Madhouse

“I got you now, you little fruitcake!” said Joe Fields with an arrogant smirk and a cigar pressed between his teeth. He could smell the “vermin” from miles away, even with puffs of tobacco smoke sailing across his face. Both of his index fingers were itchy and twitchy as they rested on the triggers of his dual machineguns. His bulky metal armor was easier to move around in than he thought. The metal boots made loud clomping sounds as Joe walked through the bamboo forest, but even this mercenary was confident that his target had nowhere to hide. Hell, if Joe wanted to, he could blow this whole forest down like the Big Bad Wolf, except with his machineguns instead of cigar breath.

The target’s tiny footprints led the grinning mercenary to a Japanese-style temple with a wooden balcony, white paper walls, a bamboo roof, and flowery decorations all around. “You’re making this too easy for me, you little twit!” said Joe as he cocked both of his machineguns. The psychotic smile on his face suggested that he didn’t care if his target lived a torturous existence or died a brutal death. “You’re mine, you little bitch! Your ass is mine!” he said in his gruff voice.

With his metal feet creating tiny tremors, the soldier of fortune marched toward the seemingly abandoned temple before kicking down the wooden door with shattering ease. Joe poked his head inside and sniffed around for his target like a hungry wolf. With the exception of a few potted plants, paintings, and samurai swords, the place was empty. But instead of waiting for a pin to drop, Joe clomped and crashed his way inside, not giving two shits if the wooden floor was cracking and splintering.

“I can smell that stank on you, you little weasel! Drop the bowl of rice and come out here with your hands up!” A few more animalistic snorts and Joe let out such a forceful sneeze that he yelled like a grizzly bear and dropped his cigar. As snot flew from his nose and extinguished the cherry, Joe began to notice the light coating of dust all around the walls and the floor. “Really? Dust? Is that all you got? Holy shit, you’re in for a wild ride, motherfucker! You only have nine holes in your body right now. I’ll put about a hundred more in you, you slick son of a bitch!”

A monstrous growl caught Joe’s attention to where he reluctantly turned around with his guns drawn. Standing in the kicked in doorway was a seven-foot lizard demon with its blade-like tongue hanging down to its knees. Its claws were extended and its screech was deafening. The beast looked poised to strike, but quick as it may be, Joe’s trigger fingers were that much faster. A hailstorm of bullets descended upon the “big ugly fucker” and shredded skin and bones to a fine powder. The blood stayed floating in the air in the shape of a sphere.

“What the fuck is this shit? Is this some kind of voodoo bitch negro spell or what?” shouted Joe. Skull shaped blood spheres began emitting from the liquid mass and staring down the mercenary with misty black eyes. Their tongues flailed around like whips while their jaws were wide open and leaking with green fluids.

Joe once again showered his opponents with bullets, but all the shots did was splatter a modicum of blood stains all over the paper walls. The floating blood skulls still remained and even let out an eardrum-shattering yell. Joe squinted his eyes in confusion and terror as a brown bubbling substance was rising from the back of their mouths.

The formerly arrogant mercenary turned around and ran screaming like a child, mustering up every curse word on the top of his whacked out head. The more he ran, the steeper the incline in the wooden floor, which was like walking up a wall. Joe huffed and wheezed in exhaustion after draining his legs in such heavy armor. The armor felt hot and muggy to where he struggled to take it off. After a while of struggling, he dropped his guns and used the power in his metal gloves to just rip the armor off a few chunks at a time.

The incline in the floor lessened to a normal base and Joe was feeling the sweaty chill in his confederate flag T-shirt and baggy camouflage pants. He got so cold that he wrapped his arms around himself and huddled on the floor. And then he felt a tidal wave of vomit wash over him as well as dissolved blood and banshee cries. The bloody skulls left him so drenched afterwards that he struggled to breathe underneath the weight of such liquid. After coughing up retched fluids and vomiting himself, Joe looked around the temple with glassy red eyes and said, “Where the hell am I? What the fuck is this place?!”

