AUTHOR'S NOTE: Unfortunately, Mr. DeBartolo was unable to write this episode as promised in last weeks preview, due to him getting on in years, and the fact that he wouldn't know Urusei Yatsura from Urotsukidoji. Instead, this episode has been written by Ms. C. DeBartolo, whom you may recall either joyfully or with distaste as the author of episode #12. We now return you to your regularly scheduled fanfic. For those of you who haven't been reading the episodes from the beginning (shame, shame!) a brief summary has been provided for your edification. When last seen, our heroic group of musicians (Tejina, Sailor Delight; Kireiko, the Wild One; Matsuro, Bishounen Guy; and the latest recruit and ex-roadie/groupie Becky, also known as Sailor Rapture, or Secret Agent BA-3) and the mystical idiot companion animals, Daisy the Mangy Drunkard Cat and Rover the Snooty Dog, were confronted onstage at the park festival by the evil legions of youma led by the Supreme Dark General Esjie (also known as Yoi Maeda of the Tokyo Legitimate Businessman's Club), while Nemesis Serendipity Villyn awaited in the wings (with no evidence of his usual retinue of interchangeable goons in sight), the Hello Cthulu Army (formerly ordinary Cthulu cultists, transformed by horrific otherworldly powers) awaited in the sewers (led by the possessed body of Brother Maynard, a former Cthulu cultist), Keiko Yamanaka observed the battle -- armed with the Cleaver That is Not a Sword Precisely and a fresh bucket for the blood, Aki Villyn argued with Charles the Mystical canary about the inevitability of a future containing fukus, and an albino and two dwarfs walked into a bar (whoops, that was the episode before that), creating what is quite possibly the longest run-on sentence in this series' history! DO-GOODERS Original Concept by Stefan Gagne Episode 16 - The Big Brawl!! So, when does this band play music? by C. DeBartolo ---------------------------------------------------------- Like sands through the hourglass, hundreds of youma poured through the Darkverse rift with all the inevitability of taxes, gravity, or Macek screwing up the edit. These were not the elite members of the Darkverse, with their own peculiar coloration and funky clothing -- these were the bland interchangeable minions of the Darkverse: gray, taloned, over-endowed with muscles, and under-endowed with brains. For pure numerical stopping power, they were unmatched. If someone was looking *very* closely at the youma (but who'd want to?), they might notice an exception to the multitudes of carbon-copies. Towards the back stood, er, staggered a pale form, closely followed by two short wobbling figures. The man known to the Do-Gooders as Maeda, leader of the Tokyo-area Branch of the Legitimate Businessman's Club (to which all elite and forward-thinking yakuza, humaniform demons, youma generals, and various people devoted to the cause of Evil belonged), smiled darkly and stepped aside as the youma surged forth. He satisfied the urge to engage in villainous laughter with a small chuckle. Excess landed one in the same category as that idiot -- "BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!" -- Villyn. Maeda, or Supreme Dark General Esjie (as he was known to his youma troops), squelched the urge to moan and hide his face in his hands. The LAST thing he needed was this idiot. "MY Miniature Legion of Minions will destroy the Do-Gooders and no other, Maeda! I shall destroy the Do-Gooders, confiscate their demo tapes, rock to their tunes, take over Tokyo, and then I shall RULE THE WORLD!! MUA-HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!" Villyn boomed out, his naturally loud voice enhanced by his armor's personal sound system. He held an armor-clad pinkie to his mouth in typical overdone villain fashion as his laughter rang out, giving everyone a terrible headache. Esjie counted backwards from ten, slowly. "Look," he said eventually, "why don't we leave this to the time-honored tradition of solving the who-gets-to-kill-them question?" "Eh?" "Whichever of us gets their minions to the Do-Gooders first, wins." "A-HAHAHAHAHAHAAA! My minions will demolish them utterly!! MINIATURE LEGION OF FACELESS MINIONS, ATTACK!!" Villyn's minions charged. There was a brief moment of silence as the audience, the Do-Gooders, and the youma scrutinized Villyn's legion. Then the laughter began in those nearest the action, and spread slowly as those further back peered over shoulders to see what the joke was. Esjie/Maeda looked at the legion, then looked at Villyn expressionlessly. Villyn