would be so heavy?" Gaz grumbled under her breath as she stomped down the hallway in-between classes. She'd had to double the muscle mass on her back to compensate halfway through first period when the massively increased weight of her breasts had finally started to catch up to her. Seriously, why did approving her looks have to come with a literal burden?

"I'm starting to think I really wasn't missing out on much," she muttered as she opened her locker to swap out books.

"So, Gaz?" She then groaned as she realized that she'd gained the displeasure of Torque Smacky leaning against the locker and leering at her, "You wanna hang out during lunch? You know, now that you're hot?"

"Fuck off."

"Oh, playing hard to get, eh?" Torque smirked, before the bell rang. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in his hand, causing Torque to yelp for a moment before he brought his hand up. On both the palm and the back of his hand was a bite that resembled a shark's, not too deep as the blood was clotting already, and piercing a millimeter.

"…the hell?" Torque blinked at the sight of the bite, before merely shaking it off as one of the weird things that happened around the skool and walked off to class… not noticing the fleshy tentacle ending in a shark-like maw retracting back into Gaz's finger.

Snickering, Gaz shut her locker and headed towards class, not noticing that Viera had been watching from her own locker down the hall. The angle meant that she hadn't seen the tentacle, but she had seen Torque bother Gaz and walk away injured – while that wasn't surprising in itself, the fact that she hadn't actually seen Gaz make a movement of any kind to actually inflict those injuries with, didn't make sense at all.

"What is happening with you today?" Viera muttered, brows furrowed in thought, before pushing the question aside for now in order to get to her own next class.

Still, she was not going to ignore this. The first chance that she got, she was going to work to get to the bottom of this.

XXXXXXX

By the time lunch rolled around, Gaz's frustration was mounting towards a boiling point. It had become abundantly clear by this point that her transformation had not achieved the desired effect of gaining respect, just unwanted attention and mockery of a different kind. Worse, all that lust and disdain appeared to be edging out the fear of her that she'd worked so hard to cultivate; instead, judging by the looks she was getting and the comments she was overhearing, people had gone from viewing her as someone terrifying who happened to be unattractive, to just another one of the skool bimbos.

"That eldritch asshole probably knew damn well this would backfire on me," Gaz grumbled as she sat on the backrow of one of the bleachers ringing the Hi Skool's outer yard. A tray of half-eaten slop lay next to her as she glared at nothing in particular, though her gaze kept drifting over the various other students seated on the bleachers; they were all keeping their distance, but not to the same extent that they normally would, indicating that they weren't as afraid of her as they used to be.

Giving a growl of annoyance, Gaz smacked a fist into the bench she was sitting on, the impact of which caused the backpack set down next to her to tilt over and fall off the back of the bleachers.

"Dammit!" she cursed, leaning over to see that the bag was nowhere in sight on the ground, meaning it had probably bounced under the bleachers.

"Great, so now I have to actually go look for it instead of just being able to snatch it up with a tentacle or something," she muttered as she dropped down the back of the bleachers to effortlessly land in a crouch on the ground. Looking around after doing so, she quickly spotted her bag a few feet away… and Jessica standing a few feet further past that, a cigarette in her mouth as she evidently snuck a smoke break.

The two stared at each other in surprise for a few moments, before Jessica finally broke the silence.

"What are you looking at, you psycho bitch?" she snapped.

"Apparently a bottle blonde trying to get cancer, but suit yourself, airhead," Gaz snarked back, picking up her bag and turning to leave, not in the mood to deal with this. Jessica, however, clearly felt different about the matter, showing that she obviously didn't have much in the brains department.

"Oh, like you're so much better, you freaking hypocrite?" she sneered, stopping Gaz dead in her tracks.

"Excuse me?" she demanded, turning to face Jessica with a glare.

"You heard me," Jessica replied with a scoff, "You've always been a freak, but at least you had some kind of integrity, sticking to your weird-ass goth style, while acting like those of us who actually pay attention to our looks were shallow idiots. But now look at you, strutting around like some kind of living blow-up doll and still acting like you're better than us. You might be full of silicon now, but you're full of even more shit."

"I did NOT get plastic surgery!" Gaz growled, taking more offense at getting that comment yet again today than she did at the other insults that were just flung at her.

