Dimensional clash V: The Blood God's Wrath; Act VI: Dawn of War

Wiggler: Continue.

Wiggler continued his trek to Princess Peach's castle. The castle seemed to shine when Nexus Prime's power infused with the rest of the Champions. Wiggler saw this as a ray of hope, that the Mushroom Kingdom wasn't doomed after all. Wiggler pressed on, heading to the castle.

Wiggler threw the doors open.

He walked in, climbed the stairs, ascending to the top tower. Step-by-step, Wiggler climbed and climbed.

He reached the top. A door was glowing. Wiggler, trembling, eased the door open, and what he saw amazed him.

The Music Keys. Four glowing spheres that encased all the harmony of the Mushroom Kingdom. Light would never completely leave the kingdom with the Music Keys stabilizing the Mushroom Kingdom.

The Music Keys gave off their own light, brilliant flashes of blue, green, yellow, and red. Wiggler basked in their light. He felt at ease. So THAT'S what was creating the halo of light around Peach's castle. No wonder the place was deserted, without a trace of the Ing.

Wiggler happily shut the door and locked it. He could stay safe for a while...

Magolor: Whee, flee.

((Appropriate Listening: -0:40)

"What're we waiting for? Let's get out of this cesspool!" I said to the guys in the Lor. Now, this place was packed. A lot of people were in here. I held royal company. (Well, Rosalina's holding a few people on the Comet Observatory, but still.)

I piloted the Lor into the bright and shining portal. I blinked for a while: it hurt my eyes. When I adjusted, I looked around. The place was beautiful.

I left controls to the ship and looked around. Instead of the dark expanse of space, it was like looking at a beautiful blue sky, like those on Pop Star. Kirby came out with me, and he marvelled at the landscape. "Hey, Kirby! It's your planet!" I shouted, pointing at a star-shaped planet with two rings around it.

"Poyo!" Kirby said happily, looking on as Light Pop Star zoomed past us. I turned around and looked at the Comet Observatory passing by us. Rosalina was gazing at the Light materium.

"Hey, Rosalina! Is this awesome, or what?" I shouted to her.

I saw her nod.

I laughed happily and we continued to fly on.

>SToP

Lebreau turned around to look at the two new(er) arrivals once she heard Dave speak up. "I would prefer," she began saying, firing off a quick bolt of lightning at an approaching Inglet that threatened to pounce John from behind, "that you didn't use that language...but yeah. We still are." She began ushering them to the extremely rough 'safe area' that the team had carved out, marked mostly by the pile of sludgy bodies making a rough circle around it. "Just stay with everyone else, alright? Er...Dave, if you can fight then it would be a really big help right now." She fired bolts and flares and gusts of spells at the Ing swarming towards the two young boys, splattering sludge in a rather steady stream about a few feet away from their 'safe zone'.

For a few minutes the battle plan still seemed rather simple. Gadot held out the front line and kept the enemies from going towards the weaker portions of the group, Lebreau killed whatever was coming near them, and Yuj and Maqui concentrated on keeping the former two alive and kicking. The amount of magic being cast created a literal force field of light that further strengthened their defenses. It felt just like a work out. In fact, they had even started counting the amount of Ing that went down. So far they were up to about a thousand, by very, very rough estimate.

Of course, this did not last for long. A shadow darker than the Stygian clouds was cast over them. Its source was a giant, millipede-like Ing stretching about a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. It was actually rather hollow, the inside and bottom of it being non-existant, but the U-shaped husk was still thick and tipped with hordes of sharp needle-like legs. Red eyes lined its body like train windows, though since it was lying over the group, it could not exactly 'see' them. Of course, seeing them, or fighting them, was not its purpose. Hanging from its bottom, hollow portion were legions upon legions upon legions of what looked like pods.

The pods unfurled, revealing what seemed to be Ing in the vague shape of bats. Their wings were huge compared to the rest of their small, elliptical, and eyeless bodies. But when they opened their mouths, they revealed extremely large, sharp, silver teeth, likely from scraps of metal they had possessed. Giving out a deafening, screeching cackle, the LaughIng swooped down from the Transport Ing and towards the group in a manner and speed that would make the pouring of rain look like a mere drizzle.

Needless to say, NORA had not expected an attack from above. Maybe a few Warrior Ings jumping, or the occasional Hunter floating along to make a surprise maneuver, but definitely not an entire storm of Ing. The first wave was obliterated by a huge explosion of Firaga, and the second was practically disintegrated by the field of magic light. However, there were still maybe millions of more waves to go, and the group was overwhelmed in seconds. The creatures on their own were weak, but as a horde they were horrifying. Coupled with the fact that now the other, stronger forms of Ing were free to rampage, and soon they were fighting desperately for their lives. Gadot went down once a Hunter Ing impaled him in the chest thrice with its tentacles, and was soon followed by Lebreau, who had sustained so many slashes and bites to her body that any sign of skin would be impossible to see due to the blood.

Yuj had begun to run for it, but a quick and painful bite to the neck from a LaughIng stopped that, and he fell on the sludge-covered ground just as the others had. Maqui was pounced by a Warrior Ing, and slammed into the wall of a building. The pressure broke just about every rib he had, and a sharp crack from his spine soon sent him into unconsciousness and shock. The short time they had been given in the Clash was snuffed out in the most horrifying of ways. They had died not knowing where they were, if they would ever get back home, and, even worse, died failing to protect another.

But, of course, it was not over yet, was it? For as Nexus Prime's power spread across the Omniverse, and the Ing began to flee in terror, it seemed that Death had lost its catch. Wounds on the outside and inside were healed, and their gore-ridden bodies were cleansed. Their outfits also were replaced by something much more...practical. Maqui was given bronze and yellow armor, fitted with a gas mask-like helmet. Gadot donned a much more protective outfit, but it was unfortunately a bit garish in its color design. Yuj gained a sleek, rather top model-like set of armor, while Lebreau, while she didn't exactly get the most modest or functional of the new gear, did at least have something better than a bikini. Energy coursed through their bodies, fitting them with more abilities than they would probably have hoped to learn in a lifetime of fighting. They woke up slowly, but all they could see was the bright light enveloping Derse as it entered the Light Dimension, and into a probably greater adventure.

((WOOOO SMALL PICTURES. Freaking Wiki, it hardly has anything for enlarged stuff. :U))

PAST

"Come, Soldier! Let us go!" Heavy shouted, motioning to the portal and whipping his arm around Soldier's wrist. "They are too much: we do not even have sufficient light!"

"Yeah!" Vagineer added through the translator. "Don' be a fool, these guys're gonna overwhelm ya!"

We follow the rest of the Champions into portal to Light Dimension, hoping that Soldier follows...

PRESENT

LOCATION: Princess Peach's castle

Thanatos laughed. "Ho-ho-ho! So the Ing aren't gettin' into the castle, eh? Too much light, I see. They probably would burn up if they even looked at Pit! But not me!"

The castle was surrounded by Underworld minions, everything from Daphnes to Monoeyes to the icy Snowmen and the dreaded Clubberskull.

"So! Who wants to go first? I want to get this party star-ted!" Thanatos continued.

Several Monoeyes approached the top tier of Princess Peach's castle. Thanatos turned around. "Oh, Hewdraaaaaw!" he hollered.

A giant three-headed dragon appeared. One head said, "Hello! When's dinner?"

The second head shouted, "It's eleven in the morning, idiot!"

The first head said, "Well, don't blame me! It's hard to discern what time it is when there's all those purple clouds all over the place!"

"We kind of need those clouds!"

The third head joined the bickering. "If you two don't shut up, we'll never achieve our goal," it said.

The first Hewdraw head angrily retorted. "Why don't you shut up first?"

They all began to argue.

"If your brain weren't so small, maybe we'd actually get stuff done!"

"All you ever think about is food! Don't you think about the task at hand?!"

"Well, it wouldn't help that you're going all over the place yelling at us until your lungs pop out!"

"When can we go home? My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comes on in thirty minutes!"

The other two heads stopped and looked at the third. "You actually like that stupid show?" asked the other two heads.

"Hey! Just because you're part of the army of darkness doesn't mean that you can't like such an awesome--- AHH! STOP BITING ME!"

Thanatos shook his head. "Three heads are not better than two. Would you two stop bickering? You're ruining the roleplay for all of us! The readers want to get to the juicy stuff!"

"Yeah, lizardlips. Hehehe!" said Hewdraw's second head.

"Shut up!"

Thanatos slumped. "What am I going to do with these three..."

"Okay, okay, we're going!!!" Hewdraw flew up to the top tier of the castle...

Wiggler: DEFEND THE KEYS!!!

When Wiggler saw the Hewdraw approaching through the window, he knew he was going to have to act fast. He dove into a closet, looking for things to throw at the Hewdraw. What he found pleased him.

He held up a Bob-Omb cannon and laughed in approval. He crawled out of the closet, toting the Bob-Omb cannon and aimed at the Hewdraw.

"Hello there!" said the first Hewdraw head.

"It's snacktime!" the second said.

"Mm-mm! What a tender little morsel!" the third said gleefully.


Wiggler angrily glared at Hewdraw. Wiggler pointed at himself and shook his head at them.

"What's the little caterpillar saying?" asked the purple head.

"I majored in Caterpillar, don't worry. He's saying he's not a piece of meat. Technically, he is," the violet head replied.

"Just come a little closer," the blue head coaxed.

Wiggler gritted his teeth and whipped out the Bob-Omb cannon. Wiggler began to fire like there was no tomorrow... there might not be if Hewdraw got his (figurative) hands on the Music Keys!

Hewdraw twisted in midair to avoid the Bob-Ombs.

"Ha-ha! He's missing our heads!" said the blue head. He noticed Wiggler looking at him. "Ummm, that are definitely not our weak points! Because that is stupid, even if heads are the weak points on a lot of things!"

"Just shut up, you idiot!" the other two heads shouted.

"Hey, I was just trying to cover it up!"

"You were doing a pretty bad job!"

"Now, now, let's not argue in company."

"Cram a sock in it, footface!"

"I'm so-oo sick of you guys."

"Me? What did I do?"

"Knock it off already!"

"YOU knock it off!"

The purple head shook. "I can't believe this is my life."

"Can't we go home and watch My Little Pony now?"

"NO!"

"Would everyone just shut it?"

"Someone put me out of my misery."

"Did I mention I'm starving?"

"And you think we're not?"

Wiggler shrugged. They were idiots. Well, the one witht he most sense was the purple one, but still...

He sighed. They were amusing, but they were trying to steal the Music Keys and rain chaos on the Mushroom Kingdom, so...

BAM! Wiggler fired a Bob-Omb at Hewdraw's head. "Ow! That hurt!"

"Maybe if you weren't arguing so much, we wouldn't have gotten hit by that!" the violet head said to the blue one.

"Oh, dear gods, here we go again," muttered the purple head.

"Well maybe if you hadn't started the argument, we would be surviving---OW!!! the bombs that the caterpillar-morsel shoots at us!" the blue head shouted.

"Why do I hang out with these idiots?" asked the purple head.

"Well, maybe if YOU hadn't made such a show about---"

"Me? Making a show? Why you--- I'll tear your--OW!!! neck off---"

The blue head exploded. "OWWWWWWW!!!!" screamed Hewdraw. "Uhhh-- I'm okay! I'm okay!"

"EVERYBODY SHUT UP AND FOCUS!!!!!"

They glared at Wiggler and began to fire fireballs at him. Wiggler countered with Bob-Ombs to dissipate the fireballs so that the castle wouldn't burn. Meanwhile, he called the fire department just in case.

Wiggler kept chucking bombs at the Hewdraw.

"This is awfully repetitive!" the violet head complained.

"Shut up and spit fireballs!" the purple one replied.

"Gosh, I hope we don't hurt him too much," said the blue one.

"Yeah. I like to hear 'em scream!" the violet one added.

BOOM!!!!!

The blue one was shut up.

The purple and violet heads looked over and saw that the blue head was missing.

Then the purple head exploded. The violet head screamed, "THAT'S JUST NOT RIGHT!!!!"

Wiggler snickered. "Right." What a pun.

But the violet one shouted, "You think you won? The other two are probably crawling around on the castle courtyard right about now! They're going to get your precious little light and snuff it out---"

Wiggler made a rude gesture and exploded the violet head.

He checked the Bob-Omb cannon. He found a handle and it fitted onto his left arms. Good thing Wiggler was a righty on one torso, and a lefty on the other.

The cannon was pretty light with double arm-power holding it up. Wiggler found a key, shoved it somewhere nobody but he could find it, and locked the Music Key tower's window, skylight, and door as he went out.

Then he went to search for the other two Hewdraw heads...

The welcoming comittee.


As the stolen worlds moved throughout the soft yellow and white features of the light dimension, they came upon the central world of the light dimension, an enormous serene world of golden perfection. Nowhere in the whole of the omniverse save for the realm of Slaanesh could one find a more beautiful planet, even though the planet was the size of a fair sized xenoverse.

It was the world of Lumos, the greatest light in the omniverse, soft and nurturing, a world of utter goodness and purity. The coalition was brought onto the massive Great Temple, a huge structure born aloft by three enormous legs that rooted it into the ground, with no straight and central columns in sight. The soft, organic curves of the structure spoke of a great form of architecture practiced by a species of immeasurable technological prowess that was at once in harmony with nature.

A soft blue orb of light hung before them and seemed to scan them for a bit before turning yellow and teleporting them into the grand chamber above, where a long, lanky moth man stood waiting for them. The figure was easily sixty feet tall, though he seemed even taller as he floated above the ground.

At once, the weapons of many present were raised at the figure, but it brought up a hand and spoke in it's echoing alien language. "Ak-las niv-or shim-stus." It said to the figures present, the entirety of the coalition's heroes, even those who weren't introduced to the rest of the group had been teleported into this meeting. But a telepathic message went out to translate it's alien speech. "Do not fear, for you are amongst friends." The being said, looking down at the coalition, standing in front of a vast machine that seemed to contain an entire star, one made of holy light rather than roiling plasma. And yet, despite it's size, it was not blinding and searing, but nurturing and healing.

"Iv-ma klo tra'la nikmo, iyt Ae'tyr-mos ish'tra noi-byr. U hyr-tro-vin mak, ish'tar yr-vis." The figure said calmly, the telepathic translation being. "Welcome to the great temple of light, brave warriors, I am Ae'tyr-mos, grand sentinel of light. I am the steward of this dimension, until it's fated ruler takes the throne." It said, looking around the group, seeming to focus on those of the coalition who had an especially close relationship with the light for a brief moment longer.

