Maxwell Pring: The Savior of Mankind

FORWARD: So, for those unfamiliar with my work in the Neo-Duelist League on neoseeker, Maxwell is one of my (currently 5) characters in the league that I use to more or less do battle with crazy bastards like Rust. WRITING BATTLES. And Maxwell is...um...unique. In many ways. I apologize.

In any case, some quick background information, he is a prinny plushie. Anybody familiar with Disgaea will instantly know what that is. For those who are not, prinnies are basically demon penguins. Except he is a demon penguin plushie. He also has a rainbow afro. Anything that touches his afro is sucked into Hammerspace. He also has a pouch, the Pouch of Infinity, that is also connected to Hammerspace, and he can pull, literally, anything out of it except what he pulls out is completely random. Examples of things Maxwell has pulled out of the Pouch of Infinity include:

-A beehive
-A giant crab on fire
-a velociraptor
-The Deathstar
-A lifesaver
-a cannon
-an exploding teddy bear
-a second Maxwell

Also, in true prinny fashion, he explodes whenever he is hit with physical force, and instantly regenerates.


So with that said and done, I'll pretty much be using this just to indulge in my occasional Maxwellian fancies because his overarching story in the NDL is at a bit of a standstill until I bring some other characters up to speed. In the mean time, enjoy some of the Maxwell works I've already written.

Yours,

Ish

"Just ask her out, d00d."
Maxwell Pring and Ray were in a small market place. Stalls of goods lined either side of the dirt road and the houses were shaped from the stone itself, though to Maxwell's disappointment, there were no dwarves.
His fifteen-year-old companion blinked and tore his eyes away from the girl he was staring at, and had been staring at previously, for some time.
"I...I can't," he mumbled, face going red.
"What, you scared, d00d? No worries, I'll go grease the wheels. You just gotta be confident, d00d. I read it in a book once."

And without waiting for a response, Maxwell tottered toward the unsuspecting girl of Ray's dreams, trying hard to remember his best pick up lines. The girl wasn't beautiful in Maxwell's opinion. She was very...plain. Her sandy-brown hair was long and straight and her black dress was of a modest cut, with no frills or adornments. She was a little taller than Maxwell's four and one-half feet of height, and very thin. And...that was about all there was to her.
When he was close enough, he reached up and tapped the small of her back.
"Hey d00d."
The girl whirled around, startled and her oceanic blue eyes widened further when she saw Maxwell.
"Y...yes?" she said the word as though unfamiliar with it. Weirdo.
"So, d00d, my friend over there really likes you. And he lost his phone number, so you should have sex with him."
"W...what?" the girl stammered quietly.
"Uh...did it hurt, d00d?"
"Did...what...?"
"When you fell and scraped your knee?"
"I...don't understand."
Maxwell was starting to panic. His best moves weren't working. He racked his brain for the best pick up line he had and said, "That dress looks really good on you, d00d. Know where it'd look better? On him."

"Psyduck, stop helping!" Ray said frantically, seizing the prinny plushie and clamping his mouth shut. "Um...I'm sorry for my friend's behavior. S...see ya." And then Ray was fleeing as fast as he could while carrying Maxwell, leaving a very perplexed girl behind.

"Good news, d00d," Maxwell said once Ray finally set him down, "I think she likes you. She couldn't keep her eyes off you."
"That was...mortifying," Ray said, eyes downcast and head hung low. "Please...don't ever help me again."
"'Course you know what we've to do now, right d00d?" Maxwell continued, not even listening, "You've gotta show her that you're really interested in a relationship and you won't just up and leave her at any time. So we're gonna stalk her, d00d."
"Psyduck, I don't think-PSYDUCK!" Ray yelled, but Maxwell was already hurrying back down the street. "...Damn it." Ray took off after the Savior of Mankind.