coughed, and cleared his throat. A faint blush tinged his cheeks, such as could be seen behind his armor. "They answered my ad by phone. I thought it just meant that there weren't that many of them." Fully a thousand Faceless Minions were charging across the park. They had about fifty feet to go before they reached the Do-Gooders. As each of them was only four inches tall, that was going to take some time. A large sweat-drop appeared on the back Esjie's head. "Why do you even bother?" He turned to his troops and waved a spotless handkerchief in the band's direction. "YOUMA, DESTROY THE DO-GOODERS!" "Hey, wait a minute!" Tejina, also known as Sailor Delight, shouted into the microphone. "Aren't you guys supposed to attack one at a time? I thought using groups was against your crummy Dumbverse traditions!" The youma general chuckled lightly, flicking non-existent particles of dust off of his tie. "That, my dear short-skirted Sailor, is the old way of doing things. These days, the youma fight to win!" "Amazing!" Everyone on stage glanced at the knee-level voice. Rover looked delighted, as far as a German Shepherd's face can express delight, anyway. "I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime! We may be seeing youma evolution in progress!" "I'm sure we're all overjoyed at the prospect," Tejina snapped. Matsuro sighed in mild nausea and drew his sword from his abdomen, trying to ignore the twelve miniature winged monkeys circling his head and singing the theme song to Gilligan's Island. He swept the sword into a properly dramatic angle, and hoped the hallucinations wouldn't get any worse today. Kireiko grinned terrifyingly. The effect only increased after he laid his jacket to the side and removed his ofuda-emblazoned T-shirt, causing his teeth to turn to a multitude of sharp fangs. "'Let's Kick Ass!'" "Anybody have a sneaky tactical idea to get us out of this alive?" Tejina eyed the oncoming mass of youma with concern. Becky removed a small object from a trenchcoat pocket, fiddled with it, then threw it into the center mass of charging youma. *BOOM!* A short, sharp shower of youma parts sprayed out. She rummaged in the coat again, this time retrieving a Glock. "Kill 'em all. Let God sort it out," she suggested and opened fire. Tejina sweat-dropped. "Is it just me, or is she getting worse?" The youma surged onto the stage, over the bodies of some of their lead-poisoned cohorts. * * * * * The audience was cheering wildly. So far, this had turned out to be even better than had been promised! The late breaking flyers HAD promised 'The Battle of the Century' to be staged by the Do-Gooders before they played, but no one had expected this amount of realism in special effects. Those nearest the action had thoughtfully been provided with clear plastic cloth to hold over their heads, which was being put to good use as little chunks of dark youma flesh and sprinkles of black blood splattered against the plastic. One section of the crowd had taken to shouting "Olé!" every time Matsuro hacked a youma in two with his sword. A few junior high school girls were starting to get in an argument over which was cuter, Bishounen Guy or the Wild One. Twice as many high school boys were drooling over Sailor Delight, or more accurately, Sailor Delight's extremely short skirt. "AIIEEEE!!" A short, sharp scream attracted the spectators' attention. Several gasped in horror, and many began to applaud. Some youma had been unfortunate enough to destroy the Do-Gooders' amp, and the Wild One was expressing his anger on their bone structure. Meanwhile, Becky had run out of ammo, and was now down to performing hand-to-hand combat with the Darkverse denizens. She had already removed her tie and strangled no less than three youma with it, and was trying to ignore the voice in her mind that was urging her to change into Sailor Rapture. Her headache was rapidly gaining migraine status. This wouldn't be happening if Mom wasn't such a spoilsport, she thought. [Earlier today...] "Bye, Mom, I'll be back later!" "Rebecca Petulia Anderson, just where do you think you're going with that neutralizer cannon?" "But, Mo-oommm! We've got a big gig today, and you KNOW everyone always attacks when we have a gig! You were even there last time." "No buts, young lady. Put it back. AND the napalm." "How am I supposed to protect myself, Mom? Do you want your only daughter killed?" Amy Anderson of the CIA sighed. "Oh, all right. You can take my spare Glock and some grenades." "And?" Becky prompted. "And the spare Little Big Gun. But don't use