"Oh, whatever. Be in denial if it helps, but that doesn't change the fact that you're just as bad as the rest of us. No, actually, now that I think about it, you're worse, you worthless poser!" Jessica declared, Gaz's face contorting in rage in response, before it froze and then spasmed slightly.

Something in Gaz snapped in that moment. All the mounting frustration and anger that had built up over the day finally hit its boiling point, momentarily eclipsing all conscious thought. And in response, her control of her powers slipped, allowing her subconscious impulses to manifest through them.

Losing control of herself, Gaz's visage morphed into one that possessed sickly green skin and numerous burning red eyes, her mouth distending into a maw with rows of fangs wriggling like insect legs. Tentacles sprouted from her back, covered in either twitching finger-like appendages or suppurating stubby maggot-like or leech-like mouths that hissed out black steam. Giving a sound that was somehow a mix of a high-pitched hiss and a guttural roar, this monstrosity reared up threateningly before the blonde who had invoked its wrath, who stared in wide-eyed terror.

Naturally, Jessica screamed, louder than she ever had in her life. And then suddenly, her hand shot to her chest, and she began to seize, falling to the floor. Gaz, shocked at this sudden reaction, shifted back to her normal visage out of reflex. Then her hearing picked up the other students running from the bleachers to the underside, clearly in response to the scream.

"Oh, shit. OH, SHIT!" Gaz quickly got the hell out of dodge before she got caught, not caring that the back of her shirt was shredded from the sudden growth of tentacles on her back, ducking under the rails marking the edge of the Hi Skool's property line and sprinting up a tree to hide.

Thankfully out of the sight of the others, Gaz watched as they pulled the still-seizing Jessica from under the bleachers, eventually carrying her off into the main skool building, presumably to the nurse's office. And as she watched all this, mind still whirling from what had just happened, she didn't notice as the tattoo that Kastrofi had given her began glowing slightly. As it did, she barely registered a slight chorus of whispered voices in the back of her head, telling her that she should be enjoying what she just did even more than what she had done to Zita earlier, to relish what damage she could inflict on a person with such a minimum of effort, and to ponder what she could do if she were to go all out with her powers instead of wasting them on petty acts.

These voices rapidly chipped away at all the limitations that Gaz had been forced to build up over the years by society's laws and decorum, soon allowing all the subconscious impulses of her id to come bursting forth at once. And when they did, there was only one logical possible outcome.

"Oh, fuck the hell yeah," Gaz grinned ecstatically, letting the flesh of her hand swim around until it formed a massive claw, "Let's see what I can really do…"

XXXXXXX

Elsewhere in the skool a short while later, Dib and the twins were walking down a hallway as the lunch period neared its end, the three preparing to separate for their next classes. Before they did, though, they turned their attention to the latest gossip spreading like wildfire across the skool, which even they weren't ignorant of.

"So, Jessica had some kind of stroke? Isn't she too young for something like that to come out of nowhere?" Steve asked, eyebrow arched in disbelief.

"Probably had too much of the cafeteria meatloaf," Viera suggested with a shrug.

"I don't know. Normally I'd say that too, but Zita also had some kind of breakdown this morning," Dib mused, frowning in thought, "Even for this skool, it's weird to have multiple medical emergencies in the same day. Outside of finals week, anyway."

"Yeah, okay, but unless we actually have proof that they're connected, we probably shouldn't assume the worst," Steve commented, only to jump as a scream suddenly echoed down the hall, "What the…?"

As if in response to his question, a horde of students came rushing down a corner of the hall. Clearly moving in a blind panic, the crowd ran and slipped and slid across the floor, knocking into lockers and each other and trampling those who were unlucky enough to fall over. As it was, Dib and the twins barely managed to jump aside to press against the nearest wall in time to avoid getting run over themselves.

As the crowd started to thin, Dib took the initiative, stepping out to grab a straggler by the shoulders.

"Hey! What's going on?!" he demanded, as the guy he was holding onto looked back at him in wide-eyed panic.

"Th-there's some kind of wild animal in the building, or a monster, or, or, or, I don't know what!" the other student exclaimed, "All I know is that it's killing people, and I'm getting the hell out of here before I'm next!"

With that, the guy broke free of Dib's grasp and ran off in the same direction that everyone else had fled to, leaving Dib and the twins staring in confusion after him.

