MR: War Arc: Shorts

[Coryn]

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The War Arc Shorts topic and The Last Halloween topic have been merged into a single War Arc Shorts topic. Numbering of shorts have been retroactively corrected).

Alright, so this was actually my one-day-one-shot. I thought it would be fun to do a halloween story for War Arc, but the timeframe passed to actually have it come out for halloween, so I decided to make it something of a joke and put it out that the beginning of December. Sue me. It's already posted in the one-shot topic proper, but I'm putting it in its own dedicated topic anyway to it will be easy to reference in the future.

Short 1 - MR: War Arc: The Last Halloween: Part 1

MR: War Arc: The Last Halloween

Swift Team sat huddled in their cavern. Being deep below ground they were well insulated from the cold chill that late fall had brought down on them. But caves were so often cool, and so often damp. Even though it never dropped below a balmy fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the caves' natural moistness and the near freezing temperatures above ground kept the raiders from ever feeling truly warm except when gathered around their fire pit.
        This late November evening was one such time. Coryn, Vacant, Devola, Echo, and 3.0 sat staring into the meager blaze, calmly chewing on chunks of stew as they relaxed their bones after a hard day of taking the fight to the Lost Chorus. It was quiet, and the quiet was beginning to drive one of them quite insane.
        At least, that's what Coryn told himself. He had just been topside all day, quietly watching 4Kids troop movements while Echo quietly sat next to him watching 4Kids troop movements while Coryn sat next to her quietly watching…
        Yes, he was beginning to get a little stir crazy, thanks for asking.
        "What a mess," Coryn thought to himself. "It's not even winter yet and I'm already dying to experience the outdoors again." But of course, who was he kidding? He hadn't gotten to enjoy the last spring, or even a moment of the summer. Coryn was even beginning to fantasize about the absolute hell he had gone through back in XX18's spring. That may had been a mess. A 'right mess' even, as Vacant might say. But what could he do? He needed a distraction. Maybe a hard drink. Definitely a hard drink. Maybe a cigarette if he could find one in the loot they had taken from Lost Chorus soldiers.
        Coryn noisily finished his bowl of stew and stood up. "I think a night like this calls for a drink! Who's with me?"
        Vacant raised a hand. His mouth was still full of stew, but there was a gleam in his eye. The Brit had never been on to turn down a drink, and that was an especially useful trait tonight. What he and Coryn were about to indulge in was no classic vintage of fine wine, and it was a harrowing experience without a good friend to take the journey with you.
        In fact it was a much debated question what 'druel', as it had come to be known, even was. Some said it was a type of wine, others supposed it to be a long of beer, many called it a liquor and ended the day there. This question rang out from Swift Team's cave to Lost Chorus concentration camps scattered across MangaRaiders and the wider Net beyond, and yet no consensus on classification could be found. All any of them knew was that you made it using the unidentifiable fuel that powered Lost Chorus aircraft, the exhaust system of a 4Kids transport truck, whatever leftovers you had on hand, and a prayer.
        Blindings were common, but the old adage held true. Humans could, and would, make booze out of anything.
        Coryn carefully removed their own stash of druel from the larder and found a set of glasses. The caution and the real glass were necessary parts of this endeavor. Druel, while nominally from being processed, was still nominally explosive. It would also eat through most man made substances in under a minute. Both of these facts were discovered by the first unfortunate who tried drinking the stuff from a plastic cup. Thankfully human stomachs were made of sterner stuff, and could safely ingest druel provided the necessary precautions were taken first. Coryn tilted the old thermos, and out poured a clear liquid with a yellowish tint and the pearlescent refractions of something that maybe still had a little oil in it.
        The pair gently clinked their glasses together, and downed the nasty stuff with a cry of "Cheers, prosit, l'chayim!"
        Druel went to work quickly, and by the time everyone was back around the fire, themes of druel still at hand, Coryn and Vacant could feel the warmth of high proof alcohol creeping out of their stomachs and to every part of their body. The unnatural heat buoying them, the pair struck off into a lively conversation, which was soon joined by the rest of Swift Team.
        As the hours grew long, and everyone with the desire had drunk enough druel for their tongues to loosen, Coryn found himself staring into the swirling swill in his glass, and a thought crossed his mind. Suddenly sure of himself, whether by his own charisma or the druel's he posed a question hebhad no intention of hearing the answer to. "Have I ever told you the tale of," Coryn dropped his voice down low, "The Last Halloween?"
        "Did you just capitalize each of those words?" Asked Echo.
        3.0 said. "Halloween was a month ago Coryn. We all just sat around the fire. You were there. Can someone take away his poison juice?"
        Devola began to reach over, but Coryn yanked his glass away before Devola could get close enough to pose a threat.
        "I'm not talking about last Halloween. I mean last year's! The one before this one!" Shouted Coryn.
        "Now hold on!" Proclaimed Vacant. "I do remember that Halloween, and as I recall, you are the last person who should be telling that story!"
        "It was a chilly October evening." Started Coryn.
        Devola cut in. "It was unseasonably warm actually. And it's not the time of year for ghost stories any more is it? I saw a bunch of Lost Chorus soldiers putting up Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Saturnalia lights last week, or whatever it is they call it."
        The scientist shushed the artist, then restarted his story. "It was a surprisingly mild Halloween night…"