When Ray finally caught up to Psyduck, the pokemon was in a room rifling through the drawers.
"PSYDUCK! You can't just...just go through her things like this." Though, admittedly, she didn't appear to have much. "And how the hell did you get here, anyway!?" Ray continued.
"A long series of off-screen plot-conveniences which-" Maxwell broke off with a gasp. "D00d, there's something very powerful hidden here! Something...unnatural."
"Is it you?" Ray muttered sourly.
"No way, d00d. This is like...god-tier awesome." Maxwell's digging became more frenzied.
"Come on, Psyduck! Don't make me call Officer Jenny! We can't just look through a girl's things!"
"Aha!" Maxwell cried victoriously. He turned to face Ray and was holding a pair of...
"P-PANTIES!?" Ray spluttered, "PSYDUCK, PUT THOSE BACK NOW!"
"D00d, I'm sure this is it. The unnatural aura is coming from these!" Maxwell proffered the black panties to Ray, "Touch them, d00d! The fabric is unnaturally soft. No ordinary method could produce underwear like this! I'll bet these are the most comfortable pair of panties in the universe, d00d!"
"Give me those!" Ray shouted, blushing profusely. Maxwell jerked them away, however, but due to the fact that Maxwell had no thumbs, the panties escaped his grip and were thrown right onto his afro.

Ray's face went pale and he let out a squeak.
"Oh well. Sorry, d00d. We'll have to go tell her that we lost her Super Panties." Maxwell said, beginning to walk out of the room. It seemed to jar Ray out of his stupor.
"No, you stupid pokemon!" Ray said desperately, "We have to get them back!"
"From hammerspace!? D00d, that could literally take forever!"
"Psyduck, please! This is really important to me!" Ray begged, "At least try. If we don't get those panties back, she's going to think I'm some creepy, weird kid."

Maxwell sighed, "Alright, d00d. Let's see here..." The Savior of Mankind reached into the Pouch of Infinity with Ray watching intently to see what the prinny plushie would reveal.
But it was not the panties that appeared. It was...a strange creature. First came a rainbow afro. Then a beady-eyed, penguin-face. A pair of demonic wings and a blue, stuffed body with two peg legs.

Another Maxwell.

"D00d!" Maxwell shouted.
"D00d!"
"D00d!"
"D00d!"
"D00d!"
"D00d!"

"Psyduck!" Ray interrupted. Both Maxwell's stopped and stared at him. "Err...Psyducks! We still need to get the panties back!"
"No worries, d00d. I've got a new plan," the original Maxwell responded, "I'll just touch this d00d's afro, go into hammerspace myself, and get them back. That'll be much easier than hoping I pull it out of the Pouch of Infinity. And in the mean time, you can explain to him what's going on."
"Sounds good to me, d00d," the second Maxwell replied, lowering himself so that Maxwell could touch his afro.
"Wait, Psyduck!" Ray started, but Maxwell had already touched the other Maxwell's afro and with a pop!, disappeared into hammerspace. "...How the hell are you going to get back here?"


~*~*~*~*~


Cele did not smile when her care-taker appeared. She was thinking about the strange being that had greeted her earlier and the boy who had whisked the creature away.
"Cele," the older man spoke, "What's bothering you?" His voice was gentle and concerned as it usually was when he spoke to her. But never with anyone else.
"I...met a...a creature today who was very...strange," Cele said, still feeling every word escape her lips.
"Could it be...? Have I finally found another one of their creations?" The Writer's gaze turned cold and he smiled grimly, "Well, then, Cele. Why don't we see if we can't find this creature."
Cele nodded and accompanied C down the road back to the market where she had first met the bizarre creature.
"Writer. Can I ask...a question?" It was one of the many things that had been bothering her about the strange conversation, but this stood out above all others.



"What's sex?"

The trip to Hammerspace was...dizzy, Maxwell decided. Very, very dizzying. And loud. It was what Maxwell imagined it would be like to be sucked inside of a vacuum cleaner. He felt compressed, as though squeezed into a tiny pipe. Maxwell found himself asking a question he often asked himself at night when he couldn't sleep, "How is it I can hear noise when I don't have any ears, d00d?"
Colors swirled and flashed around him as he sped through compressed time and space. It could've been heavy doses of hallucinogenic drugs, it could've been his afro being thrown back and forth. For the briefest of moments, Maxwell thought he saw a face as well. The face of a young girl, stuffing her face with cake. She liked cake. A lot. Maxwell knew that cake was generally a lie, but the girl's cake appeared to be very real, as did her liking of said cake. Unless the girl herself was a lie. Had she even been there to begin with...?