"A monster?" Viera asked, horror shining in her eyes as she drew the connection, "Oh no, someone must have found the Tome and used it to summon something!"

"Dammit, we have to do something! Come on!" Dib declared, he and the twins rushing to retrieve their emergency weapons from their lockers before heading towards the direction of the screaming.

XXXXXXX

Gaz's grin could not leave her face as she strolled through the halls covered in blood and entrails, unclothed as her steps crushed the bodies of the dead under her feet; her clothes had been torn apart completely at some point during the rampage by her multiple transformations, but she no longer cared about such petty things like modesty. She licked blood dripping from her hand, an intoxicated grin forming as she leaned back and let out a laugh. A laugh that was like she had become a supervillain, loud and mad, manic and deranged, like a beast whose chains had slipped and it had just slaughtered thousands.

This… this felt fucking amazing. She always dreamed of doing all these acts, and maybe she got that relief when she played some of her videogames. But actually being able to do them instead of just controlling a character on screen felt more potent than anything she had ever felt in her entire life. Their screaming, the fear in their eyes, their pleading for their lives, watching them run as they tried to escape from her only for her to catch up and kill them…

It… IT FELT SO FUCKING GOOD!

But still, she's still partial to pizza. Maybe when she's done here, she'll raid a Bloaty's and steal their entire supply before going back home and playing some Gore of War to kill some time until Dib and Dad get home, none the wiser, before she then goes out on another killing spree into Doomsvile. And after she was done with Doomsvile, she'd just repeat the cycle in the next city. And the next and the next, until she's left this state flooded with blood and bodies.

After all, who was going to stop her? The only people she'd ever be concerned about confronting in this skool were Miss Bitters and Nny the creepy janitor, and they'd both already shown up to investigate her rampage and then walked away – Nny had shrugged that he'd seen worse and that teens were old enough to not be covered by his instinctive defense of children, while the old crone had simply stated that Gaz was just accelerating the inevitable, before swooping off. And really, with those two not getting involved, who could possibly stop her fun?

"What the Hell?!" an all-too familiar voice screamed from behind Gaz, immediately wiping the grin off her face.

"Tch, seriously? Of course you'd show up to spoil everything," she muttered in annoyance as she turned around to find Dib and the twins standing a few feet down the hall. Dib and Steve were both carrying several of the hi-tech weapons they'd cobbled together over the years, while Viera was wearing several of the pieces of magical jewelry she'd acquired over the same time period. All three were staring at her in utter shock, though she supposed that was to be expected to seeing her standing there naked and covered in gore, surrounded by the bodies of her victims.

The tentacles sticking out of her back and waving around probably didn't help their grasp of the situation, she idly mused as she withdrew them on instinct.

"Wha- what the? Gaz?" Dib stammered, clearly trying to wrap his head around what he was seeing.

"Either spit it out or beat it, Dib. I'm on a roll here, and if you decide to ruin my fun, I might just forget we're related and finally squash your fat head like an oversized watermelon," she growled, the whispers at the back of her mind telling her to forget about those tenuous familial ties and start hacking and slashing, her hands instinctively shifting into large claws in reaction to the thoughts.

"You…" Dib's eyes bulged out of his head before he pulled out a blaster and aimed at her, "You're not my sister! You're some shapeshifting monster taking her form!"

Gaz rolled her eyes but decided to play along before she killed him and his friends. Why the hell had she ever restrained herself with this moron, when even before today she could have torn him apart and finally goten some peace? The whispers barely had to give her a nudge as she made her next move.

A moan escaped her throat as she felt the tentacles sprouting from her back once again, slithering towards her horrified brother as the limbs sprouted mouths and lashed out at Dib and the twins.

"Die, you miserable human meat-sacks!" Gaz howled, deciding to get fully into character, cackling in glee as her brother and his friends scrambled back to dodge her attack. As part of this, she decided that she might as well ditch her human appearance altogether; her skull extended outwards like a set of crocodile's jaws filled with razor-sharp teeth, but one that opened horizontally instead of vertically, with extra eyes popping up to ring its base. Meanwhile, her body practically melted as it reshaped itself into something more akin to a velociraptor, if a raptor had four arms with human-like hands that ended in six-inch-long sickle-shaped claws on each finger, matched by those on the four-toed feet now gouging into the floor.