        MangaRaiders a year and one month ago was a very different place than it was today. Ask anyone walking the streets and they would have told you the same thing. MangaRaiders is a peaceful place. Its members are kind and gentle. They might rip your arms off if you do wrong by them, but generally nice people! They promise. Anyway, you certainly wouldn't have said, or even thought about saying that in a little over two months the place would experience a full scale invasion by a military power thought vanquished by the wider Net that was being led by a master general and tactician, loyal even in defeat, and his band of fanatical followers. That is in no way what you might have said, but it is what happened. You might have said that you fancied a pint, or that yeah, you could eat if you and a buddy wanted to check out that new restaurant on the corner.
Really this whole thing was quite unexpected. But back on October 31st, you really wouldn't have expected it.
        That night, the raiders were doing as raiders tended to do late on Halloween night. Namely: inciting a ruckus and carrying on.
        The MR Pub was abuzz with activity. Pub-tan knew how to throw a party, and Halloween night was absolutely no exception. Costumed raiders drank, danced, and chatted as party remixes of classic 'spooky' songs played over the sound system. Vacant, who was dressed as a cowboy, saddled up to the bar next to Mahlua, who was costumed as one of the 'witchy' girls from a 90's harem anime that you weren't cool/weird enough to know about. Across the polished wood bar and pumpkin shaped party favors atop it was Pub-tan, who was working her own party as a zombie… bartender. Say what you want about the woman's party throwing skills, Pub-tan was an adamant professional.
        "Pick your poison." Directed Pub-tan as she waved her hand at the bottles behind her, which had all been replaced by theme appropriate containers of various deadly chemicals in old timey bottles.
        With some apprehension, Vacant leaned over towards Mahlua. "What are you having?" He whisper shouted over the crowd and the music.
        "The Arsenic and Old Lace." Replied Mahlua as she pointed at the paper menu of the night's cocktail specials pinned to the wall. "I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. But I admit, I am no expert."
        That source of help exhausted, Vacant studied the menu himself, and out in his drink order. "I'll take a 'The Revenge of Frankenstein', please."
        "Resurrecting that for you right away." Chirped Pub-tan as she turned to busy herself with various bottles labeled things like 'laudanum' and 'bleach'.
        Vacant smiled nervously and made some small talk while he waited. "Right then! What's the dirt Mahlua? What's the ol' raider four-one-one on who's hot and who's clearly trying too hard?"
        Mahlua raised an eyebrow and stared at him for a while. She turned a few scenarios around in her mind before replying. "Are you looking to cheat on your girlfriend, or find out about the costume contest? I can help with both but I thought we should be clear about your intentions first."
        Vacant flinched back in shock. "Ayorite!" He… said? It was one of those classic Vacant-isms that you couldn't be sure was a word or just some vaguely British swaying filler sounds. "The costumes, of course!" He explained. "Everyone knows I'm clearly the man with it in the bag for winning the historical round. You can't even play on your bonafied and recognized by the state Sheriff Big-Balls here! But uh… who else is in the running you think?"
        Pub-tan had slid Vacant's drink into his hand while he had been explaining himself, and now he took a cautious sip of it. The cocktail was like green, with a blackened orange peel garnish. It tasted herbasish, with a hint of citrus, sweetness, and… earthiness? Surely Pub-tan wouldn't have gone so far as to put actual dirt into a cocktail, even if she was well known to be an artistic purist when it came to her cocktail recipes. Either way, it only took a second sip for Vacant to decide that whatever was inside his glass, it was delicious.
        Vacant was about to follow up on his query after a moment of silence, but just after looking up to see what Mahlua's reaction was, it was clear that she was scanning the crowd and processing some thoughts. After a little while longer had passed, she turned to Vacant and sent down her verdict. "Fortis is going to win."
        "What?!" Cried Vacant. He's just gone as that Overlord guy!"
        Mahlua asked. "Your point?"
        Vacant said. "Well he's already a skeleton isn't he?"
        The witch nodded. "True, but he's got the best stitching out of anyone here. His sewing skills are his ace in the hole."
        Reluctantly Vacant had to accept Fortis's skill with a scrap of cloth. He still harbored suspicions that Mahlua was playing him for a fool and trying to throw him off the scent. It was entirely possible, likely even, that Mahlua herself had some grand plan to win it all. Possible, he thought, but put the thought out of his mind. Surely Mahlua would not degrade the sanctify of the costume contest! Surely it was beyond her machinations!
        It wasn't, and she most certainly would. But that's a special secret for later .
        It was as the narrative aside ended that a deep banging emanated from the pub's door. This sound could not be mistaken for knocking. It came three times like a knock. It was as if something hard and yet fleshy was hitting the door, but the sound was unlike any that the party goers had ever heard. It overcame their conversations, the sound system, and even Pub-tan's inner thoughts. It could not be a knock. It should not be a knock! This was clearly not a knocking kind of party. And yet the knocks came, and when they finished, not a soul in the establishment breathed a word.
        And then the door fell in.
        Like something had sliced the hinges in half it was. The door hit the ground to reveal a figure in the darkness. They stood there, oddly tall, oddly thin. An unexplainable orange light poured in around the figure, and it cast them into a silhouette that prevented identification. With slow ponderous steps the figure advanced. As they entered the dim lights of the pub, it became that the mysterious figure at the door was none other than Coryn.
        Oh God was it Coryn.
        The moderator was holding himself… wrong. Coryn's eyes were closed. His arms were out at his sides, stiff as boards. He didn't move his legs in the way legs ought to move. It was like he was on strings. A macabre, human marionette, being puppeted by someone or something who hadn't seen a human walk for a while now, and couldn't quite remember how it went.  This was strange enough, but could have easily been passed off as a bit. But if anyone in the pub held that opinion, it came couched in believing that it was a joke gone too far. Willful destruction of city property was obviously looked down on, but that wasn't the real problem here.
        Coryn was naked.
        At least, he was mostly naked. He retained a pair boxer-briefs mercifully where they were supposed to go. But everything above and below his crotch was as naked as the day he was born.
        Okay, time for reasonable minds to interfere. "Coryn I know I said I wouldn't discriminate on contest entries, but this is too much." Said Pub-tan. "You aren't allowed to be half-naked."
        "I can see your bulge mate!" Blurted out Mahlua, which arose a few murmurs, but she recomposed herself before adding. "And you know I respect your bravery when it comes to matters like this, but like, you are the last person I would have expected to pull a stunt like this on MR."
        Again, it grew quiet. Things were starting to get a little awkward now. The erie orange light was still coming from outside, and Coryn had yet to open his eyes. Finally Pub-tan gave up, and started towards the end of the bar so she could enact justice. "Alright Coryn, we've all got the joke now, but I'm going to have to give you a temporary pub ban for breaking my door down."
        Just as Pub-tan was about to lift up the bar gate, Coryn's eyes shot open. They weren't right though. Coryn's electric blue lights were gone. It might not have been apparent from the back of the bar, but nothing about his eyes were right. His irises were twice as big as they should have been, his pupils were mere pinpricks at their centers. And instead of blue, there were solid swirling colors. Green, purple, and orange spun around his tightly contracted pupils like a hypnotist's wheel. Then Coryn opened his mouth, and our came his voice, but it wasn't just his voice. It was his voice and his voice and his voice and his voice a thousand times over, all laid atop each other until he was echoing his own echo. "HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED OUR NEW HEAVEN? WE HAVE KICKED OUT THE NEW OLD GODS AND FILLED THE BONE PITS WITH THE OLD NEW GODS AND THE OLD GODS AND THE GODS AND THE NEW GODS AND THE NEW NEW GODS! HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THE OLD OLD LIGHT? IT FILTERS IN FROM THE ANCIENT FORESTS OF WOOD AND CITIES OF STONE AND OCEANS OF WATER AND RIVERS OF BLOOD. ARE WE NOT ALL JUST FLOATING ON TOGETHER IN THIS GREAT ELECTRIC SEA WITHOUT PASSION? WITHOUT DIRECTION? FOLLOW ME TO THE NEW HEAVEN! WE ARE GOING TO FIND THE-"
        Coryn had been speaking nonsense at a mile a minute, and was likely to keep on, but Pub-tan had silenced the tirade prematurely by introducing the butt of her shotgun with the side of Coryn's head. Coryn crumpled to the ground in a pile. It hadn't made any sense. Not just his eyes or his voice or his words. Sure, if you were off in the back of the room, or if you didn't know the moderator that well, you might not have noticed. But those that were close enough noticed… something. They wouldn't figure it out for a while, but there was a question in the back of their minds now. It was a question that once solved, would be too late for anyone.
        Had Coryn always been that tall?
        Had he always been that thin?
        Back in the present moment, Pub-tan, Mahlua, Vacant, and Lego had gathered around Coryn. The scientist was still unconscious on the ground. They weren't sure what to make of the situation, and the whole thing was a major party killer if they were being honest. A handful of newer raiders and out-of-towners had already abandoned the pub. They couldn't be blamed for this of course. If you weren't used to the weird stuff that happened around MangaRaiders, you wouldn't stick around when a mostly naked guy waltzes into the Halloween party and gets clocked out by the bartender.
        Just another holiday for the rest.
        At least some headway was being made when it came to what to do with the body. Lego, who was dressed as Jimi Hendrix, guitar and all, offered to lock up his friend in the drunk tank back at MR Tower.  Hopefully Coryn had just taken a little chemical assistance to get in the mood to party, and it had backfired something fierce. Who knew what he cooked up in that lab of his anyway? Ecstasy 4.0 probably wasn't beyond the pale.
        Yup! They would just have to pick Coryn up, turn off whatever light he had rigged up outside, and let him sleep off whatever weird trip he was on.
        At least that was the plan until Coryn rising uppercutted Lego right through the pub's ceiling. It looked like it hurt, and it did. Mahlua and Vacant grabbed Coryi by the arms, but he was screaming more nonsense and thrashing around to dislodged them. The shotgun was still in Pub-tan's hands, so she cocked it and leveled it at Coryn's head. "Coryn calm down! Calm down Coryn! I don't want to use this thing!"
        But the scientist found the strength to throw both of handlers. They were knocked back into the crowd, and Pub-tan used the opening to hop back over the bar. She landed squarely just in time for Coryn to leap over the bar after her. For Pub-tan, time seemed to slow down. She was not built for combat. Sure she could kick out a rowdy drunk with the best of them, but the shotgun was only for show. It was not a weapon she wanted to fire in anger, but with an almost naked man with a crazed look in his eyes coming down on her, the decision to fire was one he finger made itself. At least if it had to be this way, Coryn would be being put out of his mystery by a friend.
        The blast hit the scientist dead in the face. Or at least, that was the idea. What should have happened was Coryn's head exploding in a display of blood and gore that everyone in attendance would need years of therapy to wipe away. What actually happened was that Coryn bounced back head first from the force of the blast into the ceiling, then black to the floor, and then made the trip a few more times like he was a bouncy ball in a pinball machine, before finally crashing to a stop in a collection of empties next to the bathrooms.
        This inhuman display was bad enough, but what came next was worse. As Coryn landed, something let out a scream. I say something because it clearly wasn't human. It was the kind of screech a lesser narrator would describe as coming from one's own head. This is almost certainly that kind of screech, but the truly terrible thing was that it wasn't coming from inside the raider's heads. It was coming from outside, and that made it all the worse.
        This broke what serenity was left in the room. Anyone not willing to throw hands at that exact moment quickly, and in some cases violently, excused themselves from the pub. Almost to the raider they let out their own screams as they ran out the door and encountered whatever it was that was creating that light. Doubtless, many who swore they were heading out to confront whatever was going on reneged on the plan and decided to just call it a night instead. When all was said and done, the only living souls in the pub were Pub-tan, Lego, Mahlua, Vacant, and surprisingly, Coryn.
        The screams had not been enough to deter the four, but seeing that Coryn was not only still breathing, but apparently unharmed (was he always that thin?), left them with some thoughts about the suicidal nature of what they had all just silently agreed to do.
        "Oh my gosh I thought I killed Coryn." Was the first thing out of Pub-tan's mouth. "I don't know how I would have explained that to Mom and Dad."
        "You could always do what I did." Said Lego with a shrug.
        "And what would that be?" Asked Pub-tan.
        Lego replied. "Live five hundred years in a doomed timeline only for him to come back to life and retconn the whole thing."
        Vacant said. "Let's call that plan B, or maybe… plan H. Plan H is better."
        Mahlua meanwhile, had started prodding Coryn's unconscious form with her foot (had he always been so tall?). "Given how long he was unconscious last time, we should have a few minutes before he wakes up again. I don't know what he meant with all that ranting about gods, but let me tell you as someone with experience, it's the ranters who are the most dangerous."
        Vacant asked. "To themselves or others?"
        "Yes." Replied Mahlua.
        "Right… " finished Vacant before turning to the open door if the pub. "So then, out into whatever the hell it was that made everyone run screaming a minute ago?"
        Lego grabbed his guitar and headed for the exit. "Let's."
        The party of would be heroes was feeling decently confident on the way towards the door. We're talking a six, maybe seven out of ten on the ol' confidence-o-meter. But that number dropped significantly after stepping into the night air.
        The moon had been out on their way into the pub that evening. 'Had' being the operable word here. Upon reflection, the moon have still been out, but they sure as hell didn't see it in the sky. What they did see in that starry night was no moon.
        It was a big f*ck off eyeball!
        Up in the sky and as plain as day was an eyeball. It was huge. Dwarfing even the largest of moons the assembled raiders had ever seen. This was the kind of size you see in movies. Blown up to proportions unsupported by all known laws of physics for dramatic effect. Except as mentioned above, this was a giant eyeball. There were barely any whites. It had the same pinwheel as Coryn's eye had. Green and orange and purple, all spinning around the central pupil. The whole thing was also bleeding around the edges, because of course it was. Huge red drops of blood fell from the rim of the eye, but if they were landing somewhere in MangaRaiders, those assembled couldn't tell.
        Everyone stood slightly dumbfounded as the bleeding pinwheel eye hovered above their heads. It was interesting that even though the green, orange, and purple all appeared on the eye in equal amounts, it was the orange light that showed most brilliantly. Such a strange fact. Mesmerizing even. You could just… stare at that big beautiful eye forever… lost in its glorious gaze…
        Wait a minute? Were they just going to keep standing around? They needed to do something about this thing! Lego gripped his guitar tightly, and let fempto-machines flow out across its surface, encasing it in a hard shell. Pub-tan that chambered a fresh round, and Mahlua began building her energy. Lego, as the defacto moderator in charge, was the first to step in the eye's direction. "Alright, we have a problem and we know nothing about it other than there's an eye in the sky and it's made Coryn super strong somehow. Mahlua, you're magic and sh*t. What do you have for me?"
        Mahlua fell in step with the moderator. "Other than the fact this thing is putting out some serious magical energy, not much. Coryn mentioned a whole lot of different categories for gods, but he started with 'new old gods' and worked his way up from there. If I followed his logic correctly, he skipped the 'old old gods', so I'll start there."
        "Great." Said Lego. "Vacant, help her. Pub, think you can help me with our peeping Tom problem?"
        Pub-tan said. "Aside from present company, you mean? I'll do all I can."
        As they were making their way however, Coryn burst out of the pubs entrance. The door frame burst and splintered as he failed to duck in time, but the scientist was unphased. "WE ARE ALL JUST GNATS FACING DOWN HIS INFINITE AND TERRIBLE WISDOM. THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE BUT TO SUBMIT AND BE FOUND WANTING FOR WHAT HE HAS DEMANDED OF US WE CAN NOT PROVIDE AND HE DOES THIS AS A KNOWING TEST. WE MUST FAIL AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN BEFORE FOR WE CAN EVEN PRETEND TO HAVE ACHIEVED THE TRANSCENDENT EMOTIONS WE NEED AND HE IS CAPABLE OF AN HE PROVIDES UNTO US FOR OUR MISDEEDS AND FORGIVENESS. THERE CAN BE NO-"
        Pub-tan sent Coryn back to sleep with another blast of her shotgun. This time she knew it wouldn't kill him, but equally did she know it wasn't going to stop him. Even though Coryn's limp body pulled the same rubber ball trick it had the first time, the bouncing was less sporadic, and came to a stop much sooner. Either Pub-tan's shotgun was getting weaker, or Coryn was getting stronger (and taller?). The four raiders weren't about to stick around to find out.
        Lego took to the skies with his moderator abilities. The distance between himself and the eye was closed in an instant, but by the time he arrived, Lego had already come to regret the decision. The technique didn't factor actual physical distance into account, so when Lego glanced back to the ground, he found his had come quite a long way from MangaRaiders' surface. This was concerning not for how far it meant Lego might fall, but for how massive the eyeball was. If it could be supposed that the eye looked very large from the ground, even though it was still far away, then you could interpret that the eye itself was very big. This was all true, but that truth meant little when you couldn't look at the blasted thing from a few feet and realize that the eye/moon comparison was surprisingly apt, and that it was easily several times the size of the city itself.
        So much for a quaint evening of drinks and party games.
        Alright then! Too late for thoughts of regret and retreat now! You can't just go crying home to mommy with your tail between your legs just because there's a huge eyeball monster that's possessed your friend bearing down on your city! Lego drew back his guitar, and smacked the giant pinwheel eyeball right in the pupil. The wet surface rippled like a fat man's belly, but there was no penetration, or even the slightest indication that Lego had done any damage. This was going to be harder than he had hoped.
        Lego wound himself up, and went back on the attack with his patented 'just hit it a whole bunch of times!' technique. The moderator was careful to only smack the eye when the force of the new strike would catch the ripple at the right moment and feed into the strength of the combined strikes. Lego played the eye's moist surface like a trampoline, but just when he thought he might be getting somewhere, the ripples shifted their direction all on their own. Before he could stop himself, Lego's next strike hit in exactly wrong spot instead of exactly the right one, and the feedback of his own attacks shot the guitar, and the raider holding onto it, careening back towards ground level.
        Lego shifted his position in space before he could get flattened by the ground however, and found himself back outside the pub. Pub-tan rushed out of the doors with her arms full of the old timey bottles she had replaced the bar's normal collection with. As she went she curb stomped Coryn, who was beginning to regain consciousness. The blonde's hair was absolutely beyond redemption at this point, but Lego figured that would be the least of Coryn's worries once he woke up. Coryn would have done the same for any of them after all, it was only fair they return the favor.
        Pub-tan motioned towards Lego, and he rushed after her until they were both out of Coryn's line of sight, but able to still keep an eye on him from an obscured position behind a tall hedge. The tan dumped her selection of bottles on a bench, and began her work. She dumped out one bottle labeled 'Formaldehyde', refilled it halfway with a pint of 'Virgin Blood' and then started adding things like 'Pancreas Fluid', 'Bone Marrow', and 'Muriatic Acid'. Lego was… let's call it eighty percent sure that it really was all just alcohol, but the way Pub-tan was mixing it all with purpose made him think that A: she was sticking some less than common ingredients, and B: he should never piss her off again. At last, Pub-tan shoved the mixing vessel into Lego's hands, and shoved a cork into it. "Shake well, wait five minutes, then either serve with a sprig of eucalyptus to neutralize the acid, or just smash it into that big dumb eye to hopefully put a hole in it!"
        Lego took a hard look at Pub-tan's concoction through the dingy glass of the bottle. Maybe his eyes were deceiving him, but Lego could see little flashes of light appearing sporadically throughout the cocktail. Well, he hesitated to call it a cocktail at this point, but whatever it was Lego did not feel like playing games with it. He double checked that the cork was firmly in place, and then carefully slid the bottle into the folds of his shirt. "Remind me to audit your receipts if we survive this."