it unless you absolutely have to!" [Back to the present...] It hadn't gotten bad enough to use the LBG, Becky mused, but it was starting to get pretty rough. She tossed another shrapnel grenade. Keiko watched Matsuro chopping the youma soldiers into tiny bits, with the mandatory girl-in-love soft-filter lens and a background of blooming roses, fluttering petals, and sparklies. Admittedly, in Keiko's case the roses were black, the petals were coated in blood, and the sparklies were emanating negative energy, but you get the general idea. "Wow. He's sooo handsome when he cuts those youma into --" she blinked. "Aagh, all that Darkverse blood is going to waste!" She charged into the fray, swinging her cleaver with abandon, and trying to catch the flying blood in her bucket. With every splash of youma blood, the strange semi-sword-like cleaver became more over-decorated, runic, and more sword-like, while retaining its inherent cleaver nature. * * * * * Matsuro was cutting down his twenty-second youma when the flying monkeys switched from singing TV jingles to haunting operatic arias, interspersed with Latin chants. The youma blurred together and shifted into an endless tidal wave of pink liquid faces that dribbled yellow mucus. His mother burst forth from the ground before him in a spray of blood and effluvium. "Not now, Mom! I'm busy!" "Matsuro... you must go to Tokyo." Today his mother was tied to a stake, with her hair on fire. It made a nice change from the usual wires and I-beams. Anthropomorphic buffalo waltzed with astronauts in concentric circles around her. Matsuro sighed, and cut down what he hoped was another youma. "We've been over this before. I'm IN Tokyo, I've JOINED the band, I've GOT the Sword of Duality, you STILL haven't told me what my destiny is, and you never got back to me about the Icon of Rapturous Delight like you said you would. If you don't have anything useful to say, I'd like to get back to killing the youma before I become the band's first statistic." His mother blinked as bits of flesh sloughed off her. "Well, I suppose I could tell you your ultimate destiny and what will come on the promised day." He looked at her suspiciously. "Really? You're not just saying that to make me sit here for an hour just so you can vanish again, are you?" He chopped blindly ahead of him, his sword guiding his hands. The buffaloes and the astronauts switched to the tango, as the monkeys began to sing music from 'Carmen.' "You must listen closely, Matsuro! This is against the rules, so I can only tell you once." "Go ahead, Mom, I'm listening." "..." "What?" Matsuro gazed intently at his mother. Her lips were moving, but no sound seemed to be coming out. "Speak up, Mom, I can't hear you! Tell me my destiny already!" "...beware the..." "What?!" With a groan, he realized he couldn't even hear the monkeys singing anymore. His head felt stuffed up, too, almost as though some sort of pressure was building up within his skull. He shook his head violently. The tension in his skull seemed to increase. His mother sank back into the ground, leaving a densely coiled fog in its place. After a moment, the fog coalesced into a large, angry bishop who strode purposefully in Matsuro's direction. The bishop clouted him on the side of his head. Several objects fell to the ground, and the pressure dropped away. The monkeys began a chorus of Willie Nelson's greatest hits. The bishop shouted, "DON'T PUT BEEF TARTS IN YOUR EARS," and was sucked into his hat, which flew off with the monkeys. The distorted pink faces reformed into the much more reassuring forms of youma out for his blood. Matsuro gratefully decapitated several of them. "Sugoi! Your mother is such an interesting lady, Matsuro-kun." Matsuro glanced around, and nearly sliced his own foot off. It was that Keiko girl, but she seemed... different. He'd swear that there was, well, more of her filling out that leather outfit than there had been the other day. Somehow, she just looked cooler. Maybe it was because she was wielding that huge cleaver so gracefully, he mused. "You think so?" "Oh, yes. That destiny of yours is amazing! I wonder how she knew it..." Again Matsuro nearly needed to add a peg-leg to his shopping list. "You heard her?" "Oh, that's right. You had those pastries in your ears. Lucky you. The monkeys were *awful*." * * * * * "So much for business here today." Damu, youma bartender of the Dark-and-Drab bar of the Darkverse, shook his head sadly and chewed on his unlit cigar. "And to think I closed the bar for the first time in five millennia to hit this gig." His rather ugly, yet mostly human- looking face was grim as he spat a piece of cigar in the direction of the battle. "I thought this always happened whenever youma tried to invade Earth, uncle," his assistant piped up. He adjusted his thick square-framed glasses. "Shut up and smear the counter, Ramu. And call me boss, or I'll send you back to your mother." "Right away, boss!" "Ekschush me, ish thish the booth of the Drab-and-Dark bar?" Damu blinked. The counter appeared to be addressing him. "No, no, no, idiot. 