“This is what you wanted all along, right?” said a mysterious voice. Joe looked around for the source, but the temple was still the same vomit and blood covered mess it was before, minus humans. “I’m the voice inside of you, Joe. I’m the one who’s going to tell you to get the hell out of this temple before it’s too late. You don’t need to catch anybody. This isn’t your job.”

Joe tightly gripped both sides of his head as the inner voice felt like he was being attacked with an ice pick. The mercenary even banged his head against the soaked floor and shouted, “Stop it! Leave me alone! You’re not real!” The inner voice chanted a Japanese-sounding magic spell and that only made Joe slam his head harder, which opened up a huge gash on his forehead.

Instead of blood pouring from the wound, a hooded cobra slithered out and danced around on the floor. Joe fearfully crab-walked backwards as the cobra hissed and spit venom in his mouth. The mercenary coughed, hacked, and puked until a mouthful of tarantulas poured out and joined the cobra in its dance.

Joe’s bloodshot eyes widened in horror as the cobra and the spiders swirled together in a purple tornado, taking the form of a ghostly samurai in blue robes. The spiritual warrior pulled out his katana and pointed it sternly at the blubbering gun-for-hire.

“Please, don’t kill me!” begged Joe with his hands together prayer-style. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here. I just came here for a job and I ended up in....whatever the hell this place is!”

“In other words, you’re not sorry that you were chasing an innocent human being. You’re sorry because you got caught doing it,” said the “inner voice”, which now belonged to the samurai. “You knew all along that your target did nothing wrong. He was defending himself from local police after they tried to unlawfully arrest him. And now here you are trying to find someone who is no longer here. All for what? An ill-gotten paycheck? You disgust me!”

“Disgust?” whimpered Joe. “You thought that was disgusting? What about what this place is doing to me? What about all the lizards and blood and skulls and shit? You mean there’s nothing disgusting about any of that? You’re a bigger scumbag than me and that’s saying something! You’d better let me the fuck out of here or I’m going to pick my guns back up and blow this whole place down!”

“You want to leave?” asked the samurai. “You really want to give up on your mission because you can’t handle your opponent? Is this what you want?”

“Yes! Yes, you idiot! I just want to get the fuck out of here! I’ve had it with this shit!” sobbed Joe.

The samurai stared him down with sternness and poison in his eyes, but ultimately decided to put his sword away. “There’s nothing to stop you, Mr. Fields. You can walk out of here anytime you want. The exit has been there all along.” The samurai pointed to the smashed in front door, which now had a brightly lit portal in its way. “Go. Leave here immediately and never come back again.”

Joe’s teary eyes felt relaxed and hypnotized as he slowly made his way to the portal. “Leave…here…immediately…never…come back…again…” he said in a zombie-like voice. He reached his arm out to touch the light and the magnetic force pulled him through. He swam and swirled through the heavenly aura, finally able to rest after all of the nightmare fuel he took in that day.

When he crossed through to the other side, Joe found his arms trapped in a straightjacket and that he was in a white padded cell with only a small hole in the door to look out of. He struggled and fought in his bonds, but the jacket was too tight and he was too exhausted from the sedatives he received.

A doctor and a nurse could be heard having a conversation outside the cell. “Read me the summary on this one,” said the doctor.

The nurse flipped through the papers on a clipboard and read off, “Joseph Robert Fields, age thirty-five. Was admitted to psychiatric care after inhaling a large amount of PCP dust. He has shown signs of aggression and had to be given fifteen milliliters of sedatives. Previous criminal history includes aggravated mayhem, property damage, assault and battery, and aggravated kidnapping.”

Did Joe hear them right? PCP dust? Was the whole temple scattered with it? Knowing that he had been had caused the newest patient to thrash around in his cell and scream infinite curse words, to which the doctor and nurse backed away from the door and allowed him to work out his pent up violence. It may have been a while before he did, but anything was better than dealing with this sick son of a bitch in any capacity.