        Meanwhile, Mahlua and Vacant were still on the run. Deep thanks to whoever invented cowboy boots, because the first thing Mahlua did was rip open a sewer grate and pull a reluctant Vacant in behind her. They were now sprinting along the brick highways and byways of MangaRaiders' sewer system, and seemingly getting nowhere.
        "Where are you even taking me Mahlua?!" Cried Vacant.
        Mahlua skidded to a stop, and Vacant had to back peddle not to run into her. The witch seemed to be surveying their surroundings. Finally she turned back to Vacant. "We need to get directly beneath the pub. I stashed some things there in preparation for the costume party tonight.
        Vacant's face lit up with shock and a bit of anger. "Alright then! I had thought you might do something like this! You were planning to have a cheeky little cheat at the costume contest weren't you?!"
        Mahlua shrugged. "Don't think of it as cheating. Think of it as… a little magically assisted costume design. Pub-tan didn't make any rules against magic."
        "That's because…" started Vacant, "that's because the only rule was 'show up in a costume'! It should have been self evident you couldn't use special powers to get a leg up on people!"
        "Oh yeah?" Asked Mahlua. "And what was your ace in the hole that you definitely didn't have planned to sway the judges?"
        Vacant took an afronted step back. "I! Err… I was going to do a sexy little dance?... " He admitted sheepishly.
        "Well," Mahlua sighed, "I guess that makes us even. But in this case, a 'sexy little dance' isn't going to help us take down a pinwheel eyeball God from our Neolithic past."
        Vacant said. "I admit, that is the only fault with my 'sexy little dance' plan."
        The ground shook violently, and the two raiders were forced to brace themselves against the curved brick wall of the sewer tunnel.
        "Wait a minute!" Yelled Vacant over the road of quaking earth. "We started right next to the pub! If we only needed to get right below it, then how haven't we made it there yet?!"
        The shaking subsided, and the pair released their purchase on the brickwork. Mahlua said. "Well… the tunnels. They're not in the right place. They're actively changing, might be the better way to put it."
        Vacant stared blankly for a moment before coming back with "Ah…"
        With that out of the way. Mahlua dropped to the ground, pulled a piece of chalk out from her costume, and began sketching a sigil onto the brick pathway. Vacant couldn't make heads or tails of it, but after a few minutes of drawing with only the occasional rumbling coming from above, it was done. Magical energy built up in Mahlua's right arm, and she discharged it into the sigil. The chalk lines took on the same purple glow as her tattoos, and when it did the air in the space seemed to shift. Vacant hadn't been able to put his finger on it until now. He had been feeling uneasy from the very start of this party vibe ruining event, but that unease had tripled ten fold after going into the sewer system. The unease was passing now, or at least returning to normal levels.
        Mahlua was back on her feet now, and placing the chalk back where it had come from. "That should be strong enough to get us about a third of the way. All I've done was pin down a small area of space. I'll need to do this a few more times to get us all the way to where I set up this morning."
        Vacant rolled his eyes. "Pfft. Yeah, sure, I knew that. Magic circle mumbo jumbo abracadabra. Basic magic one-oh-one. You handle the magic stuff. I'll take care of any creepy raider puppets that come out way." He whipped out the toy revolvers strapped to his hips. "Bang! Bang!"
        Vacant had struck a gunfighter's pose, and now it was Mahlua's turn to roll her eyes. "Sure thing Vacant. I'll trust that your totally misplaced confidence in colorful plastic toy guns won't be your undoing."
        "What was that?" Asked Vacant with a wry smile as he holstered his 'weapons'.
        "Nothing." Replied Mahlua.

        At this moment of rest in our story. It might be a good idea to address the earth quakes. Not all of MangaRaiders was experiencing these earthquakes at the present moment, although all of them were most certainly dealing with the fact that the moon had been replaced by a giant bleeding pinwheel eyeball. Yes there was that, but more concerning to the raiders experiencing them were the earthquakes.
        Earthquakes were a strange enough event on MangaRaiders anyway. The Net was not a place naturally predisposed to natural disasters after all. If your site experienced them, it usually meant one of two things. Either your coding was bad and had some bugs in it, in which case you should petition your administration to fix the problem, or, and this second one was really the more concerning, something or someone was causing said earthquakes.
        This would be the second case in case you weren't following. Except that to call what the people of MangaRaiders were experiencing earthquakes would not quite be accurate. Sure enough the ground was shaking, but it was doing it rhymically almost. Bump. Bump. Bump. Bump. One after the other, getting larger, bit by bit by bit by bit.
        No one realized it yet. But these earthquakes weren't earthquakes. They weren't earthquakes at all. They were footsteps, and they were getting closer to MR Tower.
   

[Coryn]

(and the 2nd half, because this thing is 10,000+ words long, and definitely beats out the MR post character limit.

Part 2

        And now back to the story.

        A thick mist had rolled in out of nowhere, and the streets were clogged with dark shadows and the glowing red eyes which lurked within them. Once pristine and well groomed, the city's parks had become deep, forbidding forests of imposing trees and gnarled roots. MangaRaiders was undergoing a most unnatural and unwanted transformation, and it most assuredly had everything to do with the eye.
        Lego hit the pavement after another assault on the pinwheel eye. He had thrown Pub-tan's bottle of death into the thing's pupil, but instead of exploding as hoped, the bottle just disappeared into the blackness. Lego didn't know if this was a good or bad thing, but successive attempts with ever more volatile cocktails had only produced the same result. Either the eye was disappearing the bottles to dimensions unknown, or it was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning. The moderator couldn't say, but for now he needed a new plan.
        Lego scanned his surroundings. He had landed in a side street of the Artists District. Off in the distance he could hear Coryn's ever deepening voice babbling on. The scientist had been growing taller and thinner as the night went on. The last time Lego had seen Coryn, his fellow moderator had grown to be taller than a lamp post, his eyes shining like a pair of horrible lighthouse beams through the mists. Recalling that image sent a chill down Lego's spine. Hopefully taking out that eye god thing would turn Coryn back to normal. Lego didn't want to deal with him if Coryn got too much bigger.
        That thought aside, new plan time. Lego rushed back to the pub in hopes of finding its patron tan. On the way there he witnessed all sorts of horrors. Raiders were being harassed by vampires, Frankenstein's monsters, mummies, and creatures from the black lagoon. Fortis had infiltrated and stolen control of an army of skeletons. It was no longer clear whose side he was on. Fro's hair had been lit on fire by a demented clown, which brought Lego great joy. A guest specter was being eaten alive by rabid wolfmen, which turned Lego's stomach. Robin was being assailed by goblins. Operative was being carried upside-down through the air by ghosts. Lego even saw mighty MR-tan in combat with a shadow version of herself that knew her every move. Truly a Halloween extravaganza freak show was being visited upon MangaRaiders at the behest of pinwheel eyeball. Classic horrors, both real and metaphorical had been brought to life to torment the city's fine residents.
        But all of this terror was not the worst of it. No, what chilled Lego all the way to the core was not the cast of universal monsters he had to deal with, or the deepening shadows, not was it the ever growing Coryn. It wasn't even the floating eye itself, which Lego could swear was getting closer as the night grew long. No, none of this compared. What scared Lego, really scared him, was that he was seeing more and more sets of pinwheel eyes on the darkness and the mist. Raiders he had known to be strong willed earlier in the night were succumbing to the eye's mysterious power. Perhaps they had lost their respective battles. Perhaps they had just stared too long at the massive pinwheel in the sky that their eyes would come to reflect. Lego could not land on a satisfactory conclusion for any of it, and he was not sure that he wanted to. With a mental note to not look directly at the eye and a prayer that none of the newly possessed would turn against him as Coryn had, Lego pressed on. At least, he thought, none of them had begun stripping. It was a slight bit of reassurance, but it did bring up troubling questions as to how Coryn ended up exactly how he had.
        Lego slid to a halt outside the pub. A shotgun blast emanated from within, and he rushed inside to check that all was well. He found Pub-tan having just put down the last in line of a pack of severely decomposed zombies. Lego sighed with relief, and propped the door back up the best he could to at the very least dissuade any would be bad actors.
        The bar was scattered with bottles familiar and unfamiliar. All of the novelty party bottles were off the shelves, and all of the regular bottles were out of storage. There were also bottles written in strange scripts and languages which Lego did not recognize, and bottles unadorned by any markings whatsoever, being differentiated only by size, shape, color, and material. Pub-tan was already back to mixing various as Lego approached the bar.
        "It's looking rough out there." Said Lego. "Acid isn't going to work. That thing just keeps stealing the bottles away, and it doesn't seem to care even if I hit it ten-thousand times. We need a new plan."
Pub-tan paused in her work and sighed. "I was afraid you might say that, but I've come prepared. All of the bottles on the table now should explode if you hit them hard enough."
        Lego blinked a few times to make sure his head was clear and he was hearing correctly. "You realize that I'll be in the crossfire then right? You know, right in the center of the explosion? You wouldn't put me in such immediate danger would you Pub-tan? You wouldn't right? Right?" Asked Lego with pleading eyes. Pub-tan's side-eyed stair told him all he needed to know. She would put him in clear and present danger after all. "How heartless… " moaned Lego.
        Pub-tan said. "I have faith you will survive. Somehow you always do. Now, start with this end," she pointed at the side of the bar farthest away from the door, "and work your way to the right. You'll be ending with the big-boy." Pub-tan pointed to a plastic handle bottle that glowed and electric blue.
        Lego's eyes grew wide. "Why don't I just start with that one?! It's huge! What's in it?"
        Pub-tan shrugged and said. "It's just an empty bottle of cheap vodka I refilled with Coryn's bone juice or whatever it is he's claiming it is these days. I would have sent you with the flask, but I don't know where the bottom of that thing is, and if I did you might end the universe or something. Who knows."
        Lego, not in on the details of Coryn's arrangement with Pub-tan, just had to grin and accept what Pub-tan was telling him. "Alright alright! Less world ending bottles first, most world ending bottles later. You better hope I die doing this! If not I am going to guilt trip you for soooo many free drinks later!"