"Niv'ma to kra-la mil-ka-bal ishra akbarhu nik-pok, lik-nor tym prak'iya allahyi klo-mish. Yir-ma kil'sha Kai'ser Ing Trozyxmavil" It went on, creating a translucent orange holographic image of an army of ing and other destroyers in it's open left hand before pointing at the champions. "The omniverse is in crisis, the long standing balance between darkness and light is being sundered, but fate has smiled upon us and brought you to us. The ones you know as the destroyers are ruled by the Emperor Ing, Trozyxmavil." He said, showing a translucent image of the Emperor Ing, spreading out it's tentacles to engulf reality after reality.

"You are the last hope for the realities of the omniverse...but you need a place to strike out at first...this....is the world of Naboo, with which many of you are familiar with already, you must go out and fortify this world, for it is under vicious attack by the Destroyer Heritor Asphodel and his endless war machines. Speak to me when you are ready for mass teleportation, and I shall deploy you to this world." He said telepathically, showing a holographic image of the Daemon Prince Heritor Asphodel. The Daemon prince looked large and imposing, but what was really frightening was the large host of machines behind him, war engines of every shape and size, many powered by daemons and ing.

Toad: Nod in comprehension.

"Okay, so we go to some planet, kick Destroyer butt, stop the guy that's tentacle-raping the Omniverse. Got it," I said.

"Troxy-ahmea-who?" Kate tried.

Vagineer looked at the mass of machines. "Whoo-ee! What a lot to wreck."

"More rubble, less trouble!" Heavy shouted.

Okay, this was easy enough.

Wiggler: Continue your epic quest.

Wiggler charged down the corridors of Peach's castle, toting the cannon with him. Several Monoeyes glared at him and fired bolts of energy. Wiggler got up close and smashed them with the cannon. Wiggler then skittered back and fired the cannon at the other Monoeyes.

Wiggler was careful not to damage the castle... he didn't really have to, it was damageproofed (for some strange reason).

In his other hand, Wiggler held a spare tennis racket. He spun it around as he strafed an Eggplant Wizard. Magical eggplants splattered on the ground, but Wiggler got wise to it and fired at the eggplants, exploding them in midair.

Wiggler dashed towrd the Eggplant Wizard and bashed his head in with the racket before shooting him in the chest with the cannon. Wiggler then ran through the corridor into the garden. Mario had cleared the Boos in the garden, all that was left was the carousel toy that led to Big Boo's Haunt.

Wiggler looked around, and heard deep breathing. "Ah, hello again! Is is lunchtime already?"

Wiggler turned, and screamed.




"Oh, come now! Don't be that way. At least you're not in the company of ol' Violet, right?" asked the blue Hewdraw.

Wiggler turned red in rage. What a rip-off! He worked hard to defeat the Hewdraw and defend the castle.

Wiggler fired the Bob-Omb cannon at the Hewdraw, grinding his teeth in anger. The flower on his head erupted in flames. Fire blazed toward the blue head of the Hewdraw.

The giant serpent's head bounced toward Wiggler, but the caterpillar ducked out of the way. He turned around and fired Bob-Ombs at the Hewdraw. Wiggler then rolled on the ground to get at the Hewdraw's jaw.

The blue Hewdraw bounced toward him again, but Wiggler charged and landed a hit with the racket before smashing the Bob-Omb Cannon into the Hewdraw's snout. The serpent shrieked in pain, which intensified as Wiggler poured bombs into the fleshy exposed part of the Hewdraw's neck.

"No! I'm too pretty to die!" screamed the blue Hewdraw head.

That didn't stop it from exploding.

Wiggler dashed back into the corridor, and heard a roar. The room shook.

Yep, that was the other Hewdraw.

Wiggler dashed out of the castle and saw the Hewdraw flying overhead. The purple head had regrown its body, and was heading off toward Royal Raceway!

Wiggler jumped into a Mario Kart and revved the engine. Then he began to chase the Hewdraw down.

The Hewdraw fired a fireball at Wiggler. He spun out and got dizzy. Wiggler shook his head and regained his bearings, before tearing off toward the Hewdraw again. Wiggler grabbed an item box and threw a Blue Shell at the Hewdraw. The spiny blue shell rose into the air and dashed off toward the Hewdraw while Wiggler fired Bob-Ombs at the regrown serpent.

In response, the Hewdraw fired bolts of energy toward Wiggler's kart. Wiggler swerved to avoid them and picked up another Item Box.

Inside of that was a Blooper. Wiggler used it and a squid floated toward the Hewdraw before squirting ink on the Hewdraw's eyes. "Ah! I can't see!" roared the Hewdraw.

Wiggler fired off another Blue Shell and it detonated on the Hewdraw's head. The Hewdraw dove into the lake as Wiggler came up to the ramp.

Wiggler opened the hang-glider, but as he soared over, the Hewdraw lunged. Wiggler leaned out and fired the Bob-Omb cannon at the Hewdraw. The Hewdraw screamed and plunged back into the lake, before bursting out of the water and taking to the air again. Wiggler neared the castle again, but the Hewdraw was coming toward him. The Hewdraw threatened to chop the kart in half (Wiggler knew that it would just spin out) by firing a constant stream of fire. Wiggler drove side to side, even spinning around the stream before heading toward the castle. He spun around, keeping a hand on the steering wheel, and turned the cannon on the Hewdraw again. The Hewdraw dipped down low and snapped at Wiggler. Wiggler accelerated and kept firing. He pulled into the castle's courtyard.

The Hewdraw followed and dove into Peach's lake. Wiggler ran after it.

The Hewdraw burst out of the water and began to fire fireballs at Wiggler again. Wiggler ducked out of the way and fired Bob-Ombs over and over again. However, the Hewdraw dove into the water, releasing spheres of light as he swam. Wiggler fired at these spheres before Hewdraw could fire them.

In fact, they fell into the water, exploding and coaxing Hewdraw out. Hewdraw lunged toward Wiggler, but scraped all over the land. Hewdraw flopped like a fish attempting to move.

Wiggler took this chance to beat on Hewdraw with his racket and cannon.

Hewdraw screeched as it went down, but its voice faded, and it whispered: "Don't tell Thanatos... but Wiggler. I am proud of you. You've come this far..."

Hewdraw dissolved.

[S]:Atrocity

Appropriate listening:

The coalition forces boarded their ships, wearily preparing for another long campaign that would see many brothers and sisters in arm dead, facing an ever increasingly evil and depraved enemy that constantly sank to lower and lower depths of morality to put the rest of existence under their jackboot.

John put his helmet, his blue and gold trimmed armour equipped with a regal helmet that looked like Optimus Prime's head with the faceplate, with the noticeable difference of it possessing metal wings on the sides rather than antennae, over his head, looking over at Rose; whose power armour definitely evoked the styling of the Eldar, with perhaps a large influence from Samus Aran.

Jade's armoursuit was very reminiscent of her iron lass armour, though it came with gauntlets and a helmet now, and Dave's suit was a slimmed down version of blood raven power armour with a more knightly styled helmet, trimmed with brass and black rather than white like the Blood Ravens.

Optimus affixed his various add ons, equipping himself with his trailer and jetfire's remains, rearing up to his impressively increased full height while Grimlock, Ratchet, and Bumblebee stood up next to him, going through one last weapons check as they prepared for war.

The imperials ran through ritualistic equipment diagnostic, having no illusions that the coming battle would be bloody beyond belief. If a world was putting up enough of a fight for the destroyers to deploy non-ing forces, then they would be brutal beyond belief. Still, most of them had seen the very worst that the horrors of war had to offer.

The others all put on their equipment, made sure that it was up to snuff and fully loaded and ready for the beginning of another months long campaign, one that was likely to be more brutal and more horrific than anything that had ever been seen before. Many of the soldiers in mixed sex units who had bonded together gave each other final embraces, knowing that in all likelihood, they would die.

Finally, the command for mass space bridge had been made, and all prepared by strapping in as the ships ripped open a wormhole before them, tearing open a gateway through the realities to return to the materium and leave the beatific light dimension, apprehension running high as the soldiers wondered amongst each other just what they'd encounter on the other side.

Finally, the ships slipped into the swirling vortex of the space bridge and cut through the passage through spacetime created by the marvel of cybertronian technology, slipping through that multicoloured and strange otherwhere that functioned as a superhighway to their destination.

What they would come to see on the other side would horrify them beyond all belief. Because, even by the rapacious standards of the destroyers, what they were doing to the fair world of Naboo was beyond imagining.

As the champion fleet arrived out of the spacebridge before the world of Naboo, they could see the world burning from orbit, enormous fireballs careening out into space and the psychic screams of millions dying in unbridled agony being shrieked out into space. The forces of Chaos were being deployed en masse to the star wars galaxy to pacify this universe with "any means necessary."

As their stealth landers slipped through the blockade while the capital ships worked to keep away the Destroyer fleet from the landing vessels, the champions could more clearly see just what the destroyers were doing. The champion's landing craft passed over a battlefield where a storm of tracers from heavy weapons arced across battle lines and slammed into the Naboo-Gungan lines and the city behind them, blasting out masonry and ripping apart bodies.

As they passed over low, they could see a refugee column being set upon by a chaos space marine squad equipped with flamers, the resulting screams could be heard even from high up in the sky. John looked over and could make out civilians thrashing and writhing as liquid flame roiled over them, clinging to their flesh, their eyes melting out of their sockets and their flesh peeling off.

Chaos Hellhound tanks soon rolled into the fray and sprayed their inferno cannons into the remainder of the column, the huge jets of burning promethieum igniting hundreds in the agonizing flames. As they left the horrible sight, they passed over a Chaos Guardsmen heavy weapons team setting up heavy bolters near a group of children forced on their knees for a mass execution.

After the children had buried their own graves, the Chaos Guardsmen's heavy bolters, mounted on large tripods, roared to life and sent 1.00 caliber rocket propelled shells ripping into the schoolchildren, their bodies being blown apart in as bloody of a manner as possible. Fragmentation rounds from the shells splattered out and sliced apart limbs and cut open skin, letting the organs spray out and cover other weeping whimpering children, and only now could John see that the graves were already filled with their parents.

This was why the forces of Chaos were the heart and soul of the destroyers, the praetorian guard that had survived the downfall of Bleck' Army, the Space Pirates, and the Dread Cybertronians before them. They were ruthless beyond all belief.

One weeping girl was forced down by a chaos guardsmen, being smashed to the ground by the butt of his lasgun, making her look down at the corpse of what could be recognized as her brother, and she was being forced to eat it by the guardsmen, who took sick delight in their act of utter depravity while artillery shells screamed overhead the thunderhawk gunship they were riding in and slammed into the gilded walls of the naboo city in a never ending rain, continuing to fire even though 95% of the city was nothing more than rubble just to watch it burn.

A force of gungans who celebrated as they held off a large force of ing could be seen, but within moments, a contingent of five hundred and twelve Khornate Bloodletter daemons teleported into their midst, the blood coloured daemons clutching their burning hellblades and screaming bloody murder as they chopped through thousands of gungan soldiers with laughable ease, turning the fields slick and red with their blood and viscerae before they charged into the convoy of refugees they were protecting.

The unarmed civilians never stood a chance against raw embodiements of battle fury and bloody death. John looked away, the screams that reached the thunderhawk were all he needed to perceive in order to know of their fate. A large force of native clone troopers tried to hold back a destroyer contingent, their blue blaster bolts frying the incoming ing, but their hope was quickly turned to nothing as a Chaos Banelord titan, a corrupted version of an Imperial Warlord Titan that stood over two thousand five hundred feet tall and packed more firepower than the entire modern day earth by orders of magnitude, thundered into view.

The machine lowered it's volcano laser to point towards the clone troopers, whose vehicles poured fire uselessly into the techno-organic daemon infested mountain of destruction while many of asphodel's spider and crabbed shaped woe machines skittered at the Banelord's feet, and John realized that these machines themselves were colossal, as were the Feral Warhounds and Chaos Reaver Titans that escorted the baneelord, a Chaos Titan Legion.

What must have been fifty thousand clone troopers were obliterated in a single earth shaking volley that blasted out an enormous molten crater into the land, temporarily blinding John, meaning that he didn't see the Banelord's defensive anti-aircraft guns turn towards the landing craft that carried the champions, he didn't know of this until the aircraft that were carrying the champions were blown out of the sky by a colossal amount of fire outpouring from the walking mountain.

The next thing John felt was a massive jolt as his landing craft received a direct hit from a battle cannon to it's cockpit, instantly killing the pilots and causing the vehicle to spiral downwards and slam nose first into the ground, shaking him and his friends out of his seat and forcing them to shove the back ramp down to escape the vehicle, where they got a view from the ground of the carnage.

This chaos assault on the last standing continent of Naboo was colossal in scale, supported by the full force of Heritor Asphodel's honour guard. The city in the distance, a different one from the shelled out wreck, had shields that glimmered over it, blocking a colossal rain on shells that slammed into it, causing the shimmering barrier to ripple and groan as fireballs blossomed all over it.

When he took a whif through his helmet's olfactory sensors, he immediately regretted the decision, as he smelled millions of rotting corpses, and he looked down and almost leapt back in horror, he was standing in the midst of thousands of mangled human, gungan, and other types of alien bodies. Many of them were charred and burnt, others were missing limbs, some were crushed and mashed, some were untouched save for the impossible expressions of ecstasy on their faces, some looked partially eaten.

The return fire from the naboo city was depressingly small compared to what the besieging forces were capable of pouring out against them. Against a foe native to their reality, it would have been formadible. Against a normal foe, it would have been effective. Against the destroyers, it was like poking a rampaging tank with a sewing needle.

John just looked around, mouth open in slackjawed horror as he just took in the sight before him, bodies everywhere as far as the eye could see, war on a scale that he didn't really get to see before. At least on Derse, the tall buildings hid most of it. But here, it was all in plain view. And it was horrible beyond belief.

If it weren't for his helmet's mufflers, he would have been rendered deaf by the unending cacaphony of the unceasing barrage. There were so many weapons of every type being fired that one could no longer hear the individual weapons being fired for all but the biggest guns. Rather it was several unending roars of unimaginable volume that ripped through the air, the shimmering blue hemispherical dome shield disappearing under a torrent of fireballs from crashing shells, laser beams, plasma bolts, melta jets, and missiles.