Burning Dragon

“Halt! Who goes there?!” shouted the poleax-wielding guard at the entrance of the Doom Hammer Temple. His brown leather armor, painted up face, and military stance gave off a “don’t fuck with me” aura that had many men shaken to their core. The guard’s blade was only inches away from the intruder’s throat and ready to slash it open at a moment’s notice.

The metal armor-wearing, blue scaled man-dragon Brock Soulburn gave a sadistic grin with his razor-sharp mouth and bladed tongue. “You’re shitting me, right? You fuckers have something I want, something that will give me a big ass payday and all the roasted chicken and red wine I can handle. Mmm-mmm-mmm! I want that Night Terror mask. I want it now!” With one vicious chomp, Brock took a bite out of the poleax’s blade and chewed it like a tender steak before swallowing it with a deep gulp.

The guard’s wide-eyed stare and shaky body took away his aura of intimidation in a big fucking hurry. “Holy shit!” he whispered fearfully before Brock breathed fire on him and had him dancing around in pain. The guard rolled down the stony temple stairs and bashed his body against every corner of almost every step. He was left a broken and fiery heap on the ground with nothing left to do but die like a bitch.

Brock gave a hearty belly laugh as he moseyed inside the stone-built Doom Hammer Temple. A small army of guards swarmed in on him with poleaxes ready to slash him to pieces. They threw their wildest and most savage strikes only to have their weapons gnawed on with Brock’s bear trap mouth.

With a mouthful of blades and wooden splinters, the man-dragon spit them out and rained down violence and fire upon the squadron of guards. The warriors dropped to the ground with shattered bones, spraying blood, and burning bodies. Those who weren’t caught in the crossfire continued to swarm in on Brock only to have their faces punched in with an anvil of a fist and their ribs shattered with a battering ram of a kick.

The entire guardianship of the temple resembled an ocean of fire, blood, and powdery bone meal. Brock was kind enough to breathe a harsh breeze upon the flames and douse them out completely. They were tall enough to obstruct his view of what lied ahead of him. At the bone-built altar was the placeholder for Night Terror, an evilly-smiling mask with dagger horns, bladed fangs, and bright neon red eyes.

Brock’s clear path to victory was weakly halted by an elderly shaman in a red robe and pig mask on his knees praying and crying at the same time. Even with the beastly mercenary approaching him, he never stopped praying and chanting. Whatever god he was pleading to couldn’t save him from getting a smack across the back of the head, which opened his skull and splashed his brains around the already messy floor.

“Damn, that was too easy!” boasted Brock Soulburn. His own delightful laughter rivaled the creepiness of the mask he came to collect. He even strutted towards the bone altar without even a modicum of effort to claim his prize. “Alright, you scary son of a bitch, your ass is coming home with me, baby!”

Night Terror convulsed with laughter as the mask came to life and planted a cartoonish kiss on Brock’s mouth. As the sickened dragon was wiping the flavor off of his mouth with his beefy arm, the mask gave off a series of high-pitched “Hoo-hoo!” chants as it floated around freely and crazily.

“You sick bastard! Get your ass back here!” shouted Brock before breathing fire in Night Terror’s direction. The swift mask flew out of the way as a stream of flames followed him around the ceiling of the temple. Night Terror’s path lead him back to Brock, where this time he licked the man-dragon’s pointy ears with a sloppy dog tongue. The “Hoo-hoo!” chants and spinning around continued.

After Brock wiped the slime out of his ear with his meaty finger, he clenched his teeth, growled throatily, and tightened his muscles in anger. With one monstrous claw, he ripped a chunk of stone out of the ground and chucked it like a baseball at Night Terror. Unsurprisingly, the mask dodged with deftness. Brock continued to rip chunks out of the stone floor and fling them at his target, but all he hit were pieces of the temple wall and a few sacred artifacts.