"I gotta stop thinking about this, d00d." Maxwell thought to himself, squeezing his eyes shut. To his dismay, the psychedelic colors continued to flood across his vision. Or lack of. The girl who liked cake was gone, fortunately. Instead, a heavily distorted tower sprang into Maxwell's mind. It looked almost as though it had begun melting, and then suddenly stopped melting.
"It's like that really weird painting with the watches," Maxwell thought, "Perspiration of Mammary by Salad Bar Dolly."

The twisted tower disappeared and was replaced with the blurred face of what Maxwell assumed was a woman, but he couldn't tell, seeing as it was blurred. For plot-related reasons, no doubt. The woman(?) seemed to be writing something and glancing over her shoulder every so often. She(?) looked up suddenly in surprise and, if Maxwell didn't know any better, she(?) could see him. She(?) smiled and said, "Maxwell. Good to see you're well."
Then she(?) was gone.
"I like women with blurry faces," Maxwell decided, "You can decide they look like whatever you want." He decided that the woman(?) was definitely a woman and that she had green eyes and blonde hair. "I'm gonna call her Bridget, d00d."

The colors in Maxwell's head spun a bit more before the next image came, this one even more heavily blurred than the previous. Maxwell leaned forward in interest, but was quickly disappointed. It appeared to be two men talking. One was very old and not bald, and the other, not old, but clearly bald.
"Are you certain?" Bald man asked.
"Yes. He has no idea." Not-Bald man replied.
"I see. It is possible that he failed..." Bald man mused.
"I don't believe that is possible."
"You would know better than anyone, I suppose. Certainly better than him, given his current state..." Bald man trailed off for a moment before speaking again, "Bring him here. If I can't find her, then at the very least, I will ensure that he never finds her either." Bald man cackled, "I'll end our war once and for all. Unlike him, I have all the time in the-" Bald man stopped and stared, wide-eyed.
"What is it?" Not-Bald man asked.
"I thought I just saw a goddamn penguin. With a rainbow afro."
"This is stupid, d00d," Maxwell thought irritably, "I don't need all of this thinly veiled, foreshadowy crap. I demand to be shown panties, d00d!"

Maxwell's vision suddenly turned to black and the prinny plushie felt himself collide with solid ground at last. He opened his eyes and stood up. His first immediate thought was that hammerspace was boring. There weren't any giant piles of random crap like he'd always imagined. There weren't any objects floating in place either. The most glaring flaw, however, was the noticeable lack of panties lying anywhere nearby.
"I am so disappoint, d00d," Maxwell said out loud. He was in what appeared to be a very neglected courtyard. The stone walls were cracked and dusty, though for some reason, there was no plant growth like one would expect to see in movies. The room was completely empty save for a set of stones encircling a deep, black hole in the ground. Maxwell peered into the depths of the hole and saw nothing. He felt drawn to the hole nonetheless, almost as though it were trying to suck him in.
The Savior of Mankind shook himself. Panties. He was here to find panties, not stare at big holes. Nodding to himself, Maxwell tore his gaze away from the hole in the ground and walked out of the courtyard room through a nearby entryway, hoping that the rest of hammerspace wouldn't be as boring as this.

Hammerspace, it turned out, was just as boring as Maxwell had initially surmised. Leaving the courtyard of weirdness had led him to a strange stairwell which had taken him to the doorway of nothingness. The outside of hammerspace was an empty wasteland. Literally.
"D00d, there aren't even tumbleweeds here. This place is completely barren. It's like the future of Charlie Sheen's career!" Maxwell said in wonderment. The Savior of Mankind, still not quite paying attention, turned to return to the inside of the whatever-he-was-in-we're-not-really-sure-what, only to trip over his own feet. The prinny plushie had time to proclaim, "Shit," before he faceplanted into the ground and promptly exploded.

When Maxwell awoke, his body was stiff. In fact, much to his horror, he found that he couldn't move at all.
"Okay, d00d," Maxwell thought to himself, "You've been in tough situations before. This isn't the first time this has happened." He had a horrific flash of exploding and reincarnating in the body of some poor girls teddy bear. Being hugged between some buxom girl's breasts had been...actually, it hadn't been that bad. "Right, d00d. I should prepare myself by mentally imagining the worst possible outcome for this situation." Again, Maxwell found his mind wandering to the most perfect pair of breasts he'd ever had the pleasure of encountering.