This was war as Heritor Asphodel preferred, it, mechanized and with an impossibly large number of heavy weaponry to pound anything in his way flat while corroding their will with his chaos magics before sweeping his foes away with massive numbers in a well orchestrated assault.

This was war as few had ever seen save for those native to the warhammer metaverse. The previous destroyer generals eschewed strategy and tactics once they thought they had won their initial brazen assault. Heritor Asphodel was a very different breed of Destroyer Commander, he was cunning, and used his overwhelming force to maximum advantage.

John immediately reached out and held Rose's armoured hand as the earth shuddered from the enormous roar of a volcano laser cannon from one of the arm mounts of a Bane lord titan, the enormous red arcs of energy slicing through the air and slamming into the multilayered hemispherical domeshields protecting the city while blaster bolts and missiles feebly returned fire, hitting it's void shields which flashed into view for a brief moment where they were impacted as they redirected the attacks into the warp.

And if the reports were being heard correctly, this was just the first wave of Heritor Asphodel's attack, and even then, it was only the preliminary bombardment, the champions would have to get inside the city to help it shore up it's defenses before the actual assault began. A tall order when Heritor Asphodel had cunningly placed teleporter jammers, rendering Jade unable to simply teleport them into the city.

BEGIN ACT VI: DAWN OF WAR.

Toad: Uh...

"Um, don't mean to alarm you, but... heh..." I said to John. "If you've got a plan, now would be a great time for us to switch to your plan--"

"Enough video game references! Let's knock some heads!" Daisy shouted.

That earned the attention of every force of Chaos on the battlefield. "Daisy, you are an idiot," I muttered to her.

"Back to old Act I, are we?"

"You know, this roleplay has no fourth wall."

"It doesn't because you keep breaking it--"

We were interrupted by a missile. "HIT THE DIRT!" I shouted. We all dove.

The projectile sailed above our heads and crashed into a wall.

That's when the giant robot on our side, the big metal iron giant, stomped toward the offender and squished it with one foot.

"Wow. We've got an unstoppable giant robot on our side. He's a defender," I noted.

I pulled out a glowing yellow rod. If I twisted it, it would expand into a bike, but if I looped it, it would turn into a Kart.

I pondered which I wanted. Karts go faster, but bikes are lighter and more agile. I weighed the choices.

"A little help, here?!" Vagineer shouted over the roar of his Sentry-bot.

"Don't worry!" Magolor shouted, piloting the Lor Starcutter down toward Vagineer and firing at the forces of evil that were trying to kill Vagineer (who by the way was invincible, you can't really kill a Vagineer).

Vagineer opened his mouth, and began to inhale vehicles. Kirby looked on, jealous. "Do not fret, Kirby, you shall soon learn to do that yourself," Meta Knight chided.

But Kirby wouldn't listen. He tried to outperform Vagineer by performing a Super Inhale on a small army.

He succeeded. His mouth was so big that he looked like a tank himself.

Kirby sloshed around in his mouth and spat out a gigantic flying, spinning star-shaped projectile. It was unstoppable. It mowed through tanks, walkers, crawlers... It just plowed through everything. Kirby huffed and puffed up his chest, as if to tell Vagineer to top that.

Vagineer nodded at Kriby. Meanwhile, the Sentry-bot was firing and firing bullets and missiles.

However, weird creatures began to appear all over the place. Mostly eyes with tentacles, giant floating lips, and other atrocities.

"What are those?!" I cried out.

All of a sudden, I found myself backed up by an army of tempura shrimp. A giant wizard was coming up to them with a bowl of rice and a pair of chopsticks. I watched in horror as the wizard chomped up the army like they were a lunch special. I realized that those were our guys! Orange Star soldiers! Sami was gaping in awe. I quickly spun the rod and it transformed into my Mini Beast. I hopped in the wheel and slammed into the tempura wizard. "I am never eating tempura again," I asserted.

Kirby ate the tempura wizard. He licked his lips. If any of our guys got turned into Tempura... I shuddered. Kirby wouldn't know if they were friend or foe, food is food to that guy.

A giant green flying whale floated into view, opening its gaping mouth and spawning more troops.

"Gah! These things are going to be trouble!" I shouted.

Daisy threw a pan into its mouth. The whale recoiled in pain.

Vagineer promptly fired into the whale's mouth, killing it. "Wait until PeTA gets a load of that!" Vagineer gloated.

MEANWHILE...

Wiggler turned around. He was greeted by a fat green guy with huge lips. Thanatos!

Wiggler glared at Thanatos. "Ho ho! So you beat Hewdraw? You're a tough little caterpillar, aren't you? Well, it's time for introductions. I'm Thanatos! It used to be 'Tanatos,' but I added the extra 'h', which stand for, 'HA-MAAAAZING!'"

Wiggler rolled his eyes.

"Oh, but let's see how clever this caterpillar really is! If you can find me, I'll give you a chance to beat me up! Not that you'll succeed, after all, you're just a big yellow bug!"

Wiggler went red in rage, and lunged at Thanatos, but the God of Death disappeared. He heard laughter echoing inside the castle.

Wiggler went into the castle in pursuit of Thanatos...

Mr. Doe. Wherever the hell Heavy and Vagineer went.

Mr. Doe found no reason not to folow his troops into a void of light. May as well- what did he have to lose? This was an enemy he coud not fight with conventional weaponry. Plus, the Whatever had started to get on his nerves, and the occasional "accident" to keep the thing in line was probably in order.

He jumped into the light portal, only to find himself minutes later stuck in a battlefield again. This was his kind of war, it seemed! No rest! Only fighting! And these enemies seemed susceptible to conventional methods of combat!

Doe glanced about, looking for something to absolutely annihilate, whipping out his rocket launcher, blood in his eyes. "Time to do some damage!"

A group of enemy... things, Doe wasn't ever sure EXACTLY what he was fighting, but as his men were in combat against them, he may as well contribute. He fired his rocket launcher wanton into enemy forces, a war cry ripping from his throat.

"HEEEEEAAAAAAAW! Come and get me, maggots! I am going to use your skins in a new hat!"

>Heritor Asphodel: Receive communication



Heritor Asphodel was in a decidedly good mood. The Daemon Prince's conquest of the Star Wars universe was proceeding apace. The yuuzhan vong had already surrendered and had been subsumed into the destroyer army, and his colossal attack force, built around a deadly and elite core of Chaos followers, had won victory after victory in the name of the dark gods and the emperor ing.

Stepping forward with his daemonic digitrade legs that ended in raptor like talons, all clad in his enormous baroque power armour, the destroyer Magister stepped forward, an automatic door in his command center; the Daemon Monolith; slid itself open to allow the six meter tall daemon thing to step through; his rust red armour gleaming in the blood coloured light as his guards, one of each kind of greater daemon, flanked him.

Walking with an evil sort of grace, he stepped forward and down a ramp that lead into the main war room of the fifty kilometer tall death machine, the soldiers present in his vehicle all stopping their activities to salute their magister as he passed through, flicking his cloak behind his back in a single swift gesture as he walked down the ramp, flanked by his imposing bodyguards.

His every step echoed through the metallic halls of his titanic vehicle, a true testament to his mind's intimate expertise with machinery. None could design better weapons and vehicles than he in his mind, and there was precious little evidence to the contrary. The magister's twinlinked autocannon and heavy bolter pistols remained within their holsters as he advanced forward.

As he advanced down the ramp, the forces that surrounded him broke into a dark choir, singing praises of his glory and his tactical genius. They recounted his countless victories over the forces of light, how he had defeated countless champion armies before and had even slain some of the lesser champions before. They heaped adoration upon his mechanical genius, and fed upon his ballooning ego.

As he advanced to the hololith, a tall, sexless, and horned humanoid that wore a mouthless bronze mask with slits for it's very human like blue eyes, clad in greek like bronze armour with a flowing cape that didn't seem to be fully attatched to it's body, walking on cloven hooves, stood at attention and saluted Asphodel as he walked by. "Arch-magister Asphodel." The Chaos creature stated in an echoing voice that was neither fully masculine nor feminine.

"Blessings of the Dark Gods be upon you, Desolane." Asphodel said chillingly in an impossibly deep and reverberating voice that seemed to be shouted out by a legion of agonized mouths in unison. The daemonoid nodded respectfully to Asphodel, standing before a host of similar if smaller creatures, Asphodel's personal lifewards.

Asphodel continued on, passing the Chaos Sorcerer Sindri Myr, who gave a curteous nod to the daemon prince. "Ah, I see that you await orders sorcerer...hmmm..." Asphodel asked, briefly tapping the base of his helmet before Sindri spoke on his own behalf. "If I may, Arch-Magister Asphodel, I wish to attatch myself to Jack Noir's "command" if that is to your liking, of course." He said with his impossibly smooth, winelike voice. "Granted, now, please, I have important matters to attend to." Asphodel said, dismissing him with a wave of his hand, prompting Sindri to bow out before teleporting away.

Appropriate listening:

As asphodel continued on, he went towards the circular table and tapped a few buttons with his lightning claw equipped hands, bringing forth a series of holographic images of fellow destroyer Magisters, those who had been granted a position of command. "Ah, greetings my fellows." He said smoothly despite outranking most of them with the title of Archmagister and Heritor.

A large number of nods soon came forth from other destroyer magisters, who served in the new court of the Supreme Emperor Ing. Sindri Myr soon appeared next to Jack Noir who seemed to jump a bit, startled at the sudden arrival of the Chaos Sorcerer. This brought Asphodel's armoured cowl clad gaze to shift towards the creature, amusement present beneath his helmet. "You seem to be surprised Archmagister Noir." Asphodel said cooly, his lightning claw crackling as he flexed it.

"Bah, shut up." Jack Noir said bitterly, a snarl forming on his snout. "Show respect to the heritor." Archmagister Deathshead admonished, a sneer forming on his flaming skull head. His aide, Magister Kronen, as always remained deathly silent. "Indeed Jack, you would be wise not to overstep your boundaries." Archon Nagash rasped, the enormous lich lord's voice seeming to have the chill of death about it.

"Grr...fine..." Jack Noir snarled before the Condesce rose to his defense. "T)(is infig)(ting is doing not)(ing to advance our cause. Seriously Arc)(magister Asp)(odel you're a reely pomptapus ass. Just because you can make all t)(ese fancy war o)( I forgot WO-E MAC)(IN-ES doesn't make you better." This caused Asphodel to sneer in disapproval before laughing. "I would watch your tongue very carefully Xeno. You never know how long you may keep it." Sindri said with no small amount of relish, causing the Condesce to hiss at him.

"In any case, the champions seem to have discovered our little...endeavor in the 070412 Primax Star Wars universe." Asphodel said calmly, rearing up a bit and flipping his cape to his left shoulder. "Finally some fucking action, I'll deal wit)( t)(ese ass)(oles." The Condesce said flippantly "Very well, Archmagister Meenah." Asphodel said, knowing the usage of her actual name really got under her skin. She shot him a death glare before he deactivated the holoscreen laughing while the alternian military got into position to hold off the champions.

In the meantime, as Meenah looked to her own warplans, Sindri and his personal bodyguard of chaos space marines appeared before the condesce, causing her to nearly flip the fuck out. "Don't surprise me like t)(at!" She shouted at him while her highblood guards lowered their weapons down at Sindri. "Oh, I do so sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, but I am here to offer you a deal." Sindri said wickedly, and the condesce had her soldiers lower their weapons in order to listen.

"Okay w)(at, you've got my attention." She asked curiously, folding her arms, and the sorcerer smiled beneath his helmet, razor sharp teeth baring were they not hidden behind it. "Oh, I offer an alliance. I will help provide your soldiers with access to the power of Chaos, and the location of the champions to fight them. All I ask in return, is your participation in a plan of mine that will make us all so very, very powerful, I shall even let you have command; to an extent." He almost whispered out in as seductive a tone as he could manage,

"Power you say? O)( I t)(ink I'm in. Tell me more sorcerer." She said, confident that she'd be in firm control over this operation. "Gladly. You see, this entire universe is an altar to the dark gods. Every death here will further their power. And it is this power that we need to free a very powerful Daemon, the Malefactor, the other half of the Maledictor on the Daemon Court. And with this, we will release halves for the other members of the Daemon Court, and the byproduct of this release of energy...will be everlasting Daemonhood." Sindri said, knowing that sometimes the best ways to manipulate someone was to simply tell them the whole truth.

"Daemon)(ood...Yes...Yessss..." She said, almost tasting limitless power, becoming giddy and drunk at the prospect of becoming a mighty Daemon Princess. "Very good then...my sorcerers are already providing your men with the gifts of Chaos, and they should already be on the battle front. Remember, don't hold back, every death, theirs or ours, is important to our cause." Sindri concluded as he walked out and stepped into the warp, teleporting back to Jack Noir's position.

Viridi: Assert your dislike.

Ohhhh, it ticks me off!

Apparently, humanity isn’t the only race that screws with nature. Throughout the Omniverse, many squelch nature in favor of development, and disrupt the natural flow.

Well, it’s time to show that nature can bite back!

“Forces of Nature! Attack!” I shouted to my army. They began to float up into the air (the ones that could, anyway) and sped into numerous portals.

MEANWHILE...

The Aurum knew it was time to make their move.

Chaos throughout the Omniverse. It was a perfect opportunity to rise and consume while the Omniverse was occupied with the Dimensional Clash. All shall fall to the Aurum.

The Aurum hive mind began to pour out numerous troops, spitting out metallic creatures (if you can even call them creatures) and sending them toward the Coalition and Destroyers.

Toad: Kick some wumpus in the grumpus!

I realized that the Chaos guys are much tougher to beat (by the whims of the players---

Now hold on, Toad, you know we’re not supposed to break the fourth wall!

Sorry.

Um, anyway, I tried my best to beat up a tank with a hammer. Nothing happened. I was thinking numerous nasty words about those vehicles that I couldn’t say out loud.

Kirby inhaled some bombs from a giant flying moustache-glasses disguise, and became Bomb Kirby. Then he went super and flipped into the air.

The bangle on his bomb hat exploded into a spiky puff, as the hat elongated and a scope flipped out. Kirby held up something that looked like a massive H-bomb.

“He is now... Nuke Kirby!” Meta Knight said.