Night Terror mocked his attacker some more by sticking his dog tongue out and wagging it like a cartoon character. With his blood boiling, his teeth tight, and his veins ready to burst like blood bombs, Brock ripped up one more chunk of the floor and threw it with an even faster velocity. This time the projectile found its mark. The stone slab nicked the mask in the forehead and caused it to whirl around like a leaf before it landed on the ground, presumably down for the count.

“And stay down, you sick piece of shit!” shouted Brock before he stomped his way over to the mask to claim what was rightfully his. He picked up the fallen mask by both sides of its face and shook it violently while screaming, “You hear me! Stay dead, you stupid bastard! Stay! Dead!”

Night Terror came back to life and shoved his wet tongue up Brock’s nose, causing the dragon to spin around and hack up a huge wad of spit. The mask floated high in the air once again and laughed at his opponent while the man-dragon pounded the floor with both fists and shouted, “That’s it! I quit! I’ve had it with this crap!”

Before he had the chance to storm out of the temple, Night Terror made a silly sad face and said, “Quit? You can’t quit now, my friend. You’ve come this far and made so much progress. How can you quit when things are going so well for you? Did you already forget how delicious and wonderful that roasted chicken and red wine will taste? Surely, you can’t get it for free.”

“Oh, shut up, you disgusting prick!” shouted Brock with his arms folded like an annoyed child. “Everybody knows that nothing in this world is for free! That’s why I became a mercenary! It’s called work! You may want to try it sometime instead of irritating the piss out of everyone who comes here!”

“You want money?!” screamed Night Terror, which snapped Brock out of his angry trance. “There are easier ways to make money than by blindly doing what you’re told and going on suicide missions like this one. For example…”

Nightfall had cast its winter shadow over the Steel Wolf Barbaric Tribe. Everyone should have been tucked away in their straw huts for the evening, but the orcish warriors were standing around with their weapons drawn and anxious poses about them. Some of them tapped their feet, some of them banged their spears on the ground, but the seven-foot tall chief sat in his throne of bone with a chest full of gold at his side, his beefy fist underneath his chin, and a vicious look on his face. Their mask should have been retrieved by now in what should have been a simple mission for a simple-minded mercenary.

The orc barbarians got into military stances as the silhouette of a muscle-bound dragon warrior appeared at the wooden gate of their village. The chieftain stood up from his throne, grabbed his chest full of money with one hand, and hauled the heavy equipment toward the shadowy figure, thinking the job was done.

“Brock Soulburn!” shouted the chieftain in his authoritative voice. “We have the money we negotiated for earlier. This chest contains our finest and most ancient gold that we have harvested from our sacred grounds. You can live comfortably for the rest of your life with this kind of gold. All we ask for in return is the Night Terror mask, a treasure more valuable to us than any form of mainland money. Do you have the mask with you?”

The shadowy figure of Brock Soulburn slowly walked into the torch light of the orc village. The other warriors came closer with their spears drawn in case he tried something funny. Their intimidating figures turned to shaky cowardice when they saw Night Terror grafted on the face of the dragon warrior, who said in a newly demonic voice, “Get your own damn mask!”

The possessed dragon warrior breathed fire upon the entire cast of villagers, including the chieftain. This wasn’t ordinary fire. The flames were a bright blood red with a poisonous green center. The flames had also created a much larger blast zone. As they were burning into a pile of ashes, the barbarians’ souls were flowing out of their mouths and into Night Terror’s own sadistic grin. Even the mighty seven-foot tall chieftain dropped to the ground with a thud as his ancient soul was consumed by this savage fire. The more souls Night Terror / Brock Soulburn consumed, the bigger the man-dragon’s belly got. He even let out a loud burp that was so powerful that the flames were put out.

All that remained of this now dead village was that big juicy chest full of gold, to which Night Terror swirled his tongue around his face in anticipation. The mask carried the possessed body of Brock Soulburn over to the chest, who kicked the lock open with deadly force and opened it up to an orgasmic response. So much gold. So much treasure. So much delicious roasted chicken. So much heavenly red wine. In his demonic tone, the possessed Brock said, “Mmmmmmm, yummy food!” before hanging his sloppy tongue off the side and drooling heavily.