The trio barely had a chance to process this transformation before the creature lunged at them. They jumped aside in time to avoid being crushed under its feet and caught in a swipe by its arms as it hit the ground, but they were still in range of the tentacles still flailing about on its back, one of which caught Dib in the side and sent him flying to slam into a locker. The twins, however, managed to duck under the tentacles, Steve then taking the initiative and whipping out a blaster to shoot at them. The plasma bolts didn't seem to do much beyond slightly scorch the skin, but the creature hissed in a mix of surprise and pain, and jumped away to land several feet down the hall. And before it could properly reorient itself, Viera chanted a spell that made one of her rings glow bright blue before she thrust her hand out and launched a blue orb of light at the creature, encasing it completely in thick ice.

"Think that'll hold it?" Steve asked his sister, only for the ice she'd summoned to start shaking as the creature began shifting rapidly within it.

"Are we ever that lucky?" Viera asked with an aggravated sigh.

Suddenly, the thing gained several dark spots all over its body that seemed to boil out and then sprouted arachnid limbs, bursting the ice apart before ripping themselves off. Soon, the entire body seemed to dissolve into a mass of spiders, slick with oily fluids that spread across the floor, splitting and multiplying rapidly until they seemed like a swarm. They skittered and scurried across the walls and floor before they cluttered together and fused into a mass of flesh that slowly took the form of a worm that nearly touched the ceiling, as its skin hardened into a thick camo-green carapace, the head splitting into a fanged mouth with multiple mandibles.

Steve gaped at the shapeshifting capabilities of this thing, "How can it produce mass and volume like that? It's like it can somehow pull it all out of nowhere!"

Viera, though disturbed, kept herself more composed, "Clearly, it's magical, not just an animal from another dimension."

"God, I hate magic," Steve grumbled, hating it when things didn't meet the standards that came with his scientific resolve. Dib, meanwhile, had recovered from being tossed into the locker and ran up to the others, now wearing his plasma gauntlets, which he raised defiantly as the worm-monster that used to be Gaz reared over them and screeched. Then it lunged down at them, only for Dib to punch forward a wave of plasma, Steve adding to it with his blaster, and Viera unleashing a stream of fire from her amulet. The combined attacks all landed within the worm's open maw, causing it to shriek in pain and rear back, smoke emanating from its mouth, before it turned and fled down the hall at a speed remarkable for its size.

"After it, we can't let it get away!" Dib shouted, bolting after the monster as it turned and disappeared around a corner, the twins right behind him. They didn't have to go far, soon reaching the cafeteria, the doors of which had been knocked off its hinges.

"We've got it cornered! There's no other way out of there, now we just have to…" Dib started to say, only to trail off and screech to a halt as they saw that the worm had shifted forms again. In front of them now was a massive and grotesquely corpulent humanoid with pale distended skin, covered in filth and blood, a smooth and featureless face and head with the exception of a massive grin of red fangs, black clawed hands with gaping mouths in the palms, with curved jagged fangs and thick long black tongues that lashed out to drag in whatever was edible, and strong thick legs with black colorization.

Swallowing their disgust, the others readied for a fight as Dib attacked first, launching another wave of plasma at the monster. But to the trio's shock, unlike the raptor-creature or the worm, the obese being seemed unaffected as the plasma washed over it, seemingly repelled by its massive amounts of fat covering it. Giving a deep rumbling laugh, the monster charged the trio, once again moving faster than something that big should be capable of. Seeing the mass of flesh bearing down on them, they jumped out of the way, allowing it to charge past them. And before it could stop itself and turn, they all opened fire at the back of its knees; whether in pain or by reflex, this caused its legs to lock up, leading to the beast stumbling and falling forward to hit a wall and smash right through it, vanishing in a cloud of dust and rubble.

"Okay, now is it at least unconscious? Because I feel like all we've been doing is pissing it off," Steve commented. Practically on cue, a roar emerged from within the wall, indicating that the monster wasn't out of commission yet. And before they could react, the thing burst back out of the hole and backhanded both Dib and Steve, sending them flying clear across the room and over the partition into the kitchen, before it rammed its fist into the wall, shattering the concrete as it roared, "OH, THIS IS SO MUCH FUCKING FUN!"