        Back in the sewer system, Mahlua and Vacant had reached their destination. A square room where two streams crossed was apparently the place to be. An arching bridge connected caddy-corner from one pathway to the other, and it was there that Mahlua had staked her claim. Sigils were drawn all across the space, symmetrically extending outward from the highest point of the little stone bridge. Mahlua went straight to the bridge, and began making her final preparations. "Usually I would have more time to do all of this but we're going to have to make some rough and tumble exceptions."
        Vacant looked around and put on a brave face. "Yeah… magic, how hard could it be?"
        Mahlua looked at him incredulously. "You're going to do sweetie. Just… start clearing my supplies out of the room. I need to start cleansing out the space so I can do my work. This is going to be weird enough with some ancient god butting in on my feed."
        Mahlua dropped to the ground and started charging up. Purple energy flowed through her tattoos, and lightning arced down her arms. A new feeling took hold in the air as Vacant picked up bags and chalk and reference books. He realized that all of this time he had been afraid of the giant bleeding pinwheel eyeball. That, of course, had been and still was a very reasonable thing to be afraid of. But now that Mahlua was falling into a trance and doing her full witchy thing, Vacant could feel centuries of his screaming English ancestors telling him to fear the witch! Burn the witch! Burn! Fear! Burn! Fear! Burn! Fear! Burn! Burn! Burn!
        Centuries of English ancestors be damned, he was getting the hell out of there! His arms burdened with Mahlua's stuff, Vacant got clear of the room as a lightning wreathed Mahlua began moving towards the the dead center of the bridge and the room. Whatever was about to happen, it was going to be impressive. Vacant chose this moment to close his eyes and huddle behind a pillar, so our omniscient narrator will be taking over.
        As Mahlua reached the room's axis and Vacant cowered, the earth shook. This time not from Coryn's massive, ponderous steps, but from Mahlua's magical energy pressing itself against the bounds of reality and MangaRaiders' infrastructure. Lighting crackled and sputtered out from Mahlua's feet as she stepped into the central circle. Bolts connected from her position to specifically designed sigils on the walls. These lit up, and in turn branched out like a creeping vine to connect over a dozen other sigils each. By now the room had become an echo chamber of lightning and magic. Anything not physically connected to Mahlua was at risk of vaporization, so it was a very good thing that Vacant had gotten clear when he had the chance.
        Now, in a more perfect world, Mahlua would have left Pub-tan's Halloween bash about twenty minutes before she was due to appear on stage and present her costume. She would have done the cleaning up herself, then began the first stage of the ritual. This was the point in which she would phase herself back into through gaps in the brick work of the sewer and the stone work of the pub's store room. From there it would be a short trip up the stairs and onto the stage where she would rematerialize with a dramatic flourish. This act would leave a connection between what she was doing above and what was still going on below, keeping the spell going. The energy taken from being watched and observed would then feed back into the ritual, and by the time of the finishing move, the second part of the spell would trigger. Mahlua would be encompassed by magical energies, and they would spontaneously transform her outfit right before the audience's eyes. She would then finish her presentation wearing the character's updated clothing from her appearance in the flash forward at the end of episode thirteen.
        It would all be so perfect, but alas, it was not to be. Now, deep below the pub's stage and her destined place upon it, Mahlua overcharged the ritual. She would phase up to the pub and update her outfit all in one. But if all went to plan she wouldn't just land on the stage. No, she would be going straight to the top baby! No stopping on the plebian floors! This electric elevator is headed straight for the penthouse suite! One phase, one killing blow for one giant eyeball eyesore!
        Hi-ho silver.
        The ritual reached its zenith. Mahlua shot off like a rocket, but the sudden change of plans lead to a miscalculation. There would be no stopping for the lower floors, sure, but there would also be no lower floors after she passed them by. First went the roof of the sewer, then the pub's storeroom floor, the barroom's ceiling, Pub-tan's dresser, her bedroom ceiling, and finally the roof of the pub itself. If you were watching from a third person vantage point, you would have seen a purple flash of light followed by a streak of lightning shooting into the sky. Higher and higher it flew. Mahlua passed all but the tallest buildings in MangaRaiders, she then eclipsed Coryn's new height, and finally cleared MR Tower itself. Now there was nothing between her and the pinwheel eye itself. By now it felt so close. Was so close. Mahlua couldn't miss. She slammed into it right in the center of its big dumb pupil. It was wet and viscous, and was disgusting to the touch even for a being currently made entirely of energy. The eye pushed in, deeper and deeper. As deep as Lego's mighty guitar had driven it or Pub-tan's largest alcohol bomb. But Mahlua could drive it no further. The eye flexed back out, and the sudden reflection forced Mahlua back into her corporeal form. The witch was launched back the way she came. A moment later she slammed into the stage of MR Pub. Thankfully it was a sturdy construction, so it did not give. Mahlua bounced up and down a few times, and by the time it was all over she was splayed out flat.
        Everything hurt, but slow recognition was coming that she had an audience. Pub-tan and Lego were already gathered in the pub, Lego's hand mid-grab on and alcohol bomb. Vacant was clawing his way up from the hole Mahlua had created to the sewer below. With her adoring fans in mind, Mahlua drew herself up into the sexiest pose she could manage given the broken bones. "Never forget… who's the most extra B-I-T-C-H on this rock…" said Mahlua before promptly passing out.
        When Mahlua awoke a few minutes later, all had gone quiet. The power was out in the pub, whether that was due to what she had done, or due to the pinwheel eye, she didn't know. The room was lit by candlelight, but Mahlua could see that the front door and the windows had been barricaded. Pub-tan, Lego, and Vacant were gathered at the bar, scrawling notes on napkins. They were too engrossed in their scheme to notice her waking up, so Mahlua dragged herself back to her feet and made her way to the bar. "What's the situation."
        Pub-tan poured herself a stiff drink before answering. "Best Lego can see from here, everyone else has succumbed to the eye's will. No word if they're turning into hundred meter tall skeleton monsters like Coryn has, but safe to assume; yes."
        She down the drink, and Lego took over. "Vacant thinks he has a plan."
        Vacant said. "I do have a plan! And hold onto your bottoms, because it's a good one! It's like this, see…" he motioned towards the various napkin sketches. "That big eye thing is what's powering Coryn, and also taking over everyone else in the city. And earlier when Pub-tan shot Coryn in the face, that thing screeched. So I'm thinking then, if we hurt Coryn enough, maybe it will kill the eye."
        "Coryn's gone full titan." Lego said. "And a shotgun to the face didn't stop him when he was small. What are we going to do now that he's huge?"
        "Well…" started Vacant. "I couldn't help but notice Mahlua is in some fancy new digs after all that magic mumbo jumbo of hers. I was thinking maybe she could magic us up some fancy armor and weapons to take him down? Late stage power up in the third act this thing?"
        All eyes turned on Mahlua, who gave the prospect a thought, and then shrugged. "I can try something. But I need everyone to get on board with a lot of things really quick. That ritual wasn't designed for extras. I can't give you a clear answer on what's going to happen."
        It was agreed that partial credit was better than no credit, so the chance was one they were willing to take. The four raiders dropped down into the sewer, Mahlua made some last minute adjustments in her sigils, and the ritual process began anew. The extra participants were moved into place. The sigils were lit, the lightning flared, and bolt of energy erupted from the fissure.
        This time though, this time things would be different. The bolt of lightning was huge, and instead of impacting the pinwheel eye, it shattered and branched out. Two trunks of lighting shot down, two to the sides, and a ball formed above it all. A rough bipedal figure had been formed, but it lasted in the air for only a moment. There was a flash of light, and two weighty feet slammed into the ground. Where once a stick-man stood, a hulking warrior boldly posed. This half man, half robot, all solidified lightning energy fighter stood as tall as MR Tower. It's face was scarred with stitches. It wore a cowboy hat atop its head. A guitar was slung around its back, and a frilly black dress adorned its chassis. It was the ZOMBIE COWBOY ROCKSTAR GOTHIC LOLITA BATTLESUIT (Z.C.R.G.L.B. or Zucurglub for short). And within its chest sat the four control chairs, in which the four heroes of themselves found themselves.
        "This is the dumbest thing that's ever happened to me." Said Pub-tan with a deadpan humor. Indeed, for a site devoted to anime, giant mecha battles came up surprisingly little. Now that one was actually about to happen it was a little hard to process.
        More difficult to comprehend, was that as soon as they placed their hands on the controls, the raiders gained a sense of intuition about what their fellow copilots were thinking. With every movement they made, the others followed in time perfectly. There was no lag between them, even though they lacked any direct sense of being in another's mind.
        "Whatever you do, don't think if anything perverted."
        "Too late…"
        "Damn it!"
        "Enough, everyone needs to calm down right now! Coryn's noticed us."
        It was a true statement. The hulking mass of.Coryn Sken was leering at them. The scientist had become nearly unrecognizable. He was as tall as the Z.C.R.G.L.B., and had grown almost completely skeletal. The faintest traces of muscle could be found before stretched tight skin. His clothing, such as it was, had mercifully grown with the rest of him, but even if it hadn't, the thick mist billowing from his mouth would have provided some form of modesty salvaging coverage. Words still came from the moderator's mouth, but they were so distorted by the enlarged size of his throat that they came out as deep groans. The Z.C.R.G.L.B. pulled up its fists into a right stance, and Coryn charged.
        The giant's first blow went wide, and the Z.C.R.G.L.B. landed a strike in his gut. They pushed around each other, Coryn's flailing arms lashing out indiscriminately and landing blows as much on the Z.C.R.G.L.B. as innocent buildings. The mecha's pilots were careful to avoid MR Tower itself, but collateral damage could not be avoided. For a while the two opponents just stood and went toe to toe for a while. Blow for blow they matched each other. It wasn't clear if Coryn felt the pain, but Coryn's attacks were wreaking havoc within the Z.C.R.G.L.B.'s cockpit. Panels exploded from the walls, wires dangled from the ceiling. It was a shoddily designed mecha from four very tired and very different minds. Things were going to be a little off, but this is ridiculous.
        "We're not getting anywhere!" Shouted Mahlua.
        "Use the ax!" Cried Vacant.
        "What ax?" Asked Lego.
        "The guitar! Hit him with the guitar!" Demanded Pub-tan.
        The Z.C.R.G.L.B. reached over its shoulder, and this to it brought the giant robot sized guitar down on Coryn's noggin. The deformed raider was sent toppling to the ground, and  pilots of the Z.C.R.G.L.B. celebrated in the control center. But this was only a moment's elation. The pinwheel eyeball still hovered in the sky, and there was no sign that it was going to do anything besides that for quite some time. Coryn was already getting back on his feet, so it seemed the battle would continue to the bitter end.
        The Z.C.R.G.L.B. swung it's guitar in a horizontal arc. Coryn ducked and slammed a fist into its face. Next the raiders feinted with another swing of the guitar, but in fact were aiming for a kick to Coryn's ribs. The giant bounced along on one foot until he could regain his balance, at which point he hammered both fists into the Z.C.R.G.L.B.'s shoulder. By now the damage to their creation was too large for the raiders to ignore. For being a giant mecha, this thing sure was held together with a hope and a prayer. It was time for the finishing move. Coryn broke into a dead sprint go the
        Z.C.R.G.L.B.. Purple energy flared around the body of the Z.C.R.G.L.B.'s guitar. With the last of its power, the Z.C.R.G.L.B. swung up, smashing the giant guitar into a million pieces against the bottom of Coryn's chin. In a shower of wood and metal Coryn was launched into the air, and straight into the pinwheel eye looming above MangaRaiders. This time there was more than enough force to do the trick. The force of the guitar's strike and that of the giant it helped create impacted the eyeball, and it exploded in a torrent of blood and ectoplasmic viscera. Coryn's gigantic body burst apart to, and the Z.C.R.G.L.B. caught the regular sized Coryn which emerged from the R-rated display of gore. Normal Coryn was still in his underwear, but the raiders could see through their view-screens that he was back to glowing his normal electric blue. With a sigh of relief from all involved, the Z.C.R.G.L.B. dispersed back into the magical energies from which it had arisen. The four raiders fell back to solid ground, Coryn unconscious but in tow. They had vanquished the strange god, and all was right on MangaRaiders, at least for a little while longer.