"Aha! There you are. Finally found you!" Maxwell felt his eyelids being pulled open and he found himself staring at an acne-riddled teenager with short red hair and a bulbous nose. Maxwell still couldn't move his eyes, but the Savior of Mankind decided that based on the grimy walls and the coolness of the air, he was in some sort of underground lair.
"Okay, what the hell's going on, d00d?" Maxwell wondered. He wanted to know why he couldn't move and where in the hell those panties were. Judging by the appearance of his captor, they most likely weren't here.

As the strange boy turned, carrying Maxwell with him, the prinny plushie got the first real clue as to his predicament. Passing by a mirror, Maxwell saw that he was in a doll's body. A very well-crafted doll.
"Okay, d00d," Maxwell thought, "So my soul is now in the body of a plastic barbie doll. It could be worse."

"Pedro, are you playing with your dolls again!?" a loud feminine voice thundered from somewhere offscreen.
"They're ACTION FIGURES, Mom!" the boy shouted in response. He had an annoying nasally voice that didn't help Maxwell's opinion that his captor was a complete nerd.
"Well come out of the basement, I'm making dinner!"
"No thanks, I'll just eat some tater tots!" Pedro responded.
"What?"
"I said I'd eat some freaking tots! GOSH!" Pedro yelled back. The red-haired youth turned back to Maxwell. "Now where did I-ah!" he picked up another figure of about equal size to Maxwell.

"Okay!" Pedro cleared his throat and began speaking in a deeper voice, "When we last left our heroes, they had just escaped from the clutches of the evil, yet genius, Dr. Basis and his minions of evil. Having just narrowly saved Princess Malali from the mad doctor's mutagenic minions, Crisis and Zone, the princess and her knight, Sir Ion, were left standing on the cliff side outside Dr. Basis' castle. Unfortunately, Sir Ion had been unable to stop Dr. Basis' solar ray from melting off the face of Malali's sister, Princess Emote."

Oh. Dear. GOD!" Maxwell thought desperately, Please don't tell me this is going to go where I think it is, d00d..."

"Oh Malali!" Pedro said in a deep voice as the doll in his other hand was placed close to Maxwell, "I thought I'd never see you safe again."
"Oh, Sir Ion!" Pedro's voice became freakishly high as he bounced Maxwell up and down to signify talking, "You were so brave rushing in to save me like that. I never had any doubt that you would rescue me!"
"Twas nothing. For you, my Lady, I would lay down my life."

Maxwell then found his face being pressed into the Ion doll's and then grated against it back and forth.
"Oh Ion!"
"Malali!"
"Boobs. Think about the boobs. Maxwell thought, wishing very badly that he weren't made out of plastic so that he could at least shut his eyes.

"Not so fast, Sir Ion!" Pedro cackled as he revealed a third doll of a child in a white lab coat while setting Maxwell down, much to the Savior of Mankind's relief.
"Dr. Basis!" Pedro growled in the deep voice of Ion.
"Sorry to break your heartwarming little reunion," Dr. Basis sneered, "But you have yet to best me, Dr. Basis! My genius intellect will crush you yet! I've just taken a potion to give myself the strength of one magical jacket!"
"And how strong is that!?" Sir Ion demanded.
"Strong enough!" Dr. Basis laughed. Pedro picked up Dr. Basis' fist and hit the Ion doll with it.

PSH!

"AGH!" Pedro through the Ion doll across the room and against a cardboard box.
"You see, Sir Ion! You don't stand a chance against me!" Dr. Basis yelled, "HA-hahahaha!"
"We'll see about that!" Sir Ion yelled as the doll, aided by Pedro, jumped from the crumbled ruin of cardboard boxes.
"Be careful, Sir Ion!" Princess Malali shouted.
"SUPER ION KICK!" Sir Ion roared as he crashed into Dr. Basis. The two figures became entangled in a constantly moving heap with the silence being filled with Pedro's psh's, hi-yah'ing, UGH's, and the desperate cries of Princess Malali.
This guy needs some serious *bleep*ing help, Maxwell thought, horrified by what he was seeing.