Viera growled and yelled an incantation before thrusting out a hand. Suddenly, an intense bolt of lightning blasted out from her palm and struck the thing in the head, scorching the skin of the thing's featureless face. Gaz let out a screech as she put a hand up to her burnt head, when suddenly the damaged skin began to flake off, leaving her immediately healed. She would have blinked if she had eyes, while Viera actually did blink when she saw it heal almost instantly.

"Oh, that is not fair…"

The grin widened to the point of splitting its face, when suddenly its body gained emerald skin composed of overlapping plates, before its arm elongated, ramming into Viera's torso with a yelp from her as she was sent flying. The goth sorceress was rammed into the wall, cracking it and getting a scream out of her. Groaning in pain, Viera forced her eyes open as she saw the monster coming towards her.

Gaz was grinning on the inside, wanting to rip this whore bitch into a million fucking pieces for all the times she'd looked down her nose at her. But just as she was about to, another instinct awoke inside her at the prodding of those whispers in the back of her mind, something that she was suddenly wanting to express very soon and very violently, finding herself gazing at Viera like she was a piece of meat. She never did like guys, which she thought was her general misanthropy talking, but maybe she just liked girls better. And if not, well, she'd at least enjoy finally making Viera suffer.

Gaz's form suddenly dissolved into an amorphous mass of moist purple-black flesh in the form of tentacles and yawning maws that soon shaped itself into a semi-humanoid shape as two tentacles grabbed Viera's arms and pinned her to the wall.

"Wait, what are you-?"

She was cut off when several tentacles proceeded to rip her long-sleeve shirt off, before then likewise tearing away her jeans. Viera screeched in mortification as her cheeks turned scarlet, before one of the tentacles then slithered between her breasts and another slithering under the waistband of her underwear, then with a simple yank ripped her bra and panties from her body, leaving her naked for Gaz's eyes to see.

Viera felt like she was going to die from the mortification she was feeling, but that quickly gave way to terror as she saw a phallic-looking tentacle covered in bone spikes emerge from one of the many mouths on its crest and began slithering towards her. The monster cravingly licked the terrified Viera's face, who cowered away in terror as the spiky phallic tentacle came close to her crotch. Before Gaz could act on her impulses, however, a voice in her head screamed out, 'Behind you!'

Gaz turned to look behind her, but it was too late as a voice yelled out, "GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER YOU DAMN MONSTER!"

Time slowed, as Gaz only had a second to register the bottle of vodka that had a flaming napkin stuffed in it as it crashed into her side, shattering as the liquid caught fire and set her ablaze.

"kzsjdgfklajdfgihjksssssssssssss!" The monster spluttered out incoherently as it flailed about on fire, before it dropped Viera, who screeched and landed on the floor with a smack of flesh as the boys ran to her side. Suddenly realizing she was stark naked, Dib looked away with a fierce blush and took his coat off before he tossed it to her. Viera, whose cheeks were still scarlet, quickly donned the coat and buttoned it up so that it hid her body from view until she could get another set of clothing.

"Okay, we need a plan," Steve said as they watched the monster retreat up into an air vent, before turning to his sister, "You okay to keep fighting?"

"Physically? Yes. As for mentally, I'll deal with the trauma later," she replied, before arching an eyebrow at the armful of unlit Molotov cocktails her brother was carrying, "And where'd you get all the alcohol for those?"

"Found a stash of them in the kitchen. I think the cooking staff gives themselves pick-me-ups between shifts," he replied with a shrug, "Now, seriously, about that plan? Because you two know better how to handle magic crap than I do."

"I don't think we can kill or capture this thing, not when it can just shapeshift away any damage or take any form to escape," Dib said, warily watching the ceiling shake from the creature's movements in the airducts, "We're going to have to find a way to outright get rid of it."

"Buy me some time, and I should be able to set up a banishing spell to send it back to whatever realm it came from," Viera stated, only to yelp as the ceiling burst open and a huge shape dropped down to crack the floor underneath its weight as it loomed over them.

'Alright, enough messing around!' Gaz grinned internally. Her form was now that of a massive spider with piercing emerald eyes and a black carapace covered in hot pink spikes. It screeched out as it breathed a torrent of emerald fire at them, the group scattering to avoid the attack, which incinerated a table.