        "So…" slurred Coryn, back in the present. "That's the story of last Halloween. It was a hell of a good time."
        "Yeah it was!" Agreed Vacant, a fresh cup of druel in his hand.
        It was a moment of much revere and enjoyment until 3.0 decided to open his mouth. "No it's not!"
        "What?" Asked Coryn.
        "That's not what happened last year!" Reiterated 3.0. I should know, I reported on it! You stayed the same size the whole night and there was most definitely no monster of the week style mech fight!"
        Vacant turned towards his other human companions. "Come on guys! Back us up here! Dev! Echo! Set the radio man straight!"
        "I'm sorry Vacant." Said Echo while sipping some tea out of a paper cup. "I'm not denying that there was a weird eyeball in the sky and that Coryn got possessed, but the second half of that story was pretty much all made up "
        The look on Coryn's face dropped from a happy drunken smile to a frown. "What are you saying?"
        Devola cut in. "I think she's saying you two are drunk on helicopter fuel, and forgot have of the details of this story as you were telling it. What happened to the bone juice bomb? How did everyone else who got possessed fair? This thing is full of plot holes."
        "Processed helicopter fuel!" Shouted Vacant.
        Coryn said. "Well alright then! Admittedly things got pretty off the rails there, but you can't blame a pair of guys for trying to make things interesting. Now! If you will excuse me, I need to take a bio-break."
        Coryn rose to find himself the bathroom, but was stopped by Devola before he could get too far. "Wait a minute, I'm still unclear about why you were in your boxers the whole time."
        Coryn shrugged, and started back on his way to the restroom. "I was ironing before the party. A little portal experiment I was running on the kitchen counter went bad and the pinwheel eye got through. Just the wrong place at the wrong time." The scientist disappeared from view, leaving everyone with an unsatisfactory conclusion to that particular mystery. But that was how things were some times. Not all mysteries have grand reveals. Sometimes they're nothing more than the wrong place at the wrong time, or getting caught with your pants down by an ancient god. Life's funny like that, especially on Halloween.

[Suuper-san]

"Humans could, and would, make booze out of anything."
My father makes wine (and also beer) from pretty much any fruit or vegetable combo and I can testify to this XD

""Did you just capitalize each of those words?" Asked Echo."
haha

"Live five hundred years in a doomed timeline only for him to come back to life and retconn the whole thing."
lol

"Lego drew back his guitar, and smacked the giant pinwheel eyeball right in the pupil."
improv ftw

" But these earthquakes weren't earthquakes. They weren't earthquakes at all. They were footsteps"
dun dun duuuuun
nice place for a cliffhanger

" ZOMBIE COWBOY ROCKSTAR GOTHIC LOLITA BATTLESUIT"
lol power rangers COMBINE!

" the second half of that story was pretty much all made up "
whaaaaaaaa
you had me in the first half, not gonna lie XD

and nice ending

a nice read, but a Halloween themed story at Christmas time was a bit strange :P
a couple of the/he/her typos here and there but otherwise fine. I don't know enough to give anything more critical than that.
I've noticed I'm a bit more able to read now that I'm starting to lean into writing, so I've got a better shot at cracking the Canon now, yaaaay :P
and that's 10k+ words? felt shorter than I expected. It's given me a nice target for a short story style and length now.
I mean 10 of those and you have a novel! So it's certainly not short.

[Coryn]

If those were the only mistakes you found, then I did pretty good, lol. Thanks for the read Suuper!

(Christmas time for you, Thanksgiving time for me)

It's 10k+ alright. Like I said I just barreled through though. I out more time and thought into stories I'm legitimately trying to make novel length.

[Suuper-san]

Yeah you wouldn't want to waste time writing a poorly thought out novel for sure.
The more I look at it there's a lot of similarities between art and writing, in the core breakdown of ideas as so on. And I daresay it's not just those two but any topic broken down enough will probably be similar.

[Coryn]

Just as long as you don't take it so far that the breakdown loses its benefit. But I totally agree. Art and writing are very related in the manga world. Seeing them as equals really puts it into context that we're all on the same team here.

[Suuper-san]

yeah over breaking down doesn't help anyone haha
and yes indeed they are almost different sides of the same coin :)

[Coach Fro]

I got to get around to finishing this eventually, but so far this is some trippy you got going on here man. The thought of Coryn growing taller and taller is freaking me out when I visualize it for too long.

Also, why every time I make a cameo canon appearance my afro is getting disrespected? Haven't I earned enough stripes to make it through a canon story without my Fro getting set on fire? How come Lego's afro never gets set on fire, huh?

#QuestionsThatWillNeverBeAnswered

[Coryn]

Glad you're enjoying it Fro! Believe me it was messing with my head while writing it too. It's just plain unnerving to have a human being become mishappen for no normal reason. Thank you Junji Ito for teaching me that.

Because Lego doesn't canonically have a special weakness to fire nor does his afro have anything to do with his own powers. Therefore the only reason to mess with his fro is to mess with the character's pride, which comes up less than messing with his powers. It's nothing personal it's just the obvious target. Attacking other parts of you loses its impact over time if your hair is fine and you're just able to fix the problem with hair magic.

#QuestionsThatJustGotAnswered.

[legomaestro]

Review

Spoiler

1.
Swift Team sat huddled in their cavern. Being deep below ground they were well insulated from the cold chill that late fall had brought down on them. But caves were so often cool, and so often damp. Even though it never dropped below a balmy fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the caves' natural moistness and the near freezing temperatures above ground kept the raiders from ever feeling truly warm except when gathered around their fire pit.
- Nein! No Fahrenheit!
- As uncomforteable as this sounds, it somehow sounds... Cozy? I dunno why but yeah

2.        This late November evening was one such time. Coryn, Vacant, Devola, Echo, and 3.0 sat staring into the meager blaze, calm chewing on chunks of stew as they relaxed their bones after a hard day of taking the fight to the Lost Chorus. It was quiet, and the quiet was beginning to drive one of them quite insane.
- OK not more so Cozy

3.   At least, that's what Coryn told himself. He had just been topside all day, quietly watching 4Kids troop movements while Echo quietly sat next to him watching 4Kids troop movements while Coryn sat next to her quietly watching…
 Yes, he was beginning to get a little stir crazy, thanks for asking.
- It's quite appropriate reading this in the current situation. I think I can understand his mind-funkiness

4. "What a mess," Coryn thought to himself. "It's not even winter yet and I'm already dying to experience the outdoors again." But of course, who was he kidding? He hadn't gotten to enjoy the last spring, or even a moment of the summer. Coryn was even beginning to fantasize about the absolute hell he had gone through back in XX18's spring.
- Wait what event was that again? My mind is fritzing on me.

5.  That may had been a mess. A 'right mess' even, as Vacant might say. But what could he do? He needed a distraction. Maybe a hard drink. Definitely a hard drink. Maybe a cigarette if he could find one in the loot they had taken from Lost Chorus soldiers.
- Wait Coryn smokes!?
- Also it's always time for a drink. Wait, how good is Coryn at holding is liquor? I imagine cyborgs have buffs against that sort of thing.

6. What he and Coryn were about to indulge in was no classic vintage of fine wine, and it was a harrowing experience without a good friend to take the journey with you.
        In fact it was a much debated question what 'druel', as it had come to be known, even was. Some said it was a type of wine, others supposed it to be a long of beer, many called it a liquor and ended the day there. This question rang out from Swift Team's cave to Lost Chorus concentration camps scattered across MangaRaiders and the wider Net beyond, and yet no consensus on classification could be found. All any of them knew was that you made it using the unidentifiable fuel that powered Lost Chorus aircraft, the exhaust system of a 4Kids transport truck, whatever leftovers you had on hand, and a prayer.

- Oh Haruhi

7.  Blindings were common, but the old adage held true. Humans could, and would, make booze out of anything.
- This is Law.

8. Thankfully human stomachs were made of sterner stuff, and could safely ingest druel provided the necessary precautions were taken first. Coryn tilted the old thermos, and out poured a clear liquid with a yellowish tint and the pearlescent refractions of something that maybe still had a little oil in it.
- This is such a hilariously bad idea.

9.  The pair gently clinked their glasses together, and downed the nasty stuff with a cry of "Cheers, prosit, l'chayim!"
- Ah, L'chayim. Learnt a new word.

10. The unnatural heat buoying them, the pair struck off into a lively conversation, which was soon joined by the rest of Swift Team.
- By the way, it's a nice coincidence that Swift Team rolls off the tongue switfly. I dunno. Just feels like that in a way.

11. "Have I ever told you the tale of," Coryn dropped his voice down low, "The Last Halloween?"
- Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuun

12.  "Did you just capitalize each of those words?" Asked Echo.
- Hahaha

13. 3.0 said. "Halloween was a month ago Coryn. We all just sat around the fire. You were there. Can someone take away his poison juice?"
- I think druel has every right to be called this monicker. By the way i'm calling alcohol 'poison juice' from now on.

14. "Now hold on!" Proclaimed Vacant. "I do remember that Halloween, and as I recall, you are the last person who should be telling that story!"
- Hahaha I wonder why.

15.  "It was a chilly October evening." Started Coryn.
        Devola cut in. "It was unseasonably warm actually. And it's not the time of year for ghost stories any more is it? I saw a bunch of Lost Chorus soldiers putting up Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Saturnalia lights last week, or whatever it is they call it."
- Wait there's that many festive seasons in December? The heck is Saturnalia. Suprised you know about Kwanza.

16. MangaRaiders a year and one month ago was a very different place than it was today. Ask anyone walking the streets and they would have told you the same thing. MangaRaiders is a peaceful place. Its members are kind and gentle. They might rip your arms off if you do wrong by them, but generally nice people! They promise.
- And even if they did rip your arms off, they'd do it gently.

17. Anyway, you certainly wouldn't have said, or even thought about saying that in a little over two months the place would experience a full scale invasion by a military power thought vanquished by the wider Net that was being led by a master general and tactician, loyal even in defeat, and his band of fanatical followers. That is in no way what you might have said, but it is what happened. You might have said that you fancied a pint, or that yeah, you could eat if you and a buddy wanted to check out that new restaurant on the corner.
- Indeed. Funny how that happens sometimes, with the invasions.

18.  That night, the raiders were doing as raiders tended to do late on Halloween night. Namely: inciting a ruckus and carrying on.
- I wonder what all the Raiders  dress up as. Do they Trick or Treat? Wait by the law of Anime are any of the monsters actually scary or just cute as all heck?

19.   The MR Pub was abuzz with activity. Pub-tan knew how to throw a party, and Halloween night was absolutely no exception.
- Pub-tan/Art-tan moonlighting as  a DJ is headcanon for me right now.

20. Vacant, who was dressed as a cowboy, saddled up to the bar next to Mahlua, who was costumed as one of the 'witchy' girls from a 90's harem anime that you weren't cool/weird enough to know about.
- Ah. Those anime.

21. Across the polished wood bar and pumpkin shaped party favors atop it was Pub-tan, who was working her own party as a zombie… bartender. Say what you want about the woman's party throwing skills, Pub-tan was an adamant professional.
- Heck yes zombie gaaaal.