“Does that mean we should probably move?” I asked.

“Do not worry. The name is an exaggeration. They are not really nuclear explosives, but they are very powerful bombs.”

Kirby tossed a pseudo-nuke at a tank. The thing exploded and part of the tank crumpled. Kirby then picked up two bombs at once and hurled them at one of those new forces (I’m told they’re called the Underworld Army?) and exploded it.

The tempura wizard cast a tempura spell on Kirby, but Kirby inhaled the spell and swallowed, as if it were real tempura. Kirby rubbed his tummy and threw a bomb at the Tempura Wizard.

However, a portal appeared, and several geometric forces appeared. Spinning triangles! Giant pixels! These huge white barrel-type things!

They began to fire upon the Destroyers.

“Oh, good reinforce-ACK!!!!” I said, when a barrel rolled over me. I was flattened like a pancake.

Mario ran over and blew into my mouth. I reinflated.

I had to duck to avoid one of those triangles. “These aren’t reinforcements! They’re not on anybody’s side!!!” I cried.

Colonel Pluck blasted fire on them and several began to burn. Meanwhile, Mole Miner Max worked on plowing through a group of Underworld guys.

All of a sudden, a fireball streaked toward us. Inside was the figure of a man. “Have no fear, Pyrrhon’s here!” shouted a manly voice.

“Whoa! Who are you?!” I shouted. “Do you lead these guys?”

“Of course not! Pyrrhon does NOT like the Aurum! They’re a race of chaos! Born from nothing, and bring nothing to all. But I’m here to burn ‘em out!” Pyrrhon flexed his arms. “And with Pyrrhon here, the Aurum don’t stand a chance!”

“You think we can trust this guy?” I whispered to Kate as Pyrrhon blasted fire at the Aurum.

“As long as he can beat up these mutant geometry tests, it’s fine with me,” Kate replied.

Pyrrhon flew into the air and created a ring of fire around a group of Aurum, Chaos forces, and Underworld units. He brought his arms together and those guys exploded (though the Chaos forces were significantly less fried than the others).

“I am Pyrrhon! The god of the sun!” As he said that, he seemed to glow brighter. Pyrrhon let loose a stream of fire at a group of Destroyers. The weaker ones were picked off.

“With the Aurum occupied with Pyrrhon, I think we should be able to focus back on the Destroyers,” Meta Knight said.

“Then let’s KICK SOME HAINIS!!!!” I shouted.

>Legions of Chaos: Attack

Appropriate listening:

The entire sky of the world of Naboo flashed countless weird colours, even more oddly than the typical perpetual night of the omniverse now that the ing had taken over. It was as if the clouds now glowed a cold, eerie iridescent blue and purple. Not only could the Ing materialize anywhere at any time, but so could the forces of Chaos, which were becoming ever more prominent in the destroyer army.

Sensing a mass formation of Aurums, warp portals began to tear themselves open before them, letting a horde of Chaos Guardsmen spill forth with their tanks and vehicles. Now while the guardsmen were merely "normal" humans, and thus lacked the awe inspiring individual prowess of the Chaos Space Marines, but they had numbers, and very powerful tanks.

Supported by the zealous and insane rabble of the Chaos Heretics and Cultists, they moved forward, with large masses of Ing at their side, and the Alternian Army coming forth with them, in addition to other destroyer armies, which were almost all showing the mutative touch of Chaos if not outright daemonic or ing possession as well as daemons in the warpflesh.

While the lesser destroyers certainly made up the majority, Chaos Space Marines could be seen amidst this destroyer force, enough to make it known that there would be serious trouble. "We got to retreat! We can't hold against that many destroyers!" Sylux said, urging the champions to follow him as the cackling destroyer hordes launched into a frenzied assault against the forces of Nature and the Aurums.

A Chaos General clad in tainted carapace armour, his face hidden by a spiked gas mask spattered red with blood, his left hand in a master crafted lightning claw with an attached plasma pistol and his right in a master crafted chainfist with a inferno pistol, his body augmented with cybernetics and chaos mutations, an imposing figure named Vateriar Cruoris, a general in the elite Khornate Blood pact, consisted of traitor guardsmen who unlike most chaos forces, knew what they were doing and knew it very well.

With a single command, the vicious general pointed forward, signalling the forces of the Destroyers to launch their attack while the champions broke ranks and made for the city of Theed, leaving the armies of Nature and the Aurums to suffer the wrath of the destroyers. The aurums, who had up til this point, fought chaos cultists and heretics who knew little in the way of tactics or discipline and possessed equipment that was by the Imperium's standards, outdated, were being caught down by the disciplined and accurate fire of the blood pact while the ing launched their attacks and began to possess them en masse.

When faced with the forces of nature, the blood pact brought the sky crashing down upon them in a enormous artillery barrage meant to tear them apart from range before their heavy weapons teams and tanks rolled in to pummel their positions with long ranged heavy weapons. Soon, lascannon beams, heavy bolter rounds, autocannon shells, battlecannon ordinance, plasma cannon orbs, punisher gatling cannon bullets, and other forms of rounds began to pour in from quite a long range in a coordinated barrage, aiming at their large units to blow them apart.

In the meantime, groups of snipers who had so far been hidden, took shots at the leaders of Nature's army with their deadly longlas rifles, sending stabbing beams into the distance and blowing out the brains of many of Viridi's generals while gore mages, Khornate Psykers and Sorcerers that Khorne allowed because he felt that their enhanced capacity for slaughter outweighed his inherent distaste of psionics and magic, hurled forth fiery orbs of flaming death with their minds while summoning forth daemons.

Daemonhosts, humans with daemons bound to them, granting the human incredible power at the cost of his mind, which was completely obliterated by the daemon, who while weakened by being in a mortal body, could remain in reality indefinitely, floated over, binding seals being the only thing covering their body along with spiked chains and piercings. Their Khornate devotion could be easily seen by the fact that their only other form of covering was red body paint that was obviously blood, and then they brought forth fiery destruction with their warp spawned powers while the Ing hurled themselves forward in vast numbers of both pure form ing and possessed darklings.

Gore mages quickly immobilized many of Viridi's creatures with their psionic powers and converted their bodies into living conduits into the warp, their forms ripping apart to summon forth Khornate daemons who wrenched themselves free into reality in a shower of blood and guts, the universally reddened daemons snarling for slaughter as they hurled themselves at the Aurums and Naturlings both. All around Viridi, a huge force of bloodletters stepped out of the warp to surround her, clutching burning hellblades that sliced through any form of matter with contemptuous ease, blades that they wielded with incredible finesse, savagery, rage, and skill.

Khornate aligned Alternian soldiers, indoctrinated into the Blood Pact by Arch-Archon Urlock Gaur, marched forward, their armour coloured various hues, with a distinctive preferene for red, to surround Viridi, their psions being turned into gore mages, while the rest wielded blood pact weaponry such as lasguns and flamers to bring forth heated devastation. Others were ing possessed and had a dark hue to them, along with random darkling mutations such as spines from their backs.

The Blood Pact had achieved total dominance, and unless Viridi fled and fled now, she would be slaughtered within moments of arrival by the fury of Khorne's followers, whose ing were coloured blood red to signify their primary devotion to Khorne, who stank of dried and decaying blood, whose tactics were surprisingly elite and thorough for those who followed a stereotypically tactless deity who embodied rage and savagery. She was outmaneuvered and outplanned within moments and if she did not flee to the embattled city of theed, Cruois, whose name meant Slaughterer, would add her skull to the skull throne.

>Rose: Lead retreat

Shooting away a bloodletter that charged towards her, rose spun around to bring around the quills of echidna to block an incoming swing of a sword from a khornate chaos cultist who seemed to forget that he even had a autopistol in his hand. Twisting around to knock the sword out of the hand of the cultist, Rose proceeded to blast out a crater in his gut, ripping through his flak armour and sending him down to the ground.

An orange star soldier tried to stop a bloodletter that charged at him with his assault rifle, but the bullets from the gun didn't even seem to slow the being, simply put, daemons had no vital organs to cripple or harm, they'd keep on fighting long after merely physical creatures would have gone into shock without any loss of combat ability up until they took enough damage to be banished back into the warp. Damage that the assault rifle simply couldn't do.

It's blue tongue lolling out of it's fanged mouth, the bloodletter howled and called forth seven more of it's bretheren who charged forth, burning hellblades swinging as they rammed straight into the orange star formation. Fifty orange star troopers were now caught by eight bloodletters, the blood coloured daemons lopping off limbs and spilling organs in a savage killing frenzy, showing them the wrath of the blood god as they ripped through an entire infantry unit before stepping into the warp and teleporting in front of a large contingent of clone troopers who were busy fighting off a mass of incoming warrior ing.

The bloodletters were joined in by seven other bloodletter formations, aided by thirty two flesh hounds, and eight bloodcrushers, bloodletters strong enough to mount a juggernaut of khorne, all lead by a mighty Bloodletter herald of Khorne, who rode upon a chariot and carried a wickedly sharp daemon axe. The thousand or so clone troopers, still busy with holding a rear guard action, only knew their doom had come when the khornate daemons were upon them.

Emerging from the warp, the daemons slaughtered the thousand clone troopers in an orgy of mindless violence that sent body parts flying in all directions as teeth, claw, and blade hacked through armour with ease, and a roar of savage fury went uluating across the battlefield as they continued their insane assault.

Looking away, Rose had to dodge under a chaos defiler's power claws as it swung out at her, leaving the claws to hit an hapless firewarrior and smash him into a blue pulp of foul smelling cobalt based blood. But Rose managed to clear a path to the base of the city while the blood pact ripped through the armies of the aurum and of nature, filling the fields with their blood for the blood god. Urging her friends forward into the shield, Fixer quickly ran up to one of the consoles of the curtain wall and hacked into it, briefly creating a gap that let the champions flee into the city of theed along with a large portion of their armies.

>Jack Noir: Command

Standing over a wookie corpse on the planet Kashykk, Bec Noir overlooked the landscape, his second in command sindri by his side. "What do you think Sindri?" he asked as he wrapped a tentacle around the neck of one Wookie, who struggled feebly to try and resist the vast strength of Jack Noir. "A fine specimen for ing possession, my lord." Sindri said calmly, to which Jack simply growled before turning back to the wookie and stabbing it through the chest with his blade.

Releasing the wookie corpse and allowing the gaseous cloud form on an ing to possess it, Jack walked down the bridge between Worshyrr trees with Sindri at his side. "So...this...daemonhood...if I have it...I'll never die?" He asked of Sindri, who simply nodded. "Of course my lord. If you are ever destroyed, you will merely reform in the warp, ready for vengeance." He said smoothly, grinning beneath his helmet as a uranium imp pulped a wookie with a single swipe of it's hands.

"Hmmm...and where is this artifact we need for the ritual?" Jack asked, focusing his pupiless gaze on the Chaos Sorcerer. "On this very world my lord. Which is why we need it intact." Sindri said calmly, his kai pistol lowered down to the ground, seeming to almost whisper his second sentence. As he spoke, the draconian dignitary caught up with the group and gave a slight bow to Jack. "That furball capital is under our control Boss." He said, giving a wary gaze to Sindri, not trusting the chaos space marine in the slightest before refocusing on Jack.

"Look, boss, why do you have that slimeball with you?" He asked, clutching his diamond tipped spear firmly. "Oh you wound me Droog. I have chosen to be under Jack's command as he is clearly the best suited for the job." Sindri answered with relish, smirking beneath his helmet as his words rolled smoothly off his tongue like a fine wine out of a bottle. "You're nothing but a lying snake." Droog said unhappily before Jack shut him up with a glare. "Sindri seems trust worthy Droog, maybe you're just worried he's going to replace you?" He informed him, cocking his head to the side.

Droog shook his head, but said nothing more. "Now I believe you have an artefact to find, Magister." Sindri informed him, casually holstering his kai-pistol, to which Droog growled before bowing out. "Now Sindri...what do we do when the enemy finds out about our plans?" Jack snarled out baring his teeth at the very thought of them." We will deal with that eventuality when it comes my lord. But under no circumstances are they to disrupt the ritual to break the seal around the artefact. But I am certain that the Condesce will buy us the time we need. Who knows, she may even succeed in stopping them. But they are a tenacious lot after all, Lord Noir." The Sorcerer responded with the utmost quiet confidence.

"Heh, that they are. And how will we know when we find this Artifact? This..." Jack said, tapping his chin as he tried to remember the name before snapping his fingers as the answer came to him. "This Dark Reaper." He said, looking straight into Sindri's optics. "Oh, believe me, you won't be able to miss it." Sindri responded with relish.

Mr. Jane Doe. The Battefield, under attack from the Forces of Chaos.

The battle that had started out fun was getting better and better. Mr. Doe heard a war cry and turned to see a new force that attacked everything in it's path on both sides. Doe noticed that these where the guys with those spider-things that he couldn't kill except with light, and he felt a massive rage well up inside of him.

"Dammit, boys! Those things are about to overrun us! Who's got a flashlight?!"

Even though he knew it was futile, Doe loaded his rocket launcher, preparing for the assault, blood in his eyes, face scrunched in defiance.

"Whatever! Heavy! Rally round! We can take them! We must hold this position! We must hold this position, dammit!"

Why they had to hold the position was beyond Mr. Doe, but it sounded official enough to get their attention.

Phosphora: Get Viridi out of there!

Lightning flashed. "Viridi! I'm coming!" I shouted.

Oh, yeah, by the way, that lightning? That was me. I'm Phosphora, the goddess of lightning.

Thunderbolts arced around the group that surrounded Viridi, not stunning them, but giving them enough of a shock that Viridi was able to get out of there.

However, a mushroom-headed boy stood in her way. Viridi knocked him out of the way with her staff, and vines began to climb up his frame. "HELP!" he shouted.

A giant brick lumbered over to the boy and used rough rocks to slice away Viridi's vines. I turned around and attempted to zap him.

"What? NOBODY ZAPS THE WHOMP KING!!!!" roared the brick. The Whomp King had already cut through the mushroom boy's bonds and was stomping toward me. My blue scarf crackled with lightning as I flew over him as a thunderbolt.

"Oh, you have to be faster than that," I teased.

That enraged the brick even more. "COME HERE, YOU!!!" The Whomp King charged at me full speed, hopped into the air, and attempted to crush me.