The spider turned towards Viera, Gaz's corrupted mind focusing solely on ripping her hated rival to shreds, only for Dib to run forward and ram a plasma-coated gauntlet into one of her legs, while Steve threw another Molotov into one of her eyes. Screeching in pain once more, Gaz turned her attention towards the boys and started chasing them around the room, periodically breathing more fire whenever they managed to get out of the range of her elongated limbs.

With the beast sufficiently occupied, Viera bolted for the shredded remains of her clothes, sorting through them until she found a pen that she'd kept in one of her pockets. She then began using it to draw on the floor, quickly sketching a pentagram inside a circle, with a smaller circle outside the main one at each of the star's points, within each of which she drew an elemental symbol. This done, she then jabbed the pen into one of her fingertips just hard enough to draw blood, which she allowed to drip down onto the center of the symbol array, which flared to life with a rainbow of prismatic light.

"I call upon the spirits of the natural world," Viera intoned, the light fluctuating in time to her voice, "Purify this place and cast out this abomination that befouls these halls. Return it from whence it came, that it may never corrupt our realm again. Cast it out, cast it out, cast it out!"

It should be noted that, under normal circumstances, this spell wouldn't have had the desired effect, due to Gaz in fact being native to Earth's plane of existence. However, due to her connection to Kastrofi via their deal, and how much she had used the powers he'd granted her to completely corrupt and warp herself, she was now little more than an extension of his realm. As such, the natural energies Viera's spell called forth no longer recognized her as belonging, and subsequently rejected her.

Just as Gaz managed to corner Dib and Steve and was about to engulf them in flame, the light of the spell array burst forth in a cascade. It swept across the room and wrapped around Gaz's twisted form, causing the former human to scream in surprise as the light constricted on her like a physical force. It then lifted her up and dragged her towards the array, the center of which was now a dark hole of a portal leading out of this reality and into the void beyond.

The small part of Gaz's mind not consumed by animalistic rage briefly latched onto the idea of reverting to her normal self and calling out to Dib to stop this and save her, before clamping down on that notion – aside from the fact that she knew that Dib had gone with the idea that she wasn't the real Gaz, even if he had been in a position to believe her, her pride would never allow her to beg for his help with anything, even something as monumentally important as this.

And so it was that the monster that used to be Gaz Membrane was sucked into the void at the bottom of the spell array, vanishing from the Earthly plane, while the spell collapsed behind her in a blinding burst of light. After it cleared, all that remained in evidence of what had just happened was the array drawn on the floor, still smoking slightly from the energies that had been channeled through it.

After taking a few moments to blink the spots from their vision, Team Save Earth looked around the devastated cafeteria to confirm that the monster was gone, then allowed themselves to sag in exhaustion.

"You guys alright?" Viera called over to the boys as she dragged herself back to her feet and started to walk over to them.

"Is that thing gone for good?" Steve asked.

"It should be."

"Then yeah, I'll be fine," he sighed in relief.

"How about you? You okay?" Dib asked as the three met up by the wrecked doors.

"Nothing some ice packs won't fix," she replied, only to blush and clutch her borrowed coat tighter as she remembered her predicament, "Er, and clothes, too. That'd be helpful."

"O-oh, right," Dib said with a shaky cough and a blush of his own as he was also reminded of her condition, Steve also grimacing in a mix of embarrassment and sibling disgust, "Um, yeah, let's go fix that and get out of here before anyone comes in and blames us for all that."

With that, the trio quickly made their way towards the girls' locker room, where Viera kept one of her stashes of spare clothes. After she ducked inside, the boys waited outside for several minutes until she emerged, now fully clothed again and holding Dib's coat.

"Thanks for that," she said awkwardly as he handed it back to him.

"No problem, happy to help," he replied with a forced laugh as he put the coat back on, sounding just as awkward as the two of them stared at each other. Then, in the heat of the moment and perhaps still feeling the adrenaline rush of being rescued from a fate worse than death, Viera grabbed Dib by the lapels of his coat and pulled him in to press her lips against his.

It only lasted a moment before they pulled apart, and then both of them, realizing what just happened, went red with mortification and turned away, not believing what they just did and denying with all their might that they enjoyed it. And then both of them realized that Steve saw the whole thing, as they turned to him and saw his wide grin.