22. "Pick your poison." Directed Pub-tan as she waved her hand at the bottles behind her, which had all been replaced by theme appropriate containers of various deadly chemicals in old timey bottles.
- I love the decor.

23.  With some apprehension, Vacant leaned over towards Mahlua. "What are you having?" He whisper shouted over the crowd and the music.
- OK man spill. How in the name of Haruhi do you whisper-shout?

24. "The Arsenic and Old Lace." Replied Mahlua as she pointed at the paper menu of the night's cocktail specials pinned to the wall. "I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. But I admit, I am no expert."
- Okay someone has got to make me this cocktail just for fun. Come to think of it, I'd love to make cocktails based on MR and what Pub-tan would theoretically make haha.

25. That source of help exhausted, Vacant studied the menu himself, and out in his drink order. "I'll take a 'The Revenge of Frankenstein', please."
- Awwww yis.

26. "Resurrecting that for you right away." Chirped Pub-tan as she turned to busy herself with various bottles labeled things like 'laudanum' and 'bleach'.
- Laudanum. New word learnt. And damn that is a substance.

27.  Vacant smiled nervously and made some small talk while he waited. "Right then! What's the dirt Mahlua? What's the ol' raider four-one-one on who's hot and who's clearly trying too hard?"
- 411. New term learnt. Damn, I forgot how much stuff you just sort of know, Coryn. Coolbeans. I learn every time.

28.     Vacant flinched back in shock. "Ayorite!" He… said? It was one of those classic Vacant-isms that you couldn't be sure was a word or just some vaguely British swaying filler sounds.
- I need to hear Vacant say this hahahaha.

29.  tasted herbasish, with a hint of citrus, sweetness, and… earthiness? Surely Pub-tan wouldn't have gone so far as to put actual dirt into a cocktail, even if she was well known to be an artistic purist when it came to her cocktail recipes. Either way, it only took a second sip for Vacant to decide that whatever was inside his glass, it was delicious.
- I want a Frankenstein so badly right now.

30.  "What?!" Cried Vacant. He's just gone as that Overlord guy!"
        Mahlua asked. "Your point?"
        Vacant said. "Well he's already a skeleton isn't he?"

- The man has a point.

31.        It wasn't, and she most certainly would. But that's a special secret for later .
- Shush Narrator no spoilers! I want to enjoy the story!

32.      And then the door fell in.
- For some reason this is one of my favourite sentences ever.

33.  Like something had sliced the hinges in half it was. The door hit the ground to reveal a figure in the darkness. They stood there, oddly tall, oddly thin. An unexplainable orange light poured in around the figure, and it cast them into a silhouette that prevented identification.
- Can you not. I hate scary things.

34.  With slow ponderous steps the figure advanced. As they entered the dim lights of the pub, it became that the mysterious figure at the door was none other than Coryn.
        Oh God was it Coryn.
- GAAAAH
- I can see the thunder.

35.  The moderator was holding himself… wrong. Coryn's eyes were closed. His arms were out at his sides, stiff as boards. He didn't move his legs in the way legs ought to move. It was like he was on strings. A macabre, human marionette, being puppeted by someone or something who hadn't seen a human walk for a while now, and couldn't quite remember how it went.  This was strange enough, but could have easily been passed off as a bit. But if anyone in the pub held that opinion, it came couched in believing that it was a joke gone too far. Willful destruction of city property was obviously looked down on, but that wasn't the real problem here.
        Coryn was naked.
- Jesus. A new favourite sentence. And oh gawd its horrifying. Stop

36. At least, he was mostly naked. He retained a pair boxer-briefs mercifully where they were supposed to go. But everything above and below his crotch was as naked as the day he was born.
Okay, time for reasonable minds to interfere. "Coryn I know I said I wouldn't discriminate on contest entries, but this is too much." Said Pub-tan. "You aren't allowed to be half-naked."
- She has a point

37.        "I can see your bulge mate!" Blurted out Mahlua
- laughed at that one

38. Again, it grew quiet. Things were starting to get a little awkward now. The erie orange light was still coming from outside, and Coryn had yet to open his eyes. Finally Pub-tan gave up, and started towards the end of the bar so she could enact justice. "Alright Coryn, we've all got the joke now, but I'm going to have to give you a temporary pub ban for breaking my door down."
- Man a ban by Pub-tan is serious beeswax

39. Just as Pub-tan was about to lift up the bar gate, Coryn's eyes shot open. They weren't right though. Coryn's electric blue lights were gone. It might not have been apparent from the back of the bar, but nothing about his eyes were right. His irises were twice as big as they should have been, his pupils were mere pinpricks at their centers. And instead of blue, there were solid swirling colors. Green, purple, and orange spun around his tightly contracted pupils like a hypnotist's wheel. Then Coryn opened his mouth, and our came his voice, but it wasn't just his voice. It was his voice and his voice and his voice and his voice a thousand times over, all laid atop each other until he was echoing his own echo. "HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED OUR NEW HEAVEN? WE HAVE KICKED OUT THE NEW OLD GODS AND FILLED THE BONE PITS WITH THE OLD NEW GODS AND THE OLD GODS AND THE GODS AND THE NEW GODS AND THE NEW NEW GODS! HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THE OLD OLD LIGHT? IT FILTERS IN FROM THE ANCIENT FORESTS OF WOOD AND CITIES OF STONE AND OCEANS OF WATER AND RIVERS OF BLOOD. ARE WE NOT ALL JUST FLOATING ON TOGETHER IN THIS GREAT ELECTRIC SEA WITHOUT PASSION? WITHOUT DIRECTION? FOLLOW ME TO THE NEW HEAVEN! WE ARE GOING TO FIND THE-"
- Nope. I'm out of here. Nope. Nope. Nope.

40.  Had Coryn always been that tall?
        Had he always been that thin?
- Mommy I want to go home

41. If you weren't used to the weird stuff that happened around MangaRaiders, you wouldn't stick around when a mostly naked guy waltzes into the Halloween party and gets clocked out by the bartender.
- This is true. Too true. Man the things that happen in MR.

42. Lego, who was dressed as Jimi Hendrix, guitar and all, offered to lock up his friend in the drunk tank back at MR Tower.
- Awwwww yiissss Hendrixxxxx *Air guitar*

43. At least that was the plan until Coryn rising uppercutted Lego right through the pub's ceiling.
- OUCH
- As with the shotgun knock out this is just too hilarious to imagine

44. At least if it had to be this way, Coryn would be being put out of his mystery by a friend.
- Nooooooooooooooo

45.  The blast hit the scientist dead in the face. Or at least, that was the idea. What should have happened was Coryn's head exploding in a display of blood and gore that everyone in attendance would need years of therapy to wipe away. What actually happened was that Coryn bounced back head first from the force of the blast into the ceiling, then black to the floor, and then made the trip a few more times like he was a bouncy ball in a pinball machine, before finally crashing to a stop in a collection of empties next to the bathrooms.
- Nani!? Also glad his head wasn't blown off.

46.  This inhuman display was bad enough, but what came next was worse. As Coryn landed, something let out a scream. I say something because it clearly wasn't human. It was the kind of screech a lesser narrator would describe as coming from one's own head. This is almost certainly that kind of screech, but the truly terrible thing was that it wasn't coming from inside the raider's heads. It was coming from outside, and that made it all the worse.
- Now is the time we bring out all the shotguns, all the flame throwers, crucifixes and holy water you have, ladies and gentlemen

47. Doubtless, many who swore they were heading out to confront whatever was going on reneged on the plan and decided to just call it a night instead. When all was said and done, the only living souls in the pub were Pub-tan, Lego, Mahlua, Vacant, and surprisingly, Coryn.
- 'Living.'

48.  "You could always do what I did." Said Lego with a shrug.
        "And what would that be?" Asked Pub-tan.
        Lego replied. "Live five hundred years in a doomed timeline only for him to come back to life and retconn the whole thing."

- Ouch. I remember that hurt. Damn you, Coryn

49.
Mahlua meanwhile, had started prodding Coryn's unconscious form with her foot (had he always been so tall?). "Given how long he was unconscious last time, we should have a few minutes before he wakes up again. I don't know what he meant with all that ranting about gods, but let me tell you as someone with experience, it's the ranters who are the most dangerous."
- I love the eeriness that 'had he always been that tall' adds.
- Yeah about the ranters.

50.   Vacant asked. "To themselves or others?"
        "Yes." Replied Mahlua.
- This is the correct answer.

51.  The party of would be heroes was feeling decently confident on the way towards the door. We're talking a six, maybe seven out of ten on the ol' confidence-o-meter. But that number dropped significantly after stepping into the night air.
- It's about to get worse isn't it.

52. The moon had been out on their way into the pub that evening. 'Had' being the operable word here. Upon reflection, the moon have still been out, but they sure as hell didn't see it in the sky. What they did see in that starry night was no moon.
        It was a big f*ck off eyeball!
- New favourite sentence and nope nope nope

53. Up in the sky and as plain as day was an eyeball. It was huge. Dwarfing even the largest of moons the assembled raiders had ever seen. This was the kind of size you see in movies. Blown up to proportions unsupported by all known laws of physics for dramatic effect. Except as mentioned above, this was a giant eyeball. There were barely any whites. It had the same pinwheel as Coryn's eye had. Green and orange and purple, all spinning around the central pupil. The whole thing was also bleeding around the edges, because of course it was. Huge red drops of blood fell from the rim of the eye, but if they were landing somewhere in MangaRaiders, those assembled couldn't tell.
- Just... No.

54. Wait a minute? Were they just going to keep standing around? They needed to do something about this thing! Lego gripped his guitar tightly, and let fempto-machines flow out across its surface, encasing it in a hard shell.
* Femto
- Also I'm starting to get impartial to rocking a guitar as a weapon.

55. Mahlua fell in step with the moderator. "Other than the fact this thing is putting out some serious magical energy, not much. Coryn mentioned a whole lot of different categories for gods, but he started with 'new old gods' and worked his way up from there. If I followed his logic correctly, he skipped the 'old old gods', so I'll start there."
- Man when you start applying age-terms to gods you know you're going to deal with some Eldritch horrors.

56.  As they were making their way however, Coryn burst out of the pubs entrance. The door frame burst and splintered as he failed to duck in time, but the scientist was unphased. "WE ARE ALL JUST GNATS FACING DOWN HIS INFINITE AND TERRIBLE WISDOM. THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE BUT TO SUBMIT AND BE FOUND WANTING FOR WHAT HE HAS DEMANDED OF US WE CAN NOT PROVIDE AND HE DOES THIS AS A KNOWING TEST. WE MUST FAIL AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN BEFORE FOR WE CAN EVEN PRETEND TO HAVE ACHIEVED THE TRANSCENDENT EMOTIONS WE NEED AND HE IS CAPABLE OF AN HE PROVIDES UNTO US FOR OUR MISDEEDS AND FORGIVENESS. THERE CAN BE NO-"
- the madness is impressive to read
- the madness is infectious. i am scared of looking into that eye. it calls to me and makes me think of infinite. my mind cannot hold. my mind cannot - um where was I?

57. Either Pub-tan's shotgun was getting weaker, or Coryn was getting stronger (and taller?).
- Yeeesh.

58. Lego took to the skies with his moderator abilities. The distance between himself and the eye was closed in an instant, but by the time he arrived, Lego had already come to regret the decision. The technique didn't factor actual physical distance into account, so when Lego glanced back to the ground, he found his had come quite a long way from MangaRaiders' surface. This was concerning not for how far it meant Lego might fall, but for how massive the eyeball was. If it could be supposed that the eye looked very large from the ground, even though it was still far away, then you could interpret that the eye itself was very big. This was all true, but that truth meant little when you couldn't look at the blasted thing from a few feet and realize that the eye/moon comparison was surprisingly apt, and that it was easily several times the size of the city itself.