Sage Against the Machine

Caitlin Sparks was a one woman wrecking crew, yet she couldn’t overthrow an entire oppressive government by herself. She wasn’t always alone. She had many comrades to help her in her quest to overthrow Dark-Law, Jr., a powerful sorcerer who unlike his father used futuristic technology rather than medieval magic to take over this world. One by one, each of Caitlin’s warriors fell by the zap of a laser, a burst of a flamethrower, or a bullet from a depleted uranium rifle. If she had a dime for every tear she cried since then, she’d be an oligarch.

Her only hope for completing her rebellion against the unjust dictatorship rested within the hands of an elderly sage named Eli Magruder. After slashing her way through several drones and armored soldiers with her oversized sword, Caitlin finally located the wise one’s temple. Except it didn’t look much like a temple. It was more like a brick compound with various runes carved into the walls, some of them spray painted like graffiti.

The rebel warrior scratched her raven pony tailed head in confusion as to whether or not she was actually at the right address. For all she knew, Eli Magruder could just be a ghost and the whole thing could be one huge trap. She shrugged her shoulders and walked tiredly across the dirt field with only lightning bolts from the gray sky to illuminate her way. It had been a long journey complete with battles, loss, and general exhaustion. There better be a fucking sage here, Caitlin thought to herself.

Once she trekked past the dirt field, she dragged herself up the stone stairs to the front entrance and knocked on the rickety wooden doors, both of which falling off with the slightest of contact. Some temple, Caitlin said in her mind. The interior of the building was pitch black until a flame path lit up in front of her, leading to a seven-foot tall mountain of a man with a scraggly white beard, a black tank top, and brown khakis. Worst of all, he was wearing a black sheep’s mask. Not what anybody would call sagely, but Caitlin Sparks decided to play long…for now.

She carefully walked along the fiery path and approached the man she perceived as the wise Eli Magruder, who was sitting in a wooden rocking chair with even more languidness than shell-shocked Caitlin. The sword slinger got on one knee and bowed to her sage in a show of respect. Or fear, depending on how creepy this man really was.

“You must be Caitlin,” said Eli in a gravelly monster voice. “You’ve come a long way just to see me. I’ve been expecting you. If you’re looking for an ally in your fight against. Dark-Law, Jr., I can’t provide you assistance with that. I may look like a titan, but I am still too old to be slinging magic spells on the battlefield with you.”

“I understand if you’re not feeling up to the task,” said Caitlin. “I didn’t come here for extra soldiers. Lord knows I’ve led many of them to their doom already. I’m here merely to seek your wisdom and counsel. Perhaps you have advice on how to combat Dark-Law, Jr. and his forces.”

“I’ve certainly seen what his minions are capable of. Too much bloodshed. Too much oppression. Too much starvation. And there’s not one person who’s been able to weaken his iron grip over this world. If you want advice on how to defeat this madman and bring peace to our world again, it’s this.” Eli took a deep breath and removed his sheep’s mask. “Fall in line. Just fall in line and nobody will get hurt.”

Caitlin stood back up and furrowed her eyebrows at the “wise advice” she was given. “That’s it? I came all this way and had many men and women die on my watch so that I could hear that? That’s your genius plan? Just let Dark-Law, Jr. do whatever the hell he wants?”

“This is clearly not what you were expecting and I can tell you’re disappointed,” said Eli. “However, this is all I have to give you. The reason your warriors have died is because you keep pushing forward in a battle you can’t win. If there were no battles, your soldiers would still be alive.”

“That’s bullshit!” screamed Caitlin. “Dark-Law, Jr. has been killing off people left and right whether they rebelled against him or not! He’s a bully! He gets off on that crap! He thinks this planet is his own personal coliseum! You may be okay with what’s going on here, but I’m too busy trying to change the world to listen to your bullshit! Fuck this, I’m out of here!”