Eventually, after one final, "CURSES!", Dr. Basis was thrown against a pile of cardboard boxes and buried beneath them.
"You did it!" Princess Malali said, Pedro once again forcibly returning Maxwell to the action.
"Naturally. He was no match for my super strength. Or the strength of our love," Sir Ion said.
"Oh, Sir Ion..." and Maxwell again found himself pretending to make out with the plastic face of Sir Ion.
"No..." Pedro gasped, "No, I need...more of you, Sir Ion."

"...Worst. Day. Of. My. Entire. Life. Ever. D00d!" as Pedro began to remove the tiny clothes of Sir Ion and Princess Malali.
"Yes...yes...!" Pedro groaned in his high-pitched Malali voice as Maxwell was thrown forcibly to the ground and then slammed into by the Sir Ion doll.

Pedro stopped briefly to grab another doll Maxwell hadn't seen before, this one with it's face melted off.
"Oh...Emote..." Princess Malali squeaked, "Sir Ion, can my sister watch?"
"Why just watch? Come join in, there's plenty of Ion to go around!"
"Really?" Pedro squealed in a voice even higher than Malali's that made Maxwell's plastic ears hurt, "Even though my face is melted off?"
"True, but your perfect plastic boobs remain untouched jewels," Sir Ion said.
"Yaaaaay!" Emote said, as her clothes were also stripped away from her.

"I gotta get the hell out of here, d00d. Before I lose my virginity to a *bleep*ing doll!"

Maxwell gasped and jerked awake. He was back in his original body. Thanking whatever gods there were, the prinny plushie got to his feet, recounting the last horrible moments of his torture. It had been an extremely lucky coincidence that as a plastic doll, Sir Ion hadn't had any genitals, so there had been no awkward plastic penetration, but Maxwell was bound to need decades of therapy to recover from the incident. It had been fortunate that after the doll sex, Pedro had thrown Princess Malali aside like a rag doll and Maxwell had promptly exploded and his soul had reincarnated back into his original body. The Savior of Mankind had no idea what had become of Pedro, and he had no desire whatsoever to find out.

Putting the past as far behind him as metaphorically possible, Maxwell continued on his quest to procure the mysterious panties of power. He appeared to be in a new area of hammerspace, a village of some sort that was on fire. A man riding on a winged llama was torching the village from the sky.
"D00d!" Maxwell cried as the winged llama spat a fireball in his direction. He reacted quickly and used his afro as a shield. The fireball promptly vanished into what Maxwell assumed was another part of hammerspace.
"Time for me to be a hero, d00d!" Maxwell said out loud, reaching into the Pouch of Infinity. A long metallic rod emerged. Hoping it would be useful, Maxwell chucked it at one of the attacking llamas. The rod fell short completely and stuck into the ground. The rider laugh at Maxwell just as lightning spontaneously struck the rod as the llama flew over it, burning the poor animal and its rider to a crisp.
"...Just as planned," Maxwell said, as the rider fell off of his mount, and bounced like a ragdoll upon hitting the ground. The Savior of Mankind walked over to the collapsed rider and examined the corpse. There wasn't much left, but he could just barely make out a charred 'N' insignia on the rider's armor.
"You thaved me..." Maxwell jumped at the voice and his wing-arm-thing was halfway to the Pouch of Infinity when he realized it was a woman speaking to him. Her bronze skin was tanned from what Maxwell assumed constant exposure to the sun. Her fiery red hair was cut short and tied back and she stared at Maxwell with wide green eyes. Her garb was a set of loose-fitting cloth that was dark green in color.
"Hey, d00d," Maxwell greeted her. The woman threw herself at Maxwell's feet.
"I am Thelena, the latht printheth of Elinia. My allegianthe ith yourth, mathter."
"Uh...d00d, do you know that you have a-"
"Yeth! I know that I have a lithp!" the woman shouted, face contorting in anger before smoothing, "Thorry. I'm jutht very thenthitive about that."