'S the Dark'n'DRAB bar!" The bartender chewed his cigar again and leaned cautiously over the bar. Two flushed, bearded faces peered up at him with alcoholic myopia. "'Snot a bar, 'sa BOOTH!" The one on the left began to fall over. "Don' care, long as it's got drinks. If I don't get a drink soon, I'm gonna start feeling the hangover. An' THAT'S not gonna be pretty. Drink, barkeep!" The dwarf burped quietly into his beard, swaying next to his listing companion. "No cash, no credit, no drink. You got money?" Damu spat another chewed section of cigar to the side. *CLINK!* A pile of gold coins plunked down onto the counter. A startlingly tall man, paler than a fish's belly and looking as though his entire family had just died, leaned against the smeary counter. "Wormwood, hold the organs, and a stein of the Darkverse's Best BlackBlood Brew." With a faint mournful look, he slid down until his face was flat against the counter. "'N ask them what *they* want, too," he added dolefully. "Brew." The dwarves chorused. Damu nodded at his nephew to get the Brew, while he broke out the protective gear to handle the Wormwood. Ramu set three large steins of what closely resembled bubbling tar on the counter. "Rare stuff, this," the young youma chirped. "Made from the heart's blood of a DarkBeast of the Darkverse, and mulled within a cauldron inscribed with the sigils of Power. It gives strength, health, and endurance, and even cures hangovers, if it doesn't blow the top of your skull off first, why --" "Shut up, Ramu." "Yes, boss." The bartender carefully carried the small vial of green, glutinous, and fizzing liquid to the pale man. The albino nodded sadly, unsheathed an inch of his sword and poured the drink in. A grisly sucking sound emanated from within the sheathe. "It's thirsty again," he informed them dismally. The dwarves hastily buried their faces in the tankards. * * * * * The immense throne room of the Darkverse seemed even more tremendous than usual without the throngs of toadying youma dancing attendance on their cold-blooded Queen. Most of them had put in requests to stay home and watch the magical broadcast of the youma army in action. It was the first event in a decade to be shown without being accompanied by pie-charts, line-graphs, and projections for the coming year. The Queen of the Darkverse had magnanimously let them all go and watch it. There were things she wished to do without a multitude of witnesses today. She swore in an unQueenly manner and banged a fist on the crystal ball attachment of her throne. None of the other Dark Queens ever have any problem with these things, she thought darkly. Nothing ever works right here. She made a few mystical passes over the cloudy crystal, then stuck out her tongue at it. After a few moments, a picture formed of some youma attacking five girls in short skirts. She thumped it again. "That's not any of mine, you stupid thing!" It flickered, and tuned into what appeared to be Suzuhara Park, if one judged by the sheer amount of youma running around it. The Queen beamed at it. The vertical hold went out. The Queen glared at the crystal for a long moment, then spoke thusly: "Dark General Malaise, appear before me!" A burst of ticker-tape exploded out of the air, closely followed by what appeared to be a normal, if slightly androgynous, human. Dark General Malaise dropped her (or was it his?) pizza and can of Dark Brew Lite and saluted. "Yes, my Queen?" "Malaise, are you familiar with my dark crystal that can plumb the depths of mystery and call forth the powers of darkest evil? Indeed, the very crystal which I can use to see and know all that my enemies and subordinates do?" Panic covered Malaise's face. "I didn't do anything! And I never believed Sohkoh when he said that about you!" "What are you talking about?" The Queen looked at her Dark General blankly. "I just wanted to know if you could fix it." "..." Malaise paused, then laughed weakly. "Of.. course, Your Supreme Dark Majesty. Just my little joke. Eheh." He (or was it she?) fiddled