But then the Aurum forces began to circle us and attack both me and the Whomp King. I brought a thunderbolt down upon the Aurum and the Whomp King, but the electricity didn't seem to bother the giant brick.

Meanwhile, the mushroom boy had begun to scuffle with Viridi. "HEY! Who do ya think you are?!" he shouted. "People with manners don't bash people with sticks when they run from evil creatures! Haven't you heard the words 'excuse me' in your life before?!"

Viridi turned around. "People with manners don't run down goddesses!" she retorted. She swung her staff again and the mushroom boy fell to the ground. This time, four vines bound him to the ground as he struggled.

But then a crystal spire erupted from the ground in front of Viridi. A young woman in orange stood in front of Viridi. "Well, I don't usually have manners, don't I?" she said, before tackling Viridi.

Daisy: BWAAAAH

I slapped the goddess in the face. However, she knocked me back with her staff and pounced on me. I rolled her off and knocked her head into the dirt a few times. The goddess pushed me off and sent some of her flying acorns to attack me.

I snorted. "Acorns? Really?"

I pulled out a flamethrower from out of nowhere. "Wait, I just realized how incredibly stupid this is," I said, throwing the flamethrower into the water. "Where would I GET a flamethrower anyway?"

Okay, that was a bit comical... uh...

The acorns attacked. I batted them away with my forearm. "BACK YOU SAVAGES BACK" I shouted without any attention to proper grammar usage.

The acorns fell over. I tore out their wings. They attempted to roll around, blinking their huge eyes at me.

But then the Aurum began to swarm toward us. "They're too many!" the goddess shouted.

"Not for Pyrrhon!" Pyrrhon shouted confidently, blasting the geometric beasts. "Stand down, Aurum scum! For Pyrrhon shows no mercy!"

"Does this guy ever get annoying?" asked Toad.

The goddess nodded. We were all staring at Pyrrhon blowing up Aurum.

But then the forces of Chaos got to him. They fired their lasers and stuff, and Pyrrhon was forced to retreat. "A new force... one that I've never seen before," Pyrrhon noted, finally speaking in first person.

"Hey, if you guys haven't noticed," Kate said, "the others are heading for the hills. Let's go!"

I ripped the vines from Toad's arms and legs and dropped him into his car before hopping on the back. "This is just like Mario Kart Double Dash!!" Toad shouted, peeling off toward Rose and the others. Kate grabbed on to my dress as we fled. The car tipped backward. "WHOA!" Toad cried.

"MOTHERRRRRRR!!!!!" I screamed.

The Whomp King and his Whomps, I saw ascend into the Whomp Fortress. The ship followed us.

MEANWHILE...

Wiggler: Locate Thanatos.

Wiggler crept through the twisty corridors of Peach's castle, looking for any sign of Thanatos. Deeper and deeper he went, before finally he heard the laughter of the God of Death.

"Hee hee! He'll never find me!" Thanatos's voice said. Wiggler looked around and saw a painting that wasn't there before. It was an image of Thanatos blowing a raspberry.

Wiggler jumped into the portrait.

He found himself in a strange, pastel-tone temple that was ringed by water. However, it was slightly disorienting, as everything looked as if it were painted. Thanatos reclined on air. "How'd you find me?!" he cried, his eyes bugging out. "Ah, well, now that you did, how do you like the place? It's a copy of the Ocean Temple back in my home universe!"

Wiggler looked around and made a face of disgust.

"Well, the place has the grain of an artist, but who cares? It's a nice, private place for me to whoop your behinds."

And with that, Thanatos lunged.

God of Death

THANATOS

Wiggler fired his cannon at Thanatos, but Thanatos spun and became a snake. The serpent wiggled around Wiggler, but Wiggler jumped at Thanatos and pounded his midsection with the Bob-Omb cannon. Thanatos screeched in pain, his reptilian eyeballs bugging out. A segment of his body began to throb. Wiggler stomped on that part, and Thanatos transformed back to his normal self. Thanatos then turned into a cloud of bats and swarmed Wiggler. However, Wiggler tried to bat them away.

He smacked the head bat with his glove and Thanatos transformed again. He turned into a jar and attempted to squash Wiggler.

He succeeded in bouncing off and making Wiggler angry. Wiggler turned red with rage and shrieked at Thanatos, before barreling toward him like a freight train.

Wiggler bounded into the air and smashed Thanatos in the face, but Thanatos barreled around and spat skulls at him. Wiggler knocked them back in a fit of rage, and they smacked Thanatos in the face. He transformed into a sword and attempted to slash at Wiggler. Several spears flanked his sword form and Thanatos sent them flying at Wiggler, hoping to skewer him into a caterpillar kebab.

Wiggler had no intention of becoming a caterpillar kebab, and so ran out of the way of the spears. He pulled one out and it began to wriggle in his hand. He realized that these guys were part of Thanatos as well.

He stuck it in the ground and hid behind it, and when Thanatos slashed at him, Wiggler dashed back.

Thanatos struck the spear and it disintegrated. Meanwhile, the sword staggered backward, trembling.

More spears assaulted Wiggler. He dodged and ducked behind them. Thanatos attempted to get at him. Apparently, Thanatos wasn't very smart, as he fell for it again, dissolving the spears.

Dodge, duck, dodge, duck. The cycle repeated until Thanatos emerged from the sword, panting. "Uncle! Uncle!" he wheezed.

Wiggler angrily jabbed the cannon into his gut, knocking the wind out of Thanatos. He coughed and slammed into a pillar, which comically crushed him.

Thanatos's head popped out from underneath. "Rage quit!" he cried. "RAGE QUIIIIIT!!!!!"

He dissolved in a cloud of darkness. Wiggler's head began to spin. His normal yellow color returned.

Wiggler found himself sprawled on the red carpet. Still loopy, Wiggler put one hand to his forehead, before shaking vigorously and regaining his bearings. He went to the castle courtyard and found that all of the Underworld forces had gone. He wiped his forehead in relief.

Heavy: Da. YES!

"Da, Soldier! Ve must hold!!!" I shouted in agreement. I whipped gun toward the forces of chaos. "EEEYEAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! MOVE! WE PUSH CART BACK!!!!" I shouted, but I do not know why I say stuff about the cart, even though there is no cart.

But the Ings! They do not falter! Instead, they attack, slashing us with their blood red talons. "Oh, this is bad!" I cried.

Vagineer shouted, "C'mon, fellas! This is all for nothin', they're invincible to all of our stuff, and even if I did have a flashlight, they'd still overwhelm us! What's one tiny work flashlight against the Ing Horde? We gotta follow the kid!"

Vagineer turned and ran toward Rose.

"Soldier, I think Vagineer is right... But we should turn around and keep firing in case! Keep them back, Soldier!" I shouted, firing Sasha at the Destroyers while backing up slowly toward Theed.

Viridi: Bring your forces back.

They're devastating nature! These guys have no respect for the natural order. "Forces of Nature! GET BACK HERE!!!!" I ordered.

My forces retreated, still firing at the Aurum that gave chase. I pointed my staff at them and my nature magic caused a wall of vines to erupt from the ground and block them.

Phosphora joined at my side. "Those... guys... are... nuts..." she gasped.

"No, our guys are nuts," I said to her. We retreated... for now.

Mr. Doe. The battlefield.

((Appropriate listening?))



The vagina-faced thing was really starting to piss of Mr. Doe. He turned around and gave it a punch to what on a face would be it's nose, but was something seemingly dirtier on this particualr Engineer.

"Never! RED team never falters! I will not fall back to a bunch of dog-loving anarchist spi- Guh!"

Doe took a red claw to the back, to which he responded by blasting the Ing responsible in the face with his launcher. No effect, but it got them off his back, which was now stinging like crazy.

"Aaaaargh! V-Very well, men, I hate to say it, but we have to fall back!... Alright, numbnuts! Let's push these croissants back! Cover the retreat! Cover iiiiiiiit! Eeyah!"

He turned around with a grunt of pain and fired the other three shots in his launcher at will, then, not waiting to reload, Mr. Doe pulled out his shotgun, one-hand pumping it before blasting into the horde.

George: HANDSOME VOLCANO ROCKS!

And now a little word from our sponsor.

"Drink tasty Volvic! Rain filters down through my handsome volcano rocks to create a WILD mineral water, that grabs life by the conkers and hydrates you 'til you shout 'COME ON, WORLD! I'll have you for breakfast!!!!'"

Okay, George that's a wrap.

"Brilliant!" I say. "Now THAT will draw the customers in! Who could resist the pull of tasty Volvic?! Speaking of Volvic, it's time to give my clients a bit of a gift!"

I tensed like I had to hold in my conkers. Then I let loose a gigantic stream of water that poured into a rift above me.

Toad: Get hit with a bottle.

So this is Theed? Sounds like "Thneed." Those things that the Once-ler weaved in that one book?

Anyway, ONE DAY I WAS WALKING ALONG WHEN--- Ow! Was that a bottle?!

I held it in my hand. "Volvic Revive..." I read. I turned to the ingredients. "Well, well, it appears we have a friend from beyond," I said, popping the cap and taking a swig. "Hey, not bad. I do feel hydrated."

"Toad, what're you drinking?" Adeleine asked curiously.

"Volvic, apparently. It's some sort of mineral water, I guess," I said.

"Oooh! Oooh! Can I have a waterfall?" asked Adeleine.

I couldn't resist. What a cute kid. A shame that she was pulled into this war with the rest of us. Sometimes I feel like a not special soldier, like a guy that's just there to get creamed by a Chaos guy so that Optimus can get a crack at it.

Er, don't tell him I said that.

I popped the cap again and poured some of the Volvic into Adeleine's mouth. Good thing she was wearing a smock. It doesn't help that the kid was taller than my reach. Dag nabbit, why'd Toads have to be so darn small?!

Adeleine thanked me and sat next to me. "When is this over?" she whined.

"When we beat up whoever's controlling those guys. It's probably that... guy..." I replied, struggling to remember the name. "What was it? Troxyblaghtphm... no, Boxyblaghtphm... no,Troxyblagmahvigh or something."

Adeleine was laughing. "Not my fault his name is unpronouncable!!!" I complained.

>Champions: Prepare a spirited defense

Stepping into the city of Theed, the champions and their soldiers garnered a great deal of hushed awe as they deployed en masse within the city, to prepare it for the oncoming storm. "This reminds me of the battle of the Elysian Gates back in the time war." The Doctor said as he adjusted his sonic screwdriver, looking at the Condesce led armies out in the distance, the ominous hulk of the Daemon Monolith far off in the distance, cracking yet another of the Naboo fortress cities with it's colossal pyramidion mounted plasma cannon.

There was something of a lull in the fighting as the destroyers were currently chasing after the forces of nature and the aurum to keep them away from their flanks while they busied themselves with mustering in enough force to begin their full scale assault on the city. Destroyers of all stripes could be seen in their mustering fields, outside of the field of rubble that used to be Theed's suburbs, blasted apart by the intense artillery barrage that the forces of the destroyers used to begin this assault.

With the arrival of the champions, theed's counterbattery fire became considerably more effective, with imperial, tau, eldar, republic, orkoid, orange star, and various other modern armies providing their heavy and not so heavy ordinance for return fire, which while still dwarfed by the oncoming barrage thrown forth by the destroyers, still managed to give them some pause for thought. As Optimus looked out, Chapter Master Gabriel Angelos, elected leader of the Space Marine contingent, went up to Optimus.

"Our orbital auspexes suggest that the enemy is preparing a three wave assault lead by the Alternian ruler known as the Condesce, while the enemy has the strength of numbers, most of them are crazed and corrupted by the Ing and the worship of the foul shadow beasts. They will lack discipline as the more elite are being withdrawn to deal with the newly arriving creatures and the majority of other coalition forces." The Space marine chapter master said, clutching his daemonhammer godsplitter tightly as space marines began to man the wall along with their comrades in arm.

Vast imperial titans, eldar wraithkings, and ork gargants gathered in the city, prepared to mount a spirited defense while their enormous crawlers, tracked tanks as large as titans, began to rumble through the streets to create a unbreakable defensive lynchpin. The forces of the champions below swarmed in limitless variety as they began to set up a defense in depth. Inner layers of shielding were being set up to reinforce the defenses of the city while trenches and fortifications were being created within the noble settlement.

"Do you think the Condesce will retreat?" Optimus said as he looked down over a holographic war planning table that displayed the two opposing armies in three dimensional graphics. "I doubt it, the intelligence reports say that she's eager for a chance to prove herself and believes that she is invincible." Field Marshall Volkov responded, the communist commander looking over the battlefield map. "But we need to be absolutely sure of this, can we get some of the officio assassinorium in there to kill her without need for a pitched battle?" Lord General Castor asked, looking over the battlefield map with a keen strategic eye.

"She relies on a lot of psykers to root out shapeshifting assassins like the Callidius, and as she herself isn't psychic, the Culexus isn't suited to deal with her, and we can't get Vindicaires, Death Cultists, or Eversors in close enough. Death Watch Kill teams are having similarly little luck. Although we've managed to kill many of her lieutenants." Clone Commander Cody responded, bringing forth a sweeping gesture that also brought up symbols that represented Republic ARC trooper teams and Clone Commando squads.

"Our pathfinders have reported that the Condesce herself is undergoing symbiosis with a powerful ing noble, she'll be significantly tougher to deal with than is typical for her species." Autarch Kayleth pointed out, the Eldar commander seeming unpertrubed by this development. The colossal Gorgutz, as tall as a warhound class titan, stood on the ground behind the wall and looked over the data. "If Iz lookin' at dis right...da really killy veehiclez ain't gonna show up dat much in da first wave." The ork Warlord mused, tapping his metal plated chin.

"An astute observation Gorgutz, but I am most worried about their titans and daemons. We will need to make good usage of our anti-daemonic equipment to deal with their greater daemons and daemon princes before they can break our lines for the ing to pour in." Shas'O'Ra'Lai said, clad in his large and powerful XV9 Hazard battlesuit.

And there went on the strategic meeting, where a cleverly planned defense was set up that was designed to lure in the condesce to her death. If they could kill one of the destroyer arch-magisters, it would put a severe dampener on destroyer morale, breaking their belief in their own invincibilities.

The Aurum did not retreat. They never retreated. What were they but robots controlled by a hive mind? They rolled off the assembly line like cars. They were cold, calculating, and unfeeling machines with no regard for life, that spawn from nothing and threaten to bring everything back to nothing.