"Well, sorry. And don't worry about it, d00d, just doing my job," Maxwell said, "Say, can I see your panties, d00d?"
"THAT'TH NOT THOMETHING YOU JUTHT ATHK A GIRL!" Selena shouted, blushing bright red, "Look, I know you thaved me, and I am grateful, but not THAT grateful."
"No, no," Maxwell began, "I'm looking for a magic pair of panties that belonged to my friend's crush. I accidentally lost them."
"...Tho you thtole thom other girl'th pantieth?" Selena asked, eyes narrowing dangerously.
"Well, not exactly, d00d," Maxwell said, "It was more of an accident. I'm trying to get them back so that I can return them."
"And what'th tho magical about them?" the princess demanded.
"I dunno," Maxwell shrugged, "But I've got to find them anyway. What about you, d00d? Who are you?"
"Like I thaid, I am the last printheth of Elinia. A terrible man called Nethia ith conquering our land. He ith killing all of my people. I am one of the only oneth left, tho I have taken up the fight mythelf. I wath doing okay until I got ambuthed here by that rider."
"I see," Maxwell said, thinking. This Nezia person sounded very powerful. Could it be that he had found the panties and was using them for his own purposes of world conquest?
"I'll tell you what, d00d, I'll go take care of this Nezia guy."
"...Can you really do it?" Selena asked skeptically.
"Of course! I'm Maxwell Pring, the Savior of Mankind! Taking down the baddies is what I do, d00d! I'll be back in a bit."

"Wait!" Selena said, "You can't jutht leave me here!"
"Sure I can, d00d," Maxwell replied with a shrug, "I'd rather not see you get involved in any danger."
"Your conthern ith touching, Makthwell, but thith ith my fight ath well. I will accompany you, if it pleathe you. I can thow you the way."
"Sure, d00d, that'd be great. I don't have a lot of time to spare anyway." Maxwell began to think of a way to ditch the violent warrior princess as soon as he could.
"Come on," Selena said, "It'th thith way." The two began walking down a long, winding road toward a mass of black storm clouds in the distance.

"...She sells seashells down by the seashore."
"Thut UP!"

[div align=center]~*~*~*~*~[/div]

Ray was slammed up against the wall as the monstrous man held him by the throat.
"Don't kill him yet, Killer" another man commanded. Ray's bulging eyes searched for the speaker. The speaker was a gaunt man with long, scraggly hair. But his eyes seemed to pierce Ray and stare into him rather than at him.
"Who are you?" the man asked coldly.
"Ray," the boy wheezed through the Killer's iron grasp.
"My, how cooperative," the man replied, "I like that. You act as you should toward your creator. Keep it up and I may not destroy you. Would I be right in assuming that you have a companion?"
Ray's eyes widened. Maxwell. The duplicate Maxwell had gone out, saying that he wanted to go and investigate the source of the panty power. They wanted his pokemon!
"A...Av..." Ray struggled to get the words out.
"What?" the man asked, leaning in closer, "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of you being strangled."
"Avada...Kedavra!" Ray bellowed. Nothing happened.
The Writer's eyes narrowed. "Not amusing."
"S-sorry...Maxwell," Ray gasped as he finally blacked out.

"Let him go, Killer," C commanded. The avatar released his grip and the boy slumped to the floor, "His companion will be back. If I'm right, and it is one of the Writers' creations, then it can lead me to one of them. I'm almost done..." his hands clenched reflexively over his Book. He resisted the temptation to open it and see how many pages were left. Not many more, he knew. But he was almost done. Just five more Writers...five more deaths and he would be free.

"So, d00d, are you sure this is the right way to that Nezia guy?" Maxwell asked as he and Selena plodded through a murky, muddy road where it had not stopped raining, according to Selena, in "a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very long time."
"Of courthe!" Selena said indignantly, "Haven't you ever theen thothe movieth where the evil villain buildth hith cathle on an ominouth mountain where it never thtopth thunder thtorming?"
"That's a good point, d00d," Maxwell admitted, "but uh...it's just that there isn't a castle anywhere around here. There's not even an ominous mountain to build it on."
"True." the princess of Elinia seemed troubled by that, "I could've thworn there wath a mountain here..."
"Maybe the super panties destroyed the mountain, d00d!" Maxwell suggested, his mind conjuring the disturbing image of a giant pair of black panties floating in the air and blasting random monuments away with a large laser beam.
"I thtill don't believe you about thothe pantieth being magical," Selena grumbled.
"It's the truth, d00d!" Maxwell replied, staring at Selena intently as though the fire in his eyes could convince her.
"How can pantieth be magical? It maketh no thenthe! Why would anyone want to give them magical powerth in the firtht plathe?"
Maxwell frowned in thought, "Well, why not, d00d? I mean, that's like the greatest place ever to hide a secret weapon! Nobody would ever expect it!"
"Yeth, but that would altho mean having to wear thothe pantieth every day all the time! What if you thoiled yourthelf? It'th not practical."
"Yeah, but they're magical!" Maxwell insisted, "If you shat yourself, it'd probably just disappear, like getting sucked into hammerspace, d00d!"
"It maketh no thenthe no matter how you try to juthtify it," Selena said stubbornly as the two trudged onward into the middle of nowhere, "It'th jutht too ridiculouth."