nervously with some of the dials on Pillar of Attachment. The signal cleared. "Very good, Malaise. Clean up your food and ticker-tape on the way out and kill Sohkoh after you leave." "At once, my Queen!" Malaise blasted the remnants of its entrance and meal into fine ash, and teleported away. Another shower of ticker-tape rained down. The Queen of the Darkverse sighed in resignation and turned her attention to her crystal. Sometimes she wondered if she wouldn't be better off if she forced some of her minions to work on the opposite side. At the very least, they'd screw up someone else's day for a change. * * * * * "They're going to get creamed if this keeps up," Aki muttered. She stood on tip-toe to peer over a taller member of the cheering audience. "Well, at least most of Dad's Idiot Legion has been trampled." "You must transform into Sailor Joy! They'll be killed if you don't help!" Charles, her self-proclaimed Official Sailor Magical Companion Canary, was starting to look upset enough to spontaneously molt. "Look, they're doing fine. They've already taken out about a fourth of them, and that weird Keiko girl is hacking her way over to join them." Aki paused and peered at the melee again. "What *is* that thing she's using, anyway? It looks like a giant can-opener! Really, I -- " Aki paused. The day suddenly seemed a lot darker, as though the sun had passed behind an especially thick cloud, or as if someone very tall was standing right behind her... Aki spun around. Well, neither guess had been exactly right. He wasn't tall, he was just floating several feet off the ground. "Let me guess. He's possessed by some horrible evil beyond the ken of mankind," she murmured to Charles. "Aha! *That* is your mystical Sailor Sense in action! You must transform into Sailor Joy and defeat him!" "Actually, it's the way he's floating in mid-air with his eyes glowing bright red and the weird black light effects that are radiating from his hands. And shut up about the Sailor Joy thing, or you're Meow Mix." The shell of what was once human hung midair, clothed in the stained remains of what looked like a cheap robe, pulled over rather a more ordinary T-shirt and jeans. The creature quivered from the shoulders down, and began to speak in an eerie, warbling voice. "pUNy MOrTAlS, wITneSs THe pOwER oF HELlo cTHuLu!!" It gestured left-handedly, blowing open a section of the street near a sewer grate with a bolt of dark power. The entirety of what was once the Cult of Cthulu (local #39924-91) burst forth into the daylight. From their slimy little tentacles to their overalls with the oversized buttons to their red and white striped shirts, they were the epitome of evil brought to life. Fifty abominations against nature smiled cutely in unison and marched forth to the opening refrain of the Happy Cthulu Joy Joy Fun Song. "Well, *that's* torn it," Charles chirped. "Even if you do transform now, we're far too outnumbered to do anything about it. I guess we'll all just die horrible deaths, and the youma and Hello Cthulu will destroy the Earth in their Apocalyptic Battle and --" "Do you *ever* shut up?!" Aki stared at the oncoming wave of nauseatingly adorable living symbols of evil. It looked as though she might have to wear the dreaded fuku after all. * * * * * To Be Continued... WILL CHARLES THE CANARY EVER SHUT UP? WILL THE ARMY OF HELLO CTHULU DESTROY EVERYONE'S SANITY? DOES BROTHER MAYNARD GET FREQUENT FLYER MILES FROM FLOATING AROUND LIKE THAT? WILL THE DO-GOODERS GET TO FINISH THEIR SET? WILL AKI GIVE IN TO THE FUKU? WILL BECKY NEED THERAPY FOR HER SECRET-AGENT/MAGICAL-GIRL INDUCED SCHIZOPHRENIA? WILL THE DO-GOODERS BE ABLE TO AFFORD A NEW AMP? WILL KEIKO TELL MATSURO WHAT HIS DESTINY IS? WILL ANYONE EVER TACKLE THE SUBJECT OF THE ICON AND EMBLEM? WILL VILLYN EVER STOP HIRING MINIONS FROM TEMP THUG, INC.? WILL THE DO-GOODERS GET THEIR OWN FAN-CLUB NOW? WILL ANYONE REMEMBER TO INTRODUCE BECKY AS PART OF THE BAND TO THE AUDIENCE? IS KEIKO'S CLEAVER REALLY THE MISSING SWORD OF DUALITY, OR IS IT JUST A GIANT CAN OPENER? WILL VILLYN GET DRUMMED OUT OF THE TOKYO BRANCH LEGITIMATE BUSINESSMAN'S CLUB? AND WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE DWARVES, THEIR DRINKING BUDDY, THAT SWORD, AND THOSE DRINKS ANYWAY? WHO KNOWS IF ANY OF THESE QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED IN THE NEXT EXCITING INSTALLMENT OF THE DO-GOODERS, BY JONATAN STREITH! --------------------- C. DeBartolo "Yasha" ICQ: 28165157 ryuuyasha@hotmail.comhttp://members.tripod.com/ryuuyasha/index.html ON-LINE MANGA AND ART!