But for now, they were getting their shiny metal butts whooped by the Destroyers.

But then things began to go wrong for some of them. A car was picked up by several Tribytes. The triangular creatures struggled to kidnap the vehicle. "Hey! PUT ME DOWN!" cried the car, but to no avail. They began to lift troops and carry them off to space. But the unfeeling Destroyers, did they care? Of course not. They're the bad guys. They never care. All they ever do is kill people and !?%$# to cartoon equestrians.

Um, which isn't to say that all of the cartoon equestrian fan base is a villain, or quite frankly, !?$#@s to their paragons. We're just talking the villains here. Um, I'll shut up now. Let's not corrupt the young minds, shall we?

Now, the Destroyers successfully took down the Aurum that lagged. The only reason most of 'em fled was because they had other things to tend to... other plans...

Fillmore: THE FALL.

I blinked my eyes. Were we still falling?

I heaved a sigh. I was probably going to smash into the floor anyway. I turned around in midair. I saw the potato falling with me.

"Oh, hi. So how are you holding up? Because I'm a POTATO."

I heard slow clapping. "GLaDOS?" I asked.

"Yep. That's me. Oh, good, my slow clap processor made it into this thing. So we have that," GLaDOS sighed. "Since it doesn't look like we're going anywhere... Well, we are going somewhere. Alarmingly fast, actually. But since we're not busy other than that, here's a couple of facts."

"Okay, shoot."

"He's not just a regular moron. He's the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived. And you just put him in charge of the entire facility." More clapping.

"Well, he didn't seem like the brightest light on the dashboard."

"Hey, just in case this pit isn't bottomless... Wait, never mind."

"What?"

"I was hoping you had long-fall tires or something... you know, just in case this pit wasn't so bottomless. But quite obviously, you don't."

"So I'm going to die."

"No, you'll smash to pieces, groan in agonizing pain for a minute or two, then die."

I rolled my eyes. "Do you think we'll get lucky?"

"Who knows? I'm a potato."

I got an idea. I reached out toward the potato and gave it a nudge. GLaDOS eased toward the wall, and...

"OW! OOF! OW! OW!" I heard the electronic yelps of pain. I caught GLaDOS in my door. "You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that."

"No, I can't," I said.

"I don't blame you. Actually, I do. You're the reason I'm a potato. So what do you have in mind?"

I leaned back, pushing my rear engine downward to create a bit of a spinning force. Then I wiggled through the air, hoping to change my falling path to be a little bit closer to the wall.

When I felt the tingling on my tires, I began to spin my rear wheels upward. I faced the top of the gaping pit and touched down on the wall.

The initial shock almost knocked me off. I spun my tires in fourth gear in an attempt to drive back up the wall. I knew it was futile, but driving up the wall was just the motion I needed to slow down.

"Sometimes, you really drive me up the wall. Ha ha," GLaDOS quipped.

"Finally, you say something mildly amusing," I said.

"I could sing."

"Please don't."

I continued to spin my tires, bringing my front wheels forward every time I felt myself lean back. I turned my steering wheel, applied the brakes, anything to slow down inch by inch.

I noted the gel on the walls. "Is this some sort of dumping bin?" I asked. "I thought it was an elevator shaft!"

"No, we hit the bottom of the shaft a while ago," GLaDOS said. "In fact, this is where we pump all the unused gel."

I nodded. The gel seemed pretty viscous. I felt myself slowing way down.

Minutes later, I rolled to a stop at the very bottom of the shaft, before halting with a "TUNK!" on the floor.

"That was rather anticlimactic," GLaDOS judged.

"Shut up. I could turn you into tater tots any time I like."

Mr. Doe. The battlefield. Retreating...



Mr. Doe does not like to retreat. Yet here, it was totally neccesary. The enemy was about to overwhelm the pitiful defense that he and his troops put up. The soldier threw off his beret.

"Men! If any of you fall, I will inform your next of kin, I can gaurentee at least that!"

He stopped swinging his shovel (for he was out of ammo) to turn to Heavy and Whatever.

"Heavy, is there anything in particular that you would want me to say to your four sisters? Whatever, I don't know what depth of hell-vag you come from, but what do you want me to say to-"

Suddenly the soldier tripped over what looked to be a gun of some sort. He quickly shot up and noticed the advanced appearance of this weapon. Maybe it was a lazer gun. This battlefield was all sorts of screwed up-

Wait. Lazers! Lazers means light!

"Men! Find some of these and pick them up!" Mr. Doe shouted, grabbing the gun (more like struggling with picking it up, it was somewhat heavy) and firing haphazardly into the horde, and then crying out in triumph as the Ing fell like cattle.

"Hahahaha! Give 'em hell, boys! HAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

---

Alan Wake. The Well-Lit Room.



As a writer, one of my secret pleasures is to write with characters created by others, putting them in unusual situations. The sequel to Departure was coming along slow, and I needed a writing exercise.

As I wrote, however, a rift appeared in the well-lit room. A cry escaped my lips- I assumed the Dark Prescence could not penetrate the Well-Lit Room!

But I sensed something. This wasn't the work of the Prescence. It was something even more powerful. That was how it broke into the Room. And if it was more powerful then the Prescence... that meant that it could potentially eliminate it for all time.

But if it was more powerful then the Dark Prescence... it had to potential to be just as evil. Still, I had weakened the Prescence, and something about this rift gave the impression that it was otherworldly. It was highly unlikely that it would return us to the "real" world.

I walked into the portal, unsure of where I would end up...

((I'll let you guys choose where Alan ends up, unless you guys don't feel like it.))

Heavy: PUSH THEM ALL BACK!!!!!

EEEEYYAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

I pick up electrical lighty weapons! I fire at Ing! THEY ARE ALL DEAD!!!! AHAHHHHH!!! HA HA!!!!

“Keep crying, babies!” I shouted. I fired weapons at them, not stopping! Heavy Weapons Guy does NOT STOP!!!!! I whip my yarn arms at the Destroyers to steal some weapons and then toss them into floor! Now there are unarmed babies! Panic! HA HA HA!!!!!

“I am HERO!” I shout.

Bullets pass right through me. I do not have tangible form but my outline. “INCOMIIIIING!!!!!” I shouted, picking up laser weapon again. “NEWWWW WEAPON!!!!!!”

Vagineer make sentry out of laser weapons and it is deployed. “Whoo-ee! Makin’ bacon!” he hollered.

“WE PUSH CART BACK!!!!” I screamed at top of lungs.

I am at top of world! They are keeping away from us! And they generally stay away from Pyrrhon, the fire sun god! He makes his own light!

“Pyrrhon senses danger, and Pyrrhon LIKES it!” Pyrrhon cheered, blasting fire at the Ing. The lights weakened them for our conventional weaponry. “Ha-ha, ha!”

I fire precious Sasha now that Pyrrhon is weakening the Ing. “We make good team!” I shout to Pyrrhon.

“Pyrrhon always enjoys helping the citizens!” Pyrrhon calls back. “NOW! Back, you savages!” he says, turning to the Destroyers.

Alan Wake. The Mushroom Kingdom...

After what seemed like an eternity, I emerged from the portal that had been created by what I was now calling the Mysterious Presence. Where I ended up was... unusual, to say the least.

There was light everywhere, a wondrous change from the general dimness and darkness of the Well-Lit Room, but it hurt my eyes at first. The portal had let me out walking as opposed to dropping me into this place, so I continues to walk as I observed my surroundings like a badger crawling out of his hole.

They where... colorful. Colors where everywhere like a child's painting. In the distance, I could see massive mushrooms and blue pill-shaped hills, and there was a sort of castle as if out of a fairy tale. I was walking on a dirt path which was surrounded by grass and trees, and it was all as if I had taken something I shouldn't have (and wouldn't under normal circumstances). But I felt that this was reality. Reality of some sort.

I then realized that I was in another universe, perhaps a fictional one, and that perhaps the fictional worlds we create in our minds add to a massive pool of universes. I began to imagine the possibilities of this- no wonder the Dark Presence wanted a writer. It could create universes at will...

I found myself walking alongside a sort of caterpillar creature, with it's many feet covered with shoes. I tapped the closest abdomen, unsure of what could happen as a result, but I was so taken by my surroundings that this was the least of my surprises.

"Excuse me... uhm, sir?" I enquired. "Where am I?"

Mr. Doe. The battlefield.

A few of the bullets that had missed the Yarn Heavy hit Mr. Doe, but this only added to his fury. As his weapon ran out, he threw it away, screaming his war cry above the violence.

"You're all getting DOMINATED, Bilbo Baggins!... Barblo Bigguns?... Bumble Buffins?... Nevermind! Domination! DOMINATION! HEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"

The fire thrown down by Mr. Sun God prompted Doe to pull out his shovel and chase the enemy, but he knew that this firepower was limited.

"Whatever! You seem to be close enough to an Engineer... deploy a Dispenser here! We need ammunition!"

He continues his rampage, hoping that he would be allowed his rocket launcher, and only paused to pick up his beret that he had thrown earlier. Now he felt equipped, but he was still naked without rockets...

Wiggler: Attempt to respond.

Wiggler wasn't sure what to make of him.

The man in front of him was obviously human. Wiggler, unfortunately, did not speak English. Though the caterpillar was very intelligent, Wiggler still could not speak, but only make light noises. Wiggler saw a newspaper float by. He grabbed it. Lucky him. It was the MUSHROOM KINGDOM TRIBUNE.

Wiggler pointed at the words "MUSHROOM KINGDOM" and motioned around him with his free arms.

Wiggler then gave the newspaper to the human (looking over it himself first, seeing if it was recent and if it dictated current events).

Some days, Wiggler wished it could talk, for instance to assert his anger at being jumped on. Other times, he was glad he couldn't talk, otherwise he would treat people to an array of colorful language.

This was one of those moments where Wiggler wished he could speak.

Vagineer: Erect a dispenser.

"Got it, Soldier," I said. "Erectin' a dispenser!"

I pulled out my toolbox and bashed a dispenser kit. That's how we build in the South: clangin' and bangin' and hopin' it comes out right. Though it helps if ya got a degree.

"Alrighty, then! Dispenser's up! Git over here, there's bound ta be some ammunition in here," I called.

Pyrrhon flew over us. "Pyrrhon needs no ammunition. Pyrrhon IS ammunition! Just check out these guns!" Pyrrhon flexed. Behind my goggles I rolled my eyes.

I then built a sentry (using the constant stream of metal coming from the dispenser) to accompany my first one (because the Team Fortress rules don't apply here. Who's watchin'?)

"Heh-heh! Back in ol' Team Fortress I was only allowed ONE sentry!" I quipped. "Now I've got a giant robot Sentry, a laser Sentry, and a plain ol' sentry!"

As if called, the Sentry-bot clanked over and fired streams of missiles, bullets, and dangerous toys at the Destroyers.

"Ha-ha! Now that's what I call defense!"

[S]Siege of Theed: Day 112, 28 days since champion arrival

Appropriate listening:

With the deployment of the champions, the entire city of theed had been turned into a impregnable fortress, with copious usage of Soviet, Allied, and GDI MCV technology to rapidly build a massive series of walls, shields, bunkers, pillboxes, towers, forts, and automated defense weaponry. The shield had been pushed upwards, stopping about three kilometers meters above the city, from which an enormous black wall made out of solid Adamantium stood. The curtain wall. Five walls stood in cocentric rings that went around the city, each with it's own layer of shielding, the cutrain wall had all sorts of guns, both manned and unmanned, both bunkered and not, on it's surface, while enormous towers reached out, bristling with heavy weaponry.

At key points, the wall jutted outward to make for a massive castle like fortress with the very heaviest guns they could fit on planetside. The technologies and other abilities of virtually all the myriad armies within the coalition were combined together to make for a seamless combined arms defense. Out to the seaside, a large series of seawalls and sea forts stood out with equal vigil, while a proud water fleet supported by native gungan auxillia was laid in waiting.

A massive air force was prepared at the beck and call of the champions to provide the critical air support that would be needed in the battle, while the MCV rapid fab technology allowed the defenders to have as much supplies as they needed. Starving them out was not an option the Destroyers had, and it wasn't one they weren't going to use. For twenty eight, Heritor Asphodel had supplied the Condesce's army with with his deadly woe machines and other sorts of equipment, and Magister Meenah used her own MCV units to build up her army to a vast level.

In the area between the two forces, was a burning hellscape of a no man's land where fireballs from the sky careened into the ground and exploded like artillery shells, corpses laid strewn about with rubble, and fire was present in all forms. No untainted form of life survived there, the plants had long ago withered away, the rivers had become red with blood, and the entire suburb and rural landscape was burning to some degree or another.
Lord Field Marshall Castor, who most looked to as the overall strategic commander for his experience in this kind of warfare, looked down and checked that his ancient power sword, crackling and glowing blue around it's metal blade, was working, before looking to his sniper rifle. A series of soldiers looked out from their binoculars, seeing the burnt out landscape before them, the skies having turned a bizarre multicoloured hue with the dual powers of Chaos and the Ing, constantly flashing from Black and Purple, to Sickly Green, to Extravagantly Violet, to Blood Red, to Mystic Blue, but the light conditions were never more than overcast.

"This reminds me of the siege of vervunhive...except I don't quite remember this much waiting." Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt said as he looked out over the horizon with Castor. "Yes, back when things were simpler, the imperium against everyone else. Though many of the enemies are still rather much the same." Castor said, notting the presence of Chaos and the Dark Eldar with great disdain.

"They have Chaos tainted Orks and Tyranids over there too, along with ing possessed ones, and it looks like they've got Kraid here." Clone Commando Sev reported after giving them a quick overview with his scope. "If I'm right, Kraid is the supreme commander of the space pirate forces now after the Generalissimo, Ridley's, and Igzvald's death." Colonel Fordo responded, looking out with his magnoculars.

"Can't say that the ing and chaos have done much for the fat guy's looks." Sylux said in as deadpan a voice as he could manage. "oh god you mean kraid found a way to get uglier?" John said with a laugh that tried and failed to disguise his nervousness. "Bah, they're still cannon fodder." Grimlock said dismissively before he was cautioned by Kayleth. "Don't be so foolish as to dismiss them, they still possess vastly greater numbers as our allies are on other fronts." The Eldar said with a scowl. "Da more gitz dey bring, da more lootin' and fightin' I getz!" Bluddflagg said enthusiastically.