It never occurred to her or Maxwell that she was arguing with a talking, stuffed, fictional animal with a rainbow afro.

Hours passed on and the duo's bickering soon degenerated into, "It's magic!" and "It'th thtupid." Rain continued to pelt the Savior of Mankind and his companion, dampening their mood and eventually, their argument subsided as each began to focus just on taking another step forward.
"How huge is this place, d00d?" Maxwell asked, finally stopping, "We've been walking forever!"
"We...we thould've been there by now," Selena said, doubling over and gasping for breath, "Thomething'th not right..."
"You okay, d00d?" the prinny asked his companion not unkindly, offering her his wing to help her up.
The princess of Elinia slumped forward, "I'm thorry, Makthwell. I need to retht."
"No worries," Maxwell said bracingly, "I'll go and see if I can find some place out of the rain." The Savior of Mankind put on a burst of speed and began sprinting as fast as his peg legs could carry him. After a moment, though, Maxwell found himself approaching the spot where he had left Selena.
"D00d!" Maxwell exclaimed, running off in a different direction only to be met with Selena again. "D00d!" The prinny plushie turned back the way he had come from before and nearly ran into the princess of Elinia. "D000000000d!"

"Makthwell? Why are you back? Did you find a plathe?" Selena asked, frowning.
"Nope," Maxwell replied, plopping down on the ground beside her, "We're screwed, d00d."
"For the latht time, I will not thow you my pantieth," Selena said irritably.
"No, no, I mean that we've been trapped. If you run off in any direction, you just end up back here."
"WHAT!?" Selena said in alarm, bounding to her feet. The amazon warrior sped off and returned mere seconds later. "How could I have been tho thtupid!?" she cried, collapsing on the ground, "I have failed my people!"
Maxwell patted her shoulder, "Don't take it so hard, d00d, neither of us could have predicted the power of the panties."
"IT'TH NOT THE DAMN PANTIETH!" Selena screamed, "THERIOUTHLY! LET THE IDEA GO! PANTIETH HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR PREDICAMENT!" she sighed, "I thought you were thome thort of thuper warrior the way you took down Nethia'th crony. But you're jutht an idiot. I'm thorry I got you involved in thith."
Maxwell, however, wasn't listening. He was rummaging through the Pouch of Infinity.

"Don't worry, d00d, eventually, I'll pull something out of this pouch that'll be able to help us."
"Let me gueth," Selena said sarcastically, "That'th a magical pouch that you can pull anything out of?"
"D00d, how'd you know?" Maxwell asked, genuinely surprised.
"...Nevermind."
The prinny plushie shrugged and continued to grab around until finally, he managed to wrap his wing-arm-thing around something. He gave a yank and Selena yelped when a man appeared. A very bizarre-looking individual wearing purple pajamas emblazoned with a bright yellow circle on the chest with 'PCM' written in fuchsia in the center. He wore a pink cape, also with the PCM emblem on the back. His body was very skinny. In fact, it looked as though he had almost no muscle on him at all.
And yet...as he looked at Maxwell with a set of impassive brown eyes, the Savior of Mankind felt a tremendous power radiating from the man. More powerful than even what he had sensed in the super panties, and that was saying something!
Selena gaped at the man, eyes moving back and forth from Maxwell's pouch to the strangely garbed man himself.

"You are wondering who I am. That will be explained momentarily," the man said, "First of all, I will restore you both to full strength. You will need it in the coming battle." He raised a palm, and snapped his fingers and a warmth washed over Maxwell, as though he were bathing in a spa, "There," the strange man said, "This strength will last you to Nezia. Have no fear. He is not as strong as you fear, princess