"Don't you dare, Steve," Viera whispered furiously, pointing at him, "Don't you dare."

Steve, still grinning, held up his hands, "I didn't say anything."

Still red as a tomato, Viera growled at her brother and muttered, "You better not."

The team then slowly began to exit the ruined skool, just glad that whatever madness that all was is now over. However, Steve couldn't resist and gained a trolling grin.

"Dib and Viera, sitting in a tree," Steve whispered in a singsong tone, "K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

"STEVE!" Both of them screamed at him, redder than a stop sign, causing Steve to nearly bust his gut laughing. Suddenly, however, Viera realized something as they emerged outside and saw the crowds milling nearby as police and other emergency responders arrived; aside from the other people killed, the real Gaz was nowhere in sight.

Then she remembered seeing Torque flirting with Gaz over her looks, before something bit him. She remembered how Gaz's whole body had suddenly changed overnight. She remembered how the monster had rather randomly been in Gaz's form when they'd first come across it. And she remembered how the Tome of the Abyss went missing the last time she visited Dib's house.

'Oh, shit,' Viera mentally cursed as she realized who they had just banished. However, she decided for Dib's sake (and possibly his sanity) that she better keep her mouth shut for the time being. 'At least until I can create a spell to fish her out of wherever she ended up.'

XXXXXXX

It reminded her of the Carnival of Venice mixed with a regular circus.

Gaz stared at the massive carnival in front of her. It appeared to span endlessly, and seemed to grow even as she watched. It was then that she noticed most of the "people" walking through the carnival wore old aristocratic attire, with their faces covered by masquerade ball masks. They wandered from one game booth to another, partaking in the various activities being offered, or made use of large empty spaces to dance or fight in brutal-seeming wrestling and boxing matches, or made their way to massive banquet tables to devour a seemingly endless amount of food… and a great many of them were also screwing like rabbits in miniature orgies in virtually any available space, seemingly not caring about all the other people standing around and eagerly watching them.

It was a tableau of pure hedonism and decadence, just as the Tome had described, and Gaz was having very mixed feelings about having ended up here.

"Can't tell whether or not I should thank those idiots for this when I eventually get back," she mused, her monstrous form towering most of the beings present yet barely garnering any attention from any of them.

"'Get back'? Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," an eerily-familiar voice said with a chuckle that sent instinctive chills through Gaz. Eyes widening, she slowly turned in place to look behind her, and was greeted by a sight she recognized from that picture in the Tome – Kastrofi, seated atop a throne of petrified human bodies stacked together, while smaller abominations scurried around the base of said throne.

Oh, and seeing it in person instead of in a drawing, Gaz could clearly see that the eyes of the frozen bodies were darting about, indicating those people were still alive despite their state. So, there was that little extra bit of nightmare fuel to dwell on, though Gaz made herself ignore it to focus on the bigger issue at hand, namely the eldritch god leering at her from his throne.

"I must say, little morsel, while I knew that your use of the powers that I gave you would inevitably lead you to my realm, as is always the case, I didn't think it would be this quickly," Kastrofi laughed, "I daresay that you might have broken a record."

A spike of anger rippled through Gaz, causing actual spikes to erupt at random spots, and more importantly snapping her out of the unease and fear that Kastrofi's presence had caused her.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," she growled, glaring at Kastrofi, "Just tell me how to get out of here and back to Earth. I have a trio of idiot assholes I need to tear apart."

"So sorry, but that banishing spell you were hit with was rather firm. You won't be getting out of this realm unless specifically summoned or when I myself am unleashed upon Earth," Kastrofi stated, "So, you're rather stuck here, which means we can just skip to the part where you now serve me for eternity. Which means, first thing's first, let us get you properly attired."

"Wait, what?" Gaz exclaimed, before Kastrofi snapped one fetid set of fingers. In response, Gaz felt her body shifting, her powers activating without her command. Before she knew it, she had changed back into the hot body she'd first made for herself, still completely nude from the earlier destruction of her clothes. And maybe it was the fact that she was no longer in the midst of a bloodlust clouding her mind, but her sense of modesty seemed to have returned, leaving her blushing brightly as the eyes of many in the passing crowd suddenly turned leering gazes on her.