- Just... no. It's over.

59.  So much for a quaint evening of drinks and party games.
- Indeed.

60. Alright then! Too late for thoughts of regret and retreat now! You can't just go crying home to mommy with your tail between your legs just because there's a huge eyeball monster that's possessed your friend bearing down on your city!
- Um, yes you can! But ah, go for it man!

61. Lego drew back his guitar, and smacked the giant pinwheel eyeball right in the pupil. The wet surface rippled like a fat man's belly, but there was no penetration, or even the slightest indication that Lego had done any damage. This was going to be harder than he had hoped.
- Ouchie for the eye god thing. But damn, I expected as much.

62. Lego wound himself up, and went back on the attack with his patented 'just hit it a whole bunch of times!' technique.
- Hey, it works. Sometimes.

63.
 The moderator was careful to only smack the eye when the force of the new strike would catch the ripple at the right moment and feed into the strength of the combined strikes. Lego played the eye's moist surface like a trampoline, but just when he thought he might be getting somewhere, the ripples shifted their direction all on their own. Before he could stop himself, Lego's next strike hit in exactly wrong spot instead of exactly the right one, and the feedback of his own attacks shot the guitar, and the raider holding onto it, careening back towards ground level.
- You've got to wonder if something just tanks your guitar smacks in the eye without reacting immediately if you've gotta bring out some bigger guns or get the hell out of dodge. Though I imagine something that huge will be very hard to get away from.  I wonder what effect it would have on spam ninjas

64.  The tan dumped her selection of bottles on a bench, and began her work. She dumped out one bottle labeled 'Formaldehyde', refilled it halfway with a pint of 'Virgin Blood' and then started adding things like 'Pancreas Fluid', 'Bone Marrow', and 'Muriatic Acid'.
- Muriatic acid. New word for something I already knew. Very cool.
- Also I'm having doubts about these bottles just being fake now.

65. "Shake well, wait five minutes, then either serve with a sprig of eucalyptus to neutralize the acid, or just smash it into that big dumb eye to hopefully put a hole in it!"
- Lets goooooooo

66. He double checked that the cork was firmly in place, and then carefully slid the bottle into the folds of his shirt. "Remind me to audit your receipts if we survive this."
- 100% Those bottles are what they say they are!!

67. Vacant's face lit up with shock and a bit of anger. "Alright then! I had thought you might do something like this! You were planning to have a cheeky little cheat at the costume contest weren't you?!"
- Brotherman the contest is over!!

68.         Mahlua shrugged. "Don't think of it as cheating. Think of it as… a little magically assisted costume design. Pub-tan didn't make any rules against magic."
- Wait she was totally trying to win the contest!

69. Vacant took an afronted step back. "I! Err… I was going to do a sexy little dance?... " He admitted sheepishly.
- Hahaha

70.  With that out of the way. Mahlua dropped to the ground, pulled a piece of chalk out from her costume, and began sketching a sigil onto the brick pathway. Vacant couldn't make heads or tails of it, but after a few minutes of drawing with only the occasional rumbling coming from above, it was done. Magical energy built up in Mahlua's right arm, and she discharged it into the sigil. The chalk lines took on the same purple glow as her tattoos, and when it did the air in the space seemed to shift. Vacant hadn't been able to put his finger on it until now. He had been feeling uneasy from the very start of this party vibe ruining event, but that unease had tripled ten fold after going into the sewer system. The unease was passing now, or at least returning to normal levels.
- Love the magic work. Strangely enough there are few Raiders who do magicky stuff if not none at all haha. Go Mahlua! Also is it special chalk?

71. Vacant rolled his eyes. "Pfft. Yeah, sure, I knew that. Magic circle mumbo jumbo abracadabra. Basic magic one-oh-one. You handle the magic stuff. I'll take care of any creepy raider puppets that come out way." He whipped out the toy revolvers strapped to his hips. "Bang! Bang!"
- You go get em, Sheriff Big Balls!

72.  This would be the second case in case you weren't following. Except that to call what the people of MangaRaiders were experiencing earthquakes would not quite be accurate. Sure enough the ground was shaking, but it was doing it rhymically almost. Bump. Bump. Bump. Bump. One after the other, getting larger, bit by bit by bit by bit.
        No one realized it yet. But these earthquakes weren't earthquakes. They weren't earthquakes at all. They were footsteps, and they were getting closer to MR Tower.

- Oh nooooooooooooo

73.  Lego hit the pavement after another assault on the pinwheel eye. He had thrown Pub-tan's bottle of death into the thing's pupil, but instead of exploding as hoped, the bottle just disappeared into the blackness. Lego didn't know if this was a good or bad thing, but successive attempts with ever more volatile cocktails had only produced the same result. Either the eye was disappearing the bottles to dimensions unknown, or it was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning. The moderator couldn't say, but for now he needed a new plan.
- Yeah I'm thinking this thing might be immortal.

74. The scientist had been growing taller and thinner as the night went on.
- Stop it man! He's become so tall and stretchy in my mind it's giving me bad vibes man. Bad vibes!

75. Fro's hair had been lit on fire by a demented clown, which brought Lego great joy.
- Can confirm. I'm giggling like a madman
- But RIP. Not even your hair-rivals deserve to have their hair set on fire by a clown.

76. A guest specter was being eaten alive by rabid wolfmen, which turned Lego's stomach.
- Oh gawd.

77. Lego even saw mighty MR-tan in combat with a shadow version of herself that knew her every move.
- Oh gawwwd.

78. Truly a Halloween extravaganza freak show was being visited upon MangaRaiders at the behest of pinwheel eyeball. Classic horrors, both real and metaphorical had been brought to life to torment the city's fine residents.
- I'd love to see the metaphorical horror of stubbing your toe on Lego bricks

79. No, none of this compared. What scared Lego, really scared him, was that he was seeing more and more sets of pinwheel eyes on the darkness and the mist.
- Forget about the MR Invasion. This is the day Mangaraiders died. Everything after this is just a fever dream set on by the pinwheel eyes. Why the hell is it even attacking us. RIP mangaraiders.

80. Lego slid to a halt outside the pub. A shotgun blast emanated from within, and he rushed inside to check that all was well. He found Pub-tan having just put down the last in line of a pack of severely decomposed zombies.
- That girl knows how to throw a party, mix a cocktail and handle a shotgun that's for sure. Now that's a bartender for ya.

81. You realize that I'll be in the crossfire then right? You know, right in the center of the explosion? You wouldn't put me in such immediate danger would you Pub-tan? You wouldn't right? Right?" Asked Lego with pleading eyes.
- Right? Pub-tan how long have we known eachother.

82. Pub-tan's side-eyed stair told him all he needed to know. She would put him in clear and present danger after all. "How heartless… " moaned Lego.
-

83. Lego, not in on the details of Coryn's arrangement with Pub-tan, just had to grin and accept what Pub-tan was telling him. "Alright alright! Less world ending bottles first, most world ending bottles later. You better hope I die doing this! If not I am going to guilt trip you for soooo many free drinks later!"
- Sounds like a plan. And fair payment. Also I want a Frankenstein cocktail dammit! I need that earthy aftertaste!

84. Mahlua dropped to the ground and started charging up. Purple energy flowed through her tattoos, and lightning arced down her arms. A new feeling took hold in the air as Vacant picked up bags and chalk and reference books. He realized that all of this time he had been afraid of the giant bleeding pinwheel eyeball. That, of course, had been and still was a very reasonable thing to be afraid of. But now that Mahlua was falling into a trance and doing her full witchy thing, Vacant could feel centuries of his screaming English ancestors telling him to fear the witch! Burn the witch! Burn! Fear! Burn! Fear! Burn! Fear! Burn! Burn! Burn!
- That ancestral fear can be quite the thing.

85. Vacant chose this moment to close his eyes and huddle behind a pillar, so our omniscient narrator will be taking over.
- Thank goodness for omniscient narrators.

86. As Mahlua reached the room's axis and Vacant cowered, the earth shook. This time not from Coryn's massive, ponderous steps, but from Mahlua's magical energy pressing itself against the bounds of reality and MangaRaiders' infrastructure. Lighting crackled and sputtered out from Mahlua's feet as she stepped into the central circle. Bolts connected from her position to specifically designed sigils on the walls. These lit up, and in turn branched out like a creeping vine to connect over a dozen other sigils each. By now the room had become an echo chamber of lightning and magic. Anything not physically connected to Mahlua was at risk of vaporization, so it was a very good thing that Vacant had gotten clear when he had the chance.
- Love the imagery here. Powerful stuff.

87. Mahlua would be encompassed by magical energies, and they would spontaneously transform her outfit right before the audience's eyes. She would then finish her presentation wearing the character's updated clothing from her appearance in the flash forward at the end of episode thirteen.
- Hahaha. She totally would've won.


88. Mahlua passed all but the tallest buildings in MangaRaiders, she then eclipsed Coryn's new height, and finally cleared MR Tower itself.
- Daaaamn the man grew tall.

89. Now there was nothing between her and the pinwheel eye itself. By now it felt so close. Was so close. Mahlua couldn't miss. She slammed into it right in the center of its big dumb pupil. It was wet and viscous, and was disgusting to the touch even for a being currently made entirely of energy. The eye pushed in, deeper and deeper. As deep as Lego's mighty guitar had driven it or Pub-tan's largest alcohol bomb. But Mahlua could drive it no further. The eye flexed back out, and the sudden reflection forced Mahlua back into her corporeal form. The witch was launched back the way she came. A moment later she slammed into the stage of MR Pub. Thankfully it was a sturdy construction, so it did not give. Mahlua bounced up and down a few times, and by the time it was all over she was splayed out flat.
        Everything hurt, but slow recognition was coming that she had an audience. Pub-tan and Lego were already gathered in the pub, Lego's hand mid-grab on and alcohol bomb. Vacant was clawing his way up from the hole Mahlua had created to the sewer below. With her adoring fans in mind, Mahlua drew herself up into the sexiest pose she could manage given the broken bones. "Never forget… who's the most extra B-I-T-C-H on this rock…" said Mahlua before promptly passing out.
- I clap hands. That was very badass.

90. Pub-tan poured herself a stiff drink before answering. "Best Lego can see from here, everyone else has succumbed to the eye's will. No word if they're turning into hundred meter tall skeleton monsters like Coryn has, but safe to assume; yes."
- Man seriously that seems like one of those fates worse than death. I'd rather be a zombie or something.

91. Vacant said. "I do have a plan! And hold onto your bottoms, because it's a good one! It's like this, see…" he motioned towards the various napkin sketches. "That big eye thing is what's powering Coryn, and also taking over everyone else in the city. And earlier when Pub-tan shot Coryn in the face, that thing screeched. So I'm thinking then, if we hurt Coryn enough, maybe it will kill the eye."
- I'm calling it this is Coryns' fault! What dimension did you open you mad scientist!

92. "Well…" started Vacant. "I couldn't help but notice Mahlua is in some fancy new digs after all that magic mumbo jumbo of hers. I was thinking maybe she could magic us up some fancy armor and weapons to take him down? Late stage power up in the third act this thing?"
- By the law of Anime this will defintely work.
- By the law of Anime this has to happen. I love fancy magic powerups

93. All eyes turned on Mahlua, who gave the prospect a thought, and then shrugged. "I can try something. But I need everyone to get on board with a lot of things really quick. That ritual wasn't designed for extras. I can't give you a clear answer on what's going to happen."
- This can't possibly end badly.