“I’m sorry, Miss Sparks, I can’t allow you to leave,” said Eli as he stood up and clinched his fists, purple energy swirling around them.

“Old man, you’re in no position to threaten me or to give me orders!” yelled Caitlin as she drew her massive sword. “I wasted a long journey coming here and all you gave me was cereal box advice! I think I’m entitled to handle this on my own considering you have the intelligence and wisdom of a packet of ketchup!”

“You may not like it!” screamed Eli so powerfully that he knocked Caitlin back and caused her to raise her eyebrows in fear. “But that’s the way the world works. You’re welcome to stay in my temple for as long as you need to. In fact, I won’t let you go anywhere else. Not while there’s still death and destruction around.”

“You bastard!” shouted Caitlin when she ran at Eli full force and swung her oversized blade, intending to decapitate him. A green aura was protecting the elderly sage and when the sword made contact, it bounced out of the attacker’s hands and skidded across the floor into the darkness. Unable to accept the fact she was screwed, Caitlin threw wild punches and kicks at the wizard, still no effect.

“My turn, you spoiled bitch!” screamed Eli as he wrapped his massive hands around Caitlin’s throat and hoisted her in the air, her feet dangling beneath her. As she struggled for oxygen, she tried to pry his huge hands loose and even kicked him in the balls for good measure. Nothing. Not one dent. It didn’t take long before Caitlin’s lungs flattened, her neck was sore, and her vision was as black as the rest of the temple.

Caitlin was left in the dark for what seemed like days, maybe even months. In reality, it had only been hours since she was choked out by the massive Eli Magruder, who was supposedly too old for combat. When the battle-hardened woman finally came to, her throat was sore, her eyes felt like they were going to pop out, and she had a monstrous headache. She didn’t wait to fully recover when she felt around for a sense of her surroundings.

Once again, she was left in the dark, but this time for a much more disturbing reason. She was kept in a claustrophobia-inducing space with wood paneling on both sides of her, against her back, and in front of her. This could only mean one thing. The so-called “wise one” locked her in a coffin and quite possibly buried her underground.

Tears formed in Caitlin’s pain-wracked eyes as she kept saying, “No!” to herself and pounding the lid to the coffin. “Let me out of here!” she screamed in desperation. “Let me out of here, you have no right to keep me here! Please! You can’t do this to me! I’ll stay with you if you just let me out!”

Not one vocal response. She truly was all alone in that coffin. She cried several more tears as she thought about all the times she let her fellow warriors down. So many deaths. So many fathers and mothers without children. So many children without parents. So many wives without husbands. A trail of broken homes was all Caitlin Sparks left behind, even more so than Dark-Law, Jr. could have done himself. Her death by starvation in this coffin would be the final blow against a rebellion that never was. No wonder her eyes were flooding with tears.

And then she heard Eli’s voice once again, this time saying, “Okay, okay, just wait a minute! Haven’t you kids got any patience?!” The crying stopped. Her coffin was being lifted out of whatever hole it was kept in and the lid was pulled off with relative ease by the monstrous Eli Magruder, who then proceeded to pull Caitlin out of the box and show her that she had been in the backyard of the temple this whole time.

Caitlin Sparks wasn’t going to wait for an explanation. She continued to throw punches at her assailant, but these ones were more like emotional slaps than real combative blows. She screamed obscenities at him while Eli held her arms and tried to calm him down. With these words, her assault came to an end: “The drones are gone.”

“…What?”

“I gave you that crappy advice because there were drones flying over my temple. I buried you back here to make them think you were dead and done for and that I was just a crazy old man. The whole speech about conformity was a trick.”

As Caitlin looked at her new mentor in disbelief, Eli handed her back her sword and said, “As long as Dark-Law, Jr. doesn’t think you’re a threat anymore, he won’t see you coming when you finally lop off his head. You came to my temple for advice? Here it is: stealth and brains will always win over brute force and brawn. I helped you with the stealth part, now all you have to do is maintain your cover. I believe you can do it, Miss Sparks. I know you can.”