"Well at least someone's looking at this positively." Fordo sarcastically breathed out as he checked to see if his pistols were in prime condition. Merrick ran some last checks on his beloved autocannon, Jade flipped through her ammo packs, Optimus pulled on the pump action of his guns, and so on so forth. They were now as ready as they were ever going to be.

Tanks rolled into their positions, men, women, hermaphrodites, and asexual entities manned their fortifications. Last prayers went out across all those whose beliefs merited such behaviour. Many military chaplains were very busy over these hours, as intelligence reports confirmed that the destroyers were about to attack. All champions were given at the very least, a hot-shot hell pistol, a much more potent form of the las pistol with far greater armour piercing ability, stopping power, ammo capacity, and rate of fire, in case that they needed to deal with the ing and they had nothing else to use.

A few men here and there shivered, not from the cold, it was actually rather warm, but from fear, but they did their best to hide it, they needed to be brave. This was a fight to save their families, their worlds, their realities, and in fact all realities. This was the first chance that they had gotten in months to strike back against the destroyers, who had largely occupied and consolidated their hold over the majority of the omniverse, leaving only a few pockets of resistance left.

The natives of Naboo were also brought into the army and equipped and trained to coalition standards as well as was possible in the amount of time they had. They were eager for payback, but they were also very much afraid of what was coming, most of them had seen first hand the devastating power of the destroyers. Most of them were equipped as Imperial Guardsmen, GDI infantry, Republic secondaries, Tau auxillaries, Soviet soldiers, or Allied reservists, as these armies could make the most use out of them.

Some of the most promising Children had even been converted into space marines, though the vast majority of them were still scouts, there were still plenty of newly minted fully fledged battle brothers. They were ready now, all they needed to do was wait for the assault, and there was not going to be much more waiting to be had.

Over at the Destroyer side, the Condesce, having been infused with the power of several ing symbionts and the might of chaos, had become a dark but lithe giant oozing with power. Her long black hair had become flexible spiked tentacles of ichor, daemonic horns protruded from her brow, bat wings spread out from her back, her legs had become double jointed and ended in bird like talons, while her fingers had crueely sharpened into claws, one of her hands clutching a mighty daemon sword while a tail that ended in a scythe blade flicked behind her idly.


And yet, despite all of this mutation, she retained a surprising amount of her beauty, her figure remained pleasing to look at yet terrifying at the same time, all despite her new rising as a daemon thing, a monster that truly reflected what was within her. Towering over many of her minions at well over thirty feet, the woman had truly come to resemble the monster within.

Most of her soldiers were at this point, far too bloodthirsty to be afraid, many of them were baying and snarling to get into the fight. Monsters of all sorts, dredged out from the very deepest nightmares of sapient beings, had formed into a vast host that stretched out for miles in all directions, a true testament to the sheer amount by which those with evil in their hearts outnumbered the good.

From the human to the lovecratian monstrosity, the army had virtually every shape imgainable covered, but key amongst them were the ing, the ing possessed, and the forces of chaos, which contained corrupted guardsmen, cultists, tainted xenos, daemonic war engines that belched forth evil exhaust gasses, heretics, traitor space marines, warp monsters of all sorts, and of course; the Daemons of Chaos.

Indeed, many of those in the assault were fearsome greater daemons and daemon princes, who relished the opportunity to join in this great battle. Enormous warmachines towered and rumbled over the battlefield, while an enormous flock of fliers darkened the sky above, a host with no limits, no fear, no reservations about slaughtering each and every person in the city.

Looking over her army, the condesce snarled out her own speech. "Over t)(ere lies t)(e feeble, weakling enemy. T)(eir )(earts are full of fear, ready to be reaped in t)(e name of t)(e true powers of t)(e omniverse. Now my c)(osen warriors, bring fort)( your rage, steel yourselves wit)( )(ate. )(ate is your sword, impurity is your armour. Come fort)( wit)( me loyal warriors and we s)(all feast on t)(eir souls." She said with a voice that grew ever louder and more dramatic, evoking many such charismatic dictators like hitler with her speech, concluding it with a daemonic roar that sounded like it was snarled out of the maws of a thousand lovecraftian beasts.

A insane shrieking came from the destroyer lines, the sounds of a numberless horde whooping, cheering, and roaring at once as they prepared for the assault, a mind blasting shriek that went on for hours as they continued their demoralizing roar, one that assaulted the very will of those that listtened to it. But they all fell silent soon enough, and a single bloodthirster could be seen standing on a charred black hill, the rest of the army behind it, it stood there, looking on at these foes of Chaos with a look of pure contempt.

The unnerving silence was perhaps, even more frightening than the unnerving shriek. It was too perfectly still, nothing was stirring, not so much as even a plant swayed, not even the wind blew. An eerie mist hung low, hugging the ground tightly as the Daemon of Khorne looked over one last time. But this brief moment of silence was soon shattered as the mighty Greater Daemon let loose an ear splitting roar that could be heard even at the city, even through the shields and walls, a roar that shattered glass, was loud enough to cause pain, and sounded of pure bloodlust and rage.

Appropriate listening:

It was with this signal that the first wave of the destroyers surged forward as a sea of footsloggers, vehicles, monsters, and fliers. The ground seemed to disappear before their advance, so great was their number, covering it in a tidal wave of a hateful and maddened army. Many of the soldiers mounting the walls lost control of their bladders or bowels as they saw this impossibly vast horde of everything from the massive and mighty titans down to chaos rippers and nurglings surged forward.

"My god..." Sylux said breathlessly, his jaw dropping as the ground shook under the feet, wheels, and treads of the destroyers. They were bringing up enormous siege engines, including massive siege towers on huge bases that began to telescope up their scaffolding towers as they approached the wall. Heritor Asphodel's Towers of Malice, one of his many woe machines.

A colossal artillery barrage was fired all at once, the sound of billions of heavy guns firing at once splitting the very air as they lobbed shells trying to shoot through the gap between the curtain wall and the dome shield, most didn't quite make it, but enough did to cause terrifying amounts of damage as the ground itself and many buildings were torn asunder, while some shells landed on the tops of the walls and blew apart many defensive positions, but when the destroyers were too close for their own guns to fire without losses, the artillery fell silent.

Huge thirty meter long vehicles that looked like trilobites on enormous tracks with a gigantic twinlinked cannon on their back and two twinlinked smaller but still quite enormous cannons on their side thundered forwards, Asphodel's lethal flatcrab tanks, and as they came into view, one could see that their "mandibles" were also cannons, and they were liberally covered in smaller guns and immensely heavy armour.

Huge scorpion shaped vehicles thundered forward, their power pincers crackling with matter disrupting energy fields, their autocannon mandibles flanking an enormous mouth mounted demolisher cannon while heavy bolters lay on top of their pincers and havoc launchers rested on their backs and a double barelled extremely rapid fire cannon sat on their tail tips, resting above a huge power blade. These brass scorpions were fearsome daemon engines, more of the woe machines that asphodel loved.

Colossal hundred meter tall metal spiders with an enormous array of weaponry that stood upon articulated spiked wheels at the tips of their eight legs, thundered forward, their huge mandibles twitching with power as they approached ever closer, these Death Spiders shaking the very earth with every step while lesser troops skittered beneath them like mice.

Huge praying mantis like vessels that contained deployable ramps on their heads scuttled forward, their guns firing forth in a huge barrage, their eye mounted volcano lasers speaking as they let loose enormous beams of incadescent laser light to try and sear through the cutrain walls as they attempted to come within grappling distance of the walls. These were known as Crusher Mantises, for they possessed enough strength in their hydraulics to simply crush most fortifications.

Other soldiers swarmed forward, fliers trying to aim for the gap between the curtain wall and the shield above, other men and vehicles rushing to get to the wall to attempt to scale it or load up on the Siege Breakers to get onto them while others focused their efforts on trying to create a breach, a thunderous cascade of firepower crashing onto the thick black walls.

Appropriate listening:

"They're in range of all guns now...all men...fire on my mark." Castor said as he noted that the destroyers had now brought themselves into the rapid fire range of virtually all of his heavy guns. Soldiers rushed forward into firing positions, noting with satisfaction that they were now about to show the destroyers some real firepower.

They would meet the first storm with their own rain of death, the largest that had ever been seen in the Dimensional War. "Positions confirmed..." His master of ordinance reported through the vox with a crackle to his voice. "Get ready." Castor responded with a grin on his face, he just loved it when the enemy was on his side. They had fallen right into his trap.

"Three..." He said, prompting all of the gunners to load their guns, an apocalyptic barrage slamming into the wall and hitting the rippling shield, but the men maintained their calm. This was it, this would be the moment of truth. Fresh power packs were loaded into the energy weapons, while new belts and magazines went into non-ordinance weaponry. Magical spells and psionic powers were readied to add to the assault.

"Two..." He commanded, giving the signal for the soldiers to close the breeches of these big guns and charge up energy weapons. They all held their breath, holding their fire until they were commanded, taking aim with their weapons and mentally picking out their targets from the colossal horde before them, swiveling, raising, and depressing guns while magical spells were in the process of casting, glowing with power.

"One..." Castor went on, each soldier making final one second checks and putting their fingers on the triggers of their mighty armaments, ready to fire just as the command came in, a palpable air of tension going through the entire army as time seemed to slow down for them, the adrenaline flowing through them intensely as they inhaled as one, ready to bring about the apocalypse upon the destroyers, ready to bring them a show of firepower that they had never seen before.

"SHATTER!!! THEIR!!! SKY!!!!" Castor shouted, and at once, each and every gun within range opened up at once, sounding as one mighty thunderous roar that drowned out all other sounds for a minute, a concussion of displaced air flinging out in all directions as projectiles of each and every sort came out in such thick numbers that the gap between the curtain wall and the shield seemed to vanish behind what had to be billions of tonnes of ordinance.

There was a brief moment of pause as the weapons made their travel time towards their target, a brief moment that ended in an even more deafening cascade of every imaginable ranged weapon and attack crashing amongst the sea of destroyers. A sea of explosions roared out and spoke in countless voices as the very ground was rent asunder in a furious assault.

A most satisfying number of destroyers were blown into tiny pieces or flung into the air as the colossal carpet of firepower was dumped onto them. Tanks were blasted apart into tiny fragments, Daemons were drowned under heavy firepower, ing and ing possessed creatures incinerated in the colossal display of light, infantry were reduced into gory clouds steaming offal.

Superheavy titans and woe machines were slammed with the single most beautiful and impressive display of firepower the world of naboo had ever seen. A Death Spider took one step before hundreds of Medusa heavy ordinance shells exploded all across it, causing the machine to jerk and shudder as huge pieces of it were blasted apart, the entire machine being reduced into tiny chunks of scrap no bigger than a fingernail incrementally by the enormous barrage

A chaos warhound feral titan stomped forward, flanked by two flat crabs, and ten stabbing volcano laser beams lanced out through the darkness, speaking with an incadescent fury that consumed the two flat crabs before exploding into enormous detonations of light that incinerated countless other followers while the Titan received six volcano laser shots, the first two blowing away it's shields and the next four reducing the hundred and sixty four foot tall daemonic warmech into a cloud of metal vapour.

A siege breaker tried to raise it's scaffolding towers up, only to receive thousands of missiles that made it seem to disappear in their white contrails before slamming into it's super structure and sending tiny chunks of it flying in all directions, killing all the infantry and vehicles that were loaded inside, overeager to attack the champions.

A huge formation of elite pirates charged forward, letting their presences be known with a thunderous barrage of plasma artillery cannons, the burning red spheres exploding against the cutrain walls, but they were met with twenty plasma blast guns set to rapid fire mode, sending forth sixty enormous searing orbs of plasma that exploded in their midst and detonated into blue-white infernos that obliterated the entire two thousand strong formation and thousands of other hangers on.

Infantry rushing up to load into an approaching Crusher Mantis were singled out for annhiliation by a storm of V4 missiles that rained down from the sky and detonated above their heads in airburst fragmentation patterns, turning them into a vast sea of blood, organs, skin scraps and muscle tissue on the ground as they were lacerated apart in a heartbeat.

Allied Prism towers stabbed through the air with their combined beams, lancing towards the ground and sweeping a company of Nod Avatar warmechs away, melting them into so much slag while the reracted beams struck out in odd patterns and incinerated their escorting conessor CABALS into burnt ashes, not even giving them the time to scream.

Nazi tanks rolled forwards, trying to get to grips with their mighty guns, an effort that was rewarded with a storm of GDI railgun rounds that slammed right through their armour as if it was tissue paper and punching open enormous exit holes through which the bloody smear of the crew was spread out behind them in long lines.

But still, many woe machines were arriving at the walls, backed by other destroyer superheavies, telescoping siege towers reaching upwards and liberally spraying the walls with flamethrowers, grenade launchers, heavy bolters, and melta blasts to try and clear a path for the infantry and vehicles as they rolled up the ramps to come to grips with the hated foe.

Crusher mantises were attempting a similar tactic, albeit with much heavier firepower, while death spiders came up to the wall and dug their spiked wheels into it to bring themselves onwards and upwards, rolling up the wall while flatcrabs and brass scorpions focused on trying to batter down the gates.

The first storm had begun in it's earnest and now it was time for a defensive stand to hold the walls at all costs. Even as a seemingly endless sea of foes were attempting to scramble up them or outright smash them into junk, or even try to fly through the gap between the wall and the shield.

Toad: Turn on some epic music.

Appropriate Listeningl

Now, this is the most epic theme for battle that this roleplay has ever had---

Toad, stop fooling around.

Aw, come on, can't I have a little fun for a while? I've been stressed about Ings and Transformers and Phazon-freaks for about a year now!

Just turn off the song.

Killjoy.

Okay... Giant vehicles, demon-possessed monsters... Just your average every-day overpowered evil army that probably should have crushed us by now. Yet they haven't, which proves that giant vehicles and demon-possessed monsters suck. BALLS.

So do we really need to do anything right now? Not really. I was sitting at the top of a tower next to Mario, sipping Volvic from our mysterious sponsor.

"This water is really full of minerals. It's like it were run through a volcano," I said to Mario.

Mario shrugged. "It's-a good, but that's-a all that matters to me. It does leave-a me hydrated."

"So what's your opinion on the army below us?" I asked.

"Eh, they ain't-a no good," Mario said to me.

"Yeah, I think they're getting owned pretty easily," I replied. "I doubt they need any help down there."