94. This time though, this time things would be different. The bolt of lightning was huge, and instead of impacting the pinwheel eye, it shattered and branched out. Two trunks of lighting shot down, two to the sides, and a ball formed above it all. A rough bipedal figure had been formed, but it lasted in the air for only a moment. There was a flash of light, and two weighty feet slammed into the ground. Where once a stick-man stood, a hulking warrior boldly posed. This half man, half robot, all solidified lightning energy fighter stood as tall as MR Tower. It's face was scarred with stitches. It wore a cowboy hat atop its head. A guitar was slung around its back, and a frilly black dress adorned its chassis. It was the ZOMBIE COWBOY ROCKSTAR GOTHIC LOLITA BATTLESUIT (Z.C.R.G.L.B. or Zucurglub for short). And within its chest sat the four control chairs, in which the four heroes of themselves found themselves.

ZOMBIE COWBOY ROCKSTAR GOTHIC LOLITA BATTLESUIIIIIIT *Stars in his Eyes*

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS HAHAHAHAHA I WANT THIS

It's more beautiful than I could imagine


95. "This is the dumbest thing that's ever happened to me." Said Pub-tan with a deadpan humor. Indeed, for a site devoted to anime, giant mecha battles came up surprisingly little. Now that one was actually about to happen it was a little hard to process.
- And this is a crime. More of this should happen. It's perfect!
- Wait how did a totally horrific situation turn into a Kaijuu battle. You know what nevermind.

96.   "Whatever you do, don't think if anything perverted."
        "Too late…"
        "Damn it!"
        "Enough, everyone needs to calm down right now! Coryn's noticed us."

- I'm not sure who was guilty there between Lego or Mahlua.

97. Words still came from the moderator's mouth, but they were so distorted by the enlarged size of his throat that they came out as deep groans. The Z.C.R.G.L.B. pulled up its fists into a right stance, and Coryn charged.
- Goddamn Coryn is scary . Save himmm

98. The Z.C.R.G.L.B. reached over its shoulder, and this to it brought the giant robot sized guitar down on Coryn's noggin.
- BOOM.

99. It was time for the finishing move. Coryn broke into a dead sprint go the
* sentence ending

100.         Z.C.R.G.L.B.. Purple energy flared around the body of the Z.C.R.G.L.B.'s guitar. With the last of its power, the Z.C.R.G.L.B. swung up, smashing the giant guitar into a million pieces against the bottom of Coryn's chin.
- BOOM BABY

101  In a shower of wood and metal Coryn was launched into the air, and straight into the pinwheel eye looming above MangaRaiders. This time there was more than enough force to do the trick. The force of the guitar's strike and that of the giant it helped create impacted the eyeball, and it exploded in a torrent of blood and ectoplasmic viscera.
- Ugh, but yessss

102. Coryn's gigantic body burst apart to, and the Z.C.R.G.L.B. caught the regular sized Coryn which emerged from the R-rated display of gore. Normal Coryn was still in his underwear, but the raiders could see through their view-screens that he was back to glowing his normal electric blue. With a sigh of relief from all involved, the Z.C.R.G.L.B. dispersed back into the magical energies from which it had arisen. The four raiders fell back to solid ground, Coryn unconscious but in tow. They had vanquished the strange god, and all was right on MangaRaiders, at least for a little while longer.

- Phew. Alls well that ends well, but damn Coryn really looked freaky there. Glad he's A Ok.... If it wasn't his fault for summoning the thing.

103.  It was a moment of much revere and enjoyment until 3.0 decided to open his mouth. "No it's not!"
        "What?" Asked Coryn.
        "That's not what happened last year!" Reiterated 3.0. I should know, I reported on it! You stayed the same size the whole night and there was most definitely no monster of the week style mech fight!"
- WHAT. WHY. MY HEART. CORYN YOURE A LIAR AND ILL NEVER FORGIVE YOUUU
- Ah well. The story was fun

104. "I'm sorry Vacant." Said Echo while sipping some tea out of a paper cup. "I'm not denying that there was a weird eyeball in the sky and that Coryn got possessed, but the second half of that story was pretty much all made up "
- Wait then what really happened?
- Also what tea is that?

105. Devola cut in. "I think she's saying you two are drunk on helicopter fuel, and forgot have of the details of this story as you were telling it. What happened to the bone juice bomb? How did everyone else who got possessed fair? This thing is full of plot holes."
- I mean... Who cares there were mechs dammit!

106. Coryn rose to find himself the bathroom, but was stopped by Devola before he could get too far. "Wait a minute, I'm still unclear about why you were in your boxers the whole time."
- Asking the important questions.

107.  Coryn shrugged, and started back on his way to the restroom. "I was ironing before the party. A little portal experiment I was running on the kitchen counter went bad and the pinwheel eye got through.
- I KNEW IT

108. Not all mysteries have grand reveals. Sometimes they're nothing more than the wrong place at the wrong time, or getting caught with your pants down by an ancient god. Life's funny like that, especially on Halloween.
- Hmm, that's true.

General Comments

Spoiler

My heart is forever broken because the mecha battle did not happen.
Also solid writing dude. You know how to work with an ensemble of characters, and there was some real nice shots and scenes. Definitely missing CS again for those epic fights.
Also  I learnt new stuff! Now, excuse me while I order some Laudanum

[Coryn]

You really got into it didn't you Lego  Let me do my utmost to answer your questions.

Spoiler

1. Fires be cozy.

4. That would be an allusion to Quest! I know it's not done and therefore not officially canon yet but god help me I haven't bailed on a canon story yet and Quest! sure as hell won't be the one.

5. - To a degree. I myself smoked a few cigarettes and cigars on occasion. It's not a habit and I never buy them myself, but y'know, when the mood is right.
    - Coryn's organs are still fleshy, so about as good as I am I suppose.

10. You're glimpsing behind the curtain there.

15. I sure know a lot of 'em. Saturnalia was the Roman solstice celebration. It's actually where Christmas gets its date from.

18. I think I answered this one in the story itself, as you found lol.

23. I envisioned it as that thing you do in a bar where you're trying not to be so loud as to be overheard, but still have to be loud enough to penetrate the music.

49. That's exactly what I was going for! I wanted people to question what was happening before I outright came and said it.

56. In the realm of the imagination!

64. Even I don't know where I pulled muriatic acid from, haha.

66. I like to think that only some of them were what they said they were. Pub-tan isn't cruel.

70. I looked at it in the FMA kinda way. The symbol is what's special, not the chalk.

99. Yeah... I definitely wrote this in a sitting and didn't edit afterwards...

Thanks for the in-depth review Lego! Your squirming reactions are just what I wanted to see! (In a good way).

Just to pull back the curtain a little bit, it's my belief that the story switched from "mostly true" to "mostly fake" around the point that everyone was back in the pub and we jump ahead a little. After Mahlua attacks the eye, before the mecha summoning. But even I don't know the real answer as to what happens after that, lol.

[legomaestro]

Short stories based on the MR War Arc after the events of Invasion

Short 2 - MR: War Arc: Outrageous

Megedegik was starving for a fight. Starving. In an unfortunate twist of fate, he, the reinstated 7th Circle Agent
of The Lost Chorus only had a stifling new jacket to show for his efforts. He'd missed all the good fights during the Dystopic Blades incident, and even during the Invasion the best he got was two cheap shots on an already exausted moderater. Heck, from what he heard even that nerdy hacker girl Akan saw more action than he did.

So, quite against his nature he found himself hanging around The Tavern. The Tavern was an external establishment liscenced by 4kids to operatre within MR. One of the several new institutions set up in the occupied city to promote commerce and outreach. Though Megedegik did not know any of this nor was interested in it, 4kids had even started working on expanding the city and somehow terraforming the vast desert that kept it isolated. For all their evil controlling, they had big plans for the nature of MR. And this drinking establishment run by a guest specter was just one of them.
 

Megedegik found no joy in alcohol, no release. he just wanted to go to The Bounty Board. It was an experiment of 4kids to increase self-surveillance and their outreach. It encouraged even non-members to hunt for raiders who hadn#t been captured yet .


Right now there was one that caught his eye. It was a man with supersaiyan hair. In the laws of this universe the longer the hair the more battle power there was. It was a law that even 4kids accepted.

He'd go after this... Gelmra.  The reward for him was astronomical, but the details were strange Wanted Gone From The Vicinity.



Finding the man was simple enough. In fact, it was almost dissapointing how easy he was to find. He was sitting in a house in the Literature Bloc (ex-Writers') District working on a Kaos Kube that shone with the colours of the multiverse. There were police-line barriers all over the abandoned area with the explicit order: DO NOT APPROACH.


Megedegik smiled. It must mean he was finally going to satiate his thirst for battle.

"GELMRA!"  He roared as he ripped off his stifling coat and flexed his muscles.

"FIGHT. NOW!"

Red eneergy coalesced around his form, then blasted upwards in a pillar of destruction.

"Ohohoho... A visitor. This is magnificent."

The door to the unnasuming house opened slowly, then a hand that twinkled like star-dust gripped the frame, and a man stepped out, followed by an impossible mass of lemon green hair,

"Who art though? A challenger to the throne of my brilliance?"

"I've come to fight you! Gelmra!" Megedegik launched himself forward, telegraphing his fist. He wanted the other to block it. He wanted a fight, not a beatdown. He wanted this Gelmra to know he was coming after him.

Gelmra made a T Pose and Megedegiks' fist impacted his chest and bounced off it like nothing.

"Violence is nonsense" Gelmra said proudly. He proceeded to float in the air, blowing the house around him ,

"There are better paths to be had. Nothing can defeat being... OUTRAGEOUS!"

He glowed even brighter than before. Neon Pink, Green and Yellow flash blinded Megedegik. There was energy from all of this, but it wasn't strong, it was just overwhelming. He felt like he could taste the colours he was seeing, and the man kept on floating and floating, and then Megedegik finally realized the man was completely naked. It was only the mass of hair around him that was covering him.

"Now that I have ascended. I am ready to tussle!" A broadsword the colour of unicorns dancing in sugar erupted from his right hand, and Gelmra took a pose. His hero coat formed around him, neon green as well, and Megedegik decided that he wanted a drink.

He half-heartedly fought down his feelings and threw another fist to blow away this maniac, but Gelmra parried the blow and then said,

"Oho! You are strong! Then I must evolve even more! LOVUS ETERNIUS SUPER SAIYAN FOURTEEN."

He exploded into the colours of the sun being dipped into a cup of honey sugar. There was green. So much green it'd make the very earth shy. There were colours that weren't even on the spectrum, shining, shining so much.


Megedegik fled

[Coryn]

Guh! What a sight in these tragic times. Not even poor old Megedegik can make Gelmra go away if he doesn't want to  Ah well, I guess some things just aren't meant to be. I wonder though, how much my own bounty is on that board 

Fun little idea for output here Lego! Do you mind if others partake as well?

[legomaestro]

Yes. Please. I think I have at most 3 ideas anyways

I wanted to make a bounty list but I have no idea what currency 4kids uses. You're definitely up there though. ( And yes, they are totally One Piece style bounties )

And my new canon is that Megedegik is like a Kenpachi who never gets to have an intense fight. A One Punch Man who doesn't even get to throw a punch. A truly miserable battle fanatic.

[Coryn]

Cool! I'll have to toss something out. Add it to my list of daily writing tasks besides "write one new paragraph of Coryn Part 2 for War Arc".

Hmm... who knows. I think I brought up internet currencies in Quest! but I'm not sure where I went with it. But I imagine 4Kids has some sort of banal system of "Units" or "Credits". Generic and inoffensive.

(One 4Kids Credit equals five Raiderbucks! For that is the exchange rate I shall set when I conquer their city!) It makes a lot of sense in a way...