Caitlin clutched her sword handle with a newfound strength and looked into Eli’s eyes with a mixture of anger and focus. The anger wasn’t directed at him. On the contrary, she was thankful he went out of his way for her like that. The anger and rage was all for Dark-Law, Jr. She would take every ounce of that rage on him with one blow.

“Trust me when I say this, Master Magruder,” said Caitlin with newfound respect for him. “I’m bring you that son of a bitch’s head on a silver platter. Not just for me, but for you and everyone else he has slaughtered mercilessly. If I have to be slow and careful, then that’s how I’ll do it. I owe you big time, Master.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Miss Sparks…except Dark-Law, Jr.’s head!”

Kill, Cut, Scalp

Buildings crumbled to rubble. Oceans flooded the streets. Volcanoes burned this once great Earth. Lightning flashed in the gray skies. And who did the people of Earth have to thank for all of this? Their new master, the necromancer Dark-Law. Those who agreed to Dark-Law’s leadership survived long enough to live as slaves. Those who didn’t were tortured with spikes and fire or decapitated with a skeletal minion’s energy saber. Dystopia was an overused word to describe situations such as this. Hellish nightmare would have been more appropriate. The worst part about this? Nobody was powerful enough to slay this sorcerer and restore peace to this destructive landscape.

The wicked magician spent most of his free time in his bone-constructed temple bathing in a pool of blood, which he would also use as a screen to monitor his minions’ handiwork. The blood was warm and bubbly, just like a Jacuzzi. The skull decorations and tribal masks lining the walls of his personal room were relaxing as well. The blue-fleshed, baldheaded, sharp-fanged wizard draped his arms across the edge of the pool, threw his head back, and let out a peaceful sigh.

“Excuse me,” said a tired and dull voice.

Dark-Law lifted his head and opened his weary eyes to see that a young gentleman with a plump stomach, sweat pants and a T-shirt, a bald head, and droopy jowls standing on the other side of the bloodbath. The poor guy looked so tired and uncharismatic that he could have fallen over and passed out at any minute. But he didn’t. For all of his lack of charm, this gentleman had some kind of reason for being here.

The blood pool showed visions of the skeletal guards outside the temple in perfect shape and standing stoically. They appeared to be doing their jobs, but they obviously weren’t considering this poor excuse for a hero just showed up in Dark-Law’s private chambers. The necromancer would deal with their insubordination later. Until then…

“What’s wrong, young lad? Are you lost? Did you stumble into the wrong room? Leave my chambers, post-haste! You’ve seen what I’ve done to this world, so killing off an everyday loser like you would be a cakewalk!” threatened Dark-Law.

With his jowls swinging freely from his chin and cheeks, the boring hero said, “I didn’t make a mistake. My name is John Bush and I’m here to take your scalp off with this pocket knife.” He indeed had a pocket knife in his hand and it looked about as long as his sausage-like pinky finger.

Such disturbing threats would normally be met with a lightning bolt or a bone spear from the deadly wizard. Instead, Dark-Law burst into monstrous, throaty laughter and pounded the edge of his blood pool with his fists. “Are you serious? Your name is John Bush and you’re here to kill me? And here I thought you came all this way to file my taxes!” He laughed some more.

Maintaining a stoic and dull aura, John Bush said, “I’m not kidding around, Mr. Dark-Law. Everything I tell you is the truth.”

“The truth?! You want to know what the truth is, laddie?! You’re a big pudgy idiot named John Bush and you’re carrying a pocket knife the size of a goddamn toothpick! No wonder my guards let you in so easily!” said Dark-Law as he continued to pound the edge of the pool and laugh like a hyena.

“Okay, Mr. Dark-Law. I warned you,” said John before kicking off his sandals and touching the blood pool with his toe.