"Hey! What's the big idea?!" she demanded, instinctively covering herself with her arms, even as she tried to take a different form, only to find nothing happening, "And what happened to my powers?!"

"I granted you those powers, you may only use them when I say," Kastrofi replied firmly, "And why suddenly so unwilling to display yourself? Was the first thing you did with these abilities not to make yourself an object of lustful desire?"

"Well, I-" Gaz stammered, unable to think of a good counterargument to that before Kastrofi started speaking again.

"And really, this is quite fitting, as I have decided that, for now at least, you shall serve me in the capacity of what you humans call 'eye candy'," Kastrofi said, causing Gaz's eyes to bulge out in shock.

"Eye candy?!" she shouted in outrage. In response, Kastrofi waved a limb, conjuring a cloud of black smoke between the two of them, which began shifting and congealing into a solid form. Specifically, a bikini made of a dark silver metal, with a pitch-black loincloth dangling from the lower half, and with both the metal and the cloth cut so thin that it would leave very little to the imagination when worn.

And before Gaz could do more than blink dumbly at the ridiculously erotic outfit, it flew through the air to slam into her. Gaz winced as she felt the bikini clamp around her chest and crotch, the metal flowing like water around her to fit itself without her needing to put it on herself, while the loincloth wrapped around and draped between her legs.

She was still and silent for a moment as she processed what had just happened, and then it hit her all at once. Gaz could barely form words due to the sheer rage she was feeling, before she screamed out, "This wasn't part of our deal!"

Kastrofi moved to loom over his new slave, causing her to flinch and immediately regret her words as he bonelessly leaned down to where their faces met.

"Our deal, little morsel, was that I would give you power. You did not disagree when I asked for your soul, nor bother to ask what I would do with it," the Dark King of Decadence informed the mortal that had invoked him. Gaz sputtered in response, desperately trying to think of a way out of this deal, and nothing viable coming to her.

"So, come now," Kastrofi leaned back up, before snapping his fingers, causing a silver ethereal chain to form and bind itself to the spiked collar that suddenly formed on her throat, making her gag. Kastrofi chuckled at seeing her choke slightly, "Don't worry, little morsel. When the stars align and the moon is right to return me in full to the mortal plane, I'll let you torture all the mortals you come across as part of my horde."

Reluctantly, Gaz had to admit she found that option bearable, but then she forced herself to ask the dreaded question that that statement brought into her head, "And when will that be?"

For once, Kastrofi lost his composure, looking confused as he put his stickly clawed hand to his nonexistent chin in thought.

"You know, I have quite forgotten," he muttered after a moment. He then turned to one of his horrifying servants and asked, "Oh, Roxam? Could you be a peach and tell me when the proper cosmic alignment is?"

The thing evidently named Roxam suddenly produced an abacus and worked on it for a few minutes before announcing, "It is about another thousand years away, milord."

Gaz's mind then went blank before she screamed, "A THOUSAND YEARS?!"

Kastrofi, by contrast, merely shrugged, "So be it. You're still thinking like a mortal, but you'll soon realize that with eternity before you, that is a very brief time. Now come, Gaz. Join the festival!"

The King then walked off, the ethereal leash forcing Gaz to follow as he guided her further into the massive carnival that seemed to span forever. As they walked, Gaz was then suddenly handed a porcelain mask like the others present wore, which attached itself to her face on its own, seemingly fusing to her skin, leaving only her eyes and mouth exposed. She watched all the horrors and damned dance, play the games, feasting on the banquet tables, fornicating in public, and watching the sadistic sports and shows.

"Maybe this won't be so bad," she thought, silently resigning herself to her fate as she descended into the carnival of madness.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

The End

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

A/N: And done. Hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did when I first read what Zeroth sent me. Now, admittedly, there was some stuff I was hesitant about — I considered seriously cutting back on Gaz's rampage, or cutting out her attempted rape of Viera. However, I felt the majority of it wasn't too explicit, and was covered by the M rating, so there you go.

Oh, and anyone curious about Viera using more fighting spells than just the fire she has in the main series, I just figured that she's older here, so she'd have had more time to study magic and learn more. Might start to incorporate some of that into the main series, now that I think about it.

Anyway, like I said, happy birthday to Zeroth, and thanks again for coming up with this chapter! Seriously, check out his work if you like dark fics.

Until next time, please review!