"Seriously," Kate said, coming up from the stairs. "Who uses siege towers anymore?"

I watched an Orange Star bomber fly overhead and drop several bombs on top of the fighting Destroyers, killing many of them swiftly and embarrassingly. "It's almost embarrassing how incompetent they seem to be now," I said, "compared to the elites back in the ballroom. What a bunch of losers."

Those guys seriously sucked at siege. I mean, really. As soon as Castor came in guns blazing, with all the troops, they went down like ducks in a Duck Hunt. It's so pathetic it's hilarious.

I watched a clawed hand fly up and onto the roof where we were sitting. It wriggled around for a bit before going limp. "Ew," I said.

Mario went over to get a broom.

I finished my Volvic and threw the bottle over the edge. I heard a tunk as if it hit someone's forehead.

"That guy's probably going to get killed within the next three seconds---"

BOOM!

"Okay, I was wrong. One and a half seconds."

"We've got a problem!" shouted some soldier guy.

"Ah, no big deal," I said, running over to the wall and seeing the machines crawling up. I took off my cap and began to pull out bathtubs. "Mario, come over here. We're going to dump these," I said.

"Why-a you carry bathtubs in your hat?" asked Mario.

"Honestly, I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time..."

Mario and I pitched tubs off the wall. I heard several crashes. "HA! Even the mighty vehicles can't withstand the mightier power of BATHTUBS!!!" I mocked.

But they were still climbing. "Geez. Anyone have a cruise ship on them?" I asked. Several had fallen down and landed on their cabins, but there were still a lot. And I was out of bathtubs.

That's when Pyrrhon began to show off and burn off the vehicles, bringing fire so hot that some of the guys inside broiled. "Pyrrhon says no one gets past these walls!" the sun god bellowed, flying past again and flinging blazing bolts at the vehicles.

"Show-off," I muttered under my breath.

But that still wasn't enough. "Geez, die already!" I shouted, pitching a desk off the wall and dropping it on one of the crawling vehicles. "Gosh, it's annoying how everybody wants to kill us."

Wait, hold on, this makes no sense. Why was I dropping bathtubs again?

Ah, let's just say they were magical bathtubs, with the power to drop on vehicles that climbed on walls.

>SWITCH

It was a short time in the past, and the city of Otoh Gunga was about to be completely and utterly destroyed. While the invasion was taking place up above, many Gungan and a few humans had fled to the underwater capital for safety. It was a logical choice, but one that would prove to be their demise. The shields were keeping them from utterly dying, but not for long.

A thin, jagged web of purple sparks spread through the water. It looked small and insignificant from outside the city, but the masses of dead aquatic life that started to float to the surface said otherwise. Above the lake, a winged figure kept the tendrils of electric death moving. It was Adrammelech, but perhaps not as he was before. His armor was darker, more purple in tone, with the red highlights being nearly pink, and instead of human-esque steel hooves, he sported two-toed near-black violet claws, and his eyes glowed red with Ing-infused energy. An extra pair of glowing eyes rested not far from his original pair, though they were smaller.

A nagging little whisper, more like words appearing in the back of his mind, kept urging him to increase the charge of the bolts, lay complete waste to the waters. The Wroth held back, however. Showing the Ing subservience would only let the damn thing walk all over him, and nothing walked over the Emperor of Scions. No, he would proceed as Ultima had planned.

A few minutes later, and the shields of the capital began to falter. Under the water screams could be heard from the civilians, and a few vehicles began to be launched out for evacuation purposes. Those attempts were soon stopped after the vehicles malfunctioned and crashed due to the shock currents. Once the shields stopped flickering and died out the electricity was the least of their worries, however.

Above the lake Adrammelech began to exchange a few words with three other Espers who had arrived. "You are late. I would expect an explanation, but right now we must proceed with the plan. Famfrit?" His voice was deep, and seemed to rumble and crackle with the force of thunder.

The armored titan who he had addressed wordlessly approached the lake, and dipped his ewer into the water. Famfrit had no expressions on his face whatsoever while doing this. It would be expected that a suit of armor did not have any expressions to show, but in the case of the Darkening Cloud it was oddly unnerving. He then began to "speak", in the most abstract sense. More of a strange, roaring sound like the waves, coupled with the faintest semblance of some sort of voice uttering some sort of words.

̛̼͉͕̺̺̲͖̻̗̼̭̀̀ͅͅͅ ̸̸̡̧͈̖̻̻̗̘̫̗͕͝ ̨̨̰͙͉͇̹̭͎̩̹̜̲́ͅ ̷̶̡̼̤̝̖̱̰̺̪͕̭͎̱͘͜ ̶̡͞҉͏͖̲̙̩͇̗͎̙̪̰̬̭̱͎ ̛͢҉̛̣̙͈̥̖̲̜̲̤͓̩͉̫ ̶̸̧̛̣̞̥̰͕̝͉̮͓̫̻̱̟̲̱͢ ̷͔̻̙̪̙̤͎͓͕͙̟͈̀́ ̸̵̴̡̧͚̭̤̰̞̭ ̻̱̞͜͞ͅ ̵̷͍͍̭̲̠͔̗̰͎ ̵̢̰̩͈̯̦̝̘͖̞͎̼̞̫͓̩͙̺̟ͅ ̡̙̤͈̬̼͚̟͓͝ ̸̕͞͏̡͖̙̲̺̫̹͙̝̹̯͇̜̰̞̦͕͉̣ ̸͕̺̬̮̫̪̱̰̮͡͞ ̵͚̥̲͎͕͕͈̯̥̦͕͎͠ ̨̠̘̯͖̖͕̀ ̨͔͈̠͕͘ ́͟҉̶͏͍͖͔͍̫̼̤̮͉͙̰̻̰ ̴̪͓̘̱̩̬̬͘͞͝ ̴̜̤̯̪̲̫̼͇̘̻͕̺͕̯̞̹̀͝͠ ̨̗̺̼̫̣̹̰̙̤͉͙̲̮̲̥̼̦͘͟͝ ̷̷̮̲̖͔̖̖͓ ̶͕̬̤̮̺͍̘̳͖͍͈͍͖̙̱̥̜͢ ̛͓̲̺̜̙̹̖̞͈̟̣͢ ̸͇̘̠̪̻̩͎̬̰̰̟̺̀ͅ ̵̷̧̘̜͕̻̻̥̼̪̻̞̩͔̘͜͠ ̵͓̬̬̘͙̹̬̟͙̙̘͎͟ ̨̦̺͚͍͞͡ ̢̧̡͙͎͓̹̟̮̞̖̘͖̯̳̖͢ ҉̵̛̖̯̘̻͉͈̲͍̮̕͞ ̴̡̦͎̠̖̭̯̀͜͢ ͏̴҉̗͓̬̦͈͇͚͚͈̼̘͎̳ͅ ͎̯̻͍͙̤͙̪̤̟͍͞ͅ ̭̥̺͙̀͢ ̨̀͏͖͖̝̫͚̹͍̬̙̖̰̺̰̹̱̟͔͙̮ ̴̧̢͓̹̤̗͇͠ ̸̛͉̪͉̯̺̻̫̰̤͕̙͜͠ ̷̵̵̴̞͎̲̪̯̦̯͓͕̻̘ ̶̷̵̮̤͚̪̭̠̰̮͖̯̠̠͘ ̵̗̼̫̼̥͎̬̹͚̥̠̭̟̳̤̀͟ ̷̵̨̧̪̹̥͖̺͔̥̳̟͓͉͘ ̵̨̘͔̫̖̥̖̩͚̫̪̳̭͎̙̳̳̕̕ ̷҉̶̡̡̲͔̜̱͇̤̝̣͈̟̫̪̙̣̺̳̗ ̴̧̢̨̱͔̰̱̗͚͚̱̰͚͓͕͕̤͇͘ ̛͍͙̟̤͓͉͓͉͙̫͔͖̗́͢͞͝ͅ ̶͉̗̦ͅ ̵҉̛̼̰̝̝̫̰̘̮̤͓̘͕̲͜͡ ̵̵̺͖̹̦̙͔͢ͅ ̦̖̟͙̫̫̀̕ ̪̠̹͙̩̯͎̟͇̞͎̙̪̼̥́͢ ̴͍̯̻͎̲̯͜͝ ͏̷̘̰̯̬̻͔̠͔͍̘͖͖͚ ͜͏̰͓͉̩̗͖̞͎̘̫͇̳̱͎͙͜ ̢̮̼̗͎͠ ̷̵̘͚̪̖̝͙̖͎͖̲̖̤̫̀͟ͅ ̴͈̥̘͚̭̫͘̕ ̶̛̰̗̟̻͘͢ ̷̴̭̦̘̳̝̞͍ ̶̢̻̤̝̤͘ ̪̦̲́͘͝ ͜͠͡͏̢̰̤͍͇̙͓̙̙̲̲̻̘̼ͅ ̶̶̗̬͉͎̼̲̼ ̢͕̥̮̘̦͎̞̘͎͓̻͔̞̖͙̀͢͞ ̴̶̬͍͕͓̺̠̕ ̘̥̮̳͘̕ ҉̺͕̰͕̗̗̖̺̬̻͔̭͠͡ ̥͉͓͝͞ ̸͟҉̧̪̹̙̗͕͎̖ ̡̧̛͇͖̥̝̱̣̯̣͎̮̩̳̩̝ͅ ̷̧̣͉̯̭̯̀



And with that, the water from the lake began to drain and seep into the ewer. An impossible volume of water poured into that relatively minuscule jug, but the container never showed any signs of breaking. To those in the underwater city it must have been a nightmare, to watch the water slowly drain and expose them to the dangerous surface above. They would be able to see the dead fish covering the surface come down with the water level as well, and many of the creatures' corpses stuck to the city's walls. Plant life seemed to deflate and wither, losing its life as it dropped onto the slick, wet rock. Once the water level was almost drained, Famfrit ceased his actions, and floated back silently to the main battlefield. Lake Paonga was dead. Phase Two was complete.

"And what of our duties, 'Emperor'?" Hashmal asked, sneering at the last word. As the Bringer of Order, he was not very pleased with the actions of the Wroth prior to this. Allying himself with Chaos? Letting one of those Ing beasts into his body? None of this would have an outcome even similar to some sort of order. The earth Esper would follow the orders of his superiors, but that didn't mean he wouldn't do so reluctantly.

Adrammelech growled, but made no other hostile moves towards his fellow Esper, despite the repeated urging of the Ing to do so. "You are to go with Belias, and eliminate the outer reaches of the city. This should not be too difficult a job for you, should it not? Try to make it neat and...'orderly'..." He grinned, showing off a row of sharp, serrated, armor-like teeth, another gain from his symbiosis. Summoning up a cloud of Ing, he then flew off to the main battlefield.

Hashmal grumbled in response, but Belias placed a large, bestial hand on his shoulder to calm him. "Calm yourself, brother. We have far more important matters to take care of now." Hashmal nodded reluctantly, and followed the Gigas as they leaped down the now drying edges of the lake, approaching behind Otoh Gunga at an angle.

The city was now below them, and the plan could be executed. Belias and Hashmal, now on opposite sides of each other, readied their weapons and smashed spear and fist into the wet rock, tearing a small opening into the rock. They readied another blow, but this time Belias's spear was surrounded by a flaming aura, and Hashmal's left fist was glowing a dark brown. They smashed into the rock, and a large chasm opened up, exploding out of it a pyroclastic flow of hot ash and rock. The two Espers leaped out of the way, and let their magic-induced natural disaster rush towards the outer city. The flow split in two at the halfway point, and began to encircle Otoh Gunga, leaving the central orb-buildings spared. However, everything around it was not so lucky.

The flow did not burst into the orbs but instead completely covered them, cracking the glass walls and letting the ash and hot rock fall in slowly. The amount of heat radiating from it was far more of a danger than the rocks though. So great was the heat that it instantly seared the entire populace of the orbs. It was almost is if the protective walls weren't there anymore as Gungans and Humans alike fell to the oppressive temperatures, their bodies going into shock as the heat made their blood bubble and skin literally boil. Their brains melted, sometimes exploding from the skulls of the victims. Eyes liquidized and poured down the bubbling cheeks of the doomed, as they were essentially cooked down to their bones. It took about a minute for most of them to die; no man, woman, or child was spared. Their screams wracked the city, and would probably give those in the inner areas nightmares for years on end. Or they would, if those alive were to survive the assault.

Toad: Finally realize there's a problem.



Okay. Siege machines climbing the walls. Problem.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. I dropped several mushrooms on the ground and kept them moist while I dropped toilets off the edge of the wall to smack any incoming soldiers.

Ah, good, they're done. Cement trucks. They backed up against the wall and began to churn. "Oh, this is gonna be so good," I giggled. I pulled out a remote and slammed the button. The trucks' mixers tipped over and began to pour cement off the wall.

I used quick-drying cement, too. It was hilarious to watch the cement pour on top of the vehicles and cover them quickly in a mixture of rock, clay, and lime. The wheels stuck to the wall, unable to move, and some of the cement splattered onto the cockpits and doors. Even more cement covered the soldiers scrambling up the walls, attempting to get at us. They dropped to the ground and were basically stuck in the rocks.

"Wow, Toad. Really?" asked Kate.

"Yep. Never underestimate the power of quick-dry cement," I replied.

I then ran downstairs and came back up carrying a vat full of hot tar over my head. "Hey, they're using medieval techniques, why can't we?" I asked, dumping the vat as I ran along the wall. Huge amounts of tar splattered in a cascade down the rim of the wall. Destroyers writhed in pain as the hot tar seared their skin, and the Ing-possessed ones weren't spared either: the light that Pyrrhon constantly gave off burned them and exposed them to the tar. They were stuck to the walls, unable to move, trapped in blocks of concrete or sticky patches of tar that quickly cooled.

I laughed at them, before going and getting the feathers. I dropped them in the same fashion as the tar, and covered the Destroyers who tried to get up the wall in feathers. I then looked over and saw a bunch of evil chickens glaring at me.

I doubled over with laughter before I noticed Colonel Pluck crossing his wings and glaring at me.

He must've thought I was making fun of him. I apologized quickly.

Ha! Who needs firepower when you've got cement? Just for luck, I poured more cement on top of the vehicles that were stuck. If they were to be shot out, they would probably explode. With the amount of cement I poured on them, it's hard to tell which was vehicle and which was concrete.