“HEY!!” shrieked the deathly wizard, which caused the unlikely hero to jump back in fright. Dark-Law stood up in the pool and waded across it while maintaining an evil stare. “I’ve tolerated you up until this point, Mr. Bush. But nobody, and I mean nobody, bathes in my pool of blood except for me!”

Instead of tiptoeing his way in the pool, John Bush jumped in and created a huge splash with his hefty body. “What now, Mr. Dark-Law?”

The sorcerer growled and teleported over to John’s position. Face to face with stale breath invading his opponent’s nostrils, Dark-Law wrapped his claw-like hand around the top of John’s head and shoved him under in an attempt to drown him. The hot temperature and acidic taste of the blood weren’t enough to make Mr. Bush put up a huge struggle against his suffocation. He either really was a passionless hero or he was enjoying the bubbly feeling like he was in a hot tub.

As John’s oxygen bubbles got smaller and smaller, Dark-Law screamed at him, “I rule this world with death and destruction! This planet is my plaything! But you, John Bush! You are my one and only bitch!” It was at that moment when Dark-Law felt a jab of sharp pain in his leg and jumped backwards underneath the blood while John Bush stood back up coughing and gasping.

Dark-Law also stood back up and had a fresh scar running across his leg compliments of the “toothpick” in his opponent’s hands. For such a small weapon, it created quite the gash. But this wizard wasn’t going away that easily. His wound healed quickly and new skin formed over it. Despite the hopelessness ahead of him, John didn’t look the least bit disappointed.

“You see that, Mr. Bush! That’s what happens when you sell your soul to the devil himself! I traded a normal life for these godlike powers and now this world is brought to its knees! But you, Mr. Bush. You won’t have the luxury of living on your knees much longer. Instead you’re going to die like a whore on your back!” threatened Dark-Law as he gathered black energy in the palm of his hand.

John didn’t look too impressed with Dark-Law’s magical abilities, but probably would be once the shadow ball was tossed his way. One hard throw and this charade was over. After a cannonball-like shot from the sorcerer’s hands, the bullshit was indeed over, but in a different way.

John Bush swatted the energy ball away and revealed that his pocket knife hand had turned into a burning red skeletal hand. He had been playing mind games this whole time and Dark-Law was just now figuring it all out. The blue-skinned sorcerer backed up into his pool in sheer fright of what he was seeing, his body shaking and his head barely above the blood.

“The games are over, Dark-Law. And now it’s time to see who the real bitch is!” said John in a demonic scream unlike the medicated voice he was using this whole time. He began to tear his own flesh off until all that remained underneath was a fiery red skeleton with steel angel wings and a crown of spikes.

“No…no, this isn’t happening! Where the hell are my guards when I need them?!” screamed a fearful Dark-Law. The blood pool showed that the skeletal guards outside the temple were also part of the façade. Upon gazing at them a second time, their bones crumbled into ashes and dust.

“For god’s sake! If you worthless minions can’t handle this, then I will!” shouted Dark-Law as he leaped out of his pool and started throwing green energy balls left and right at the death angel known as John Bush.

Every ball found its target in John’s bony chest and he appeared to be bending backwards in pain. Dark-Law raised his arms and cheered in hope that he had won this battle. But victory wouldn’t come so easily for the deadly wizard. Instead the green energy projectiles caused John’s death angel body to grow larger and fierier. The red skeleton shouted a demonic cry before firing his own projectile straight through Dark-Law’s heart: a fire spear that drained his black blood into the already disgusting pool.

The evil ruler screamed his last scream of pain and thrashed his last bone-breaking thrashes. His now hollow corpse was tossed aside and John Bush’s death angel form had transformed back into his uncharismatic chubby body, still with the pocket knife in his hand.

John waddled over to Dark-Law’s corpse and sat his big ass down to start cutting away at the man’s scalp. “This will make for some awesome scientific research.” Indeed it will, John, because this dystopian nightmare shall never happen again. And to think, it was all because the almighty Dark-Law refused to take his most unlikely opponent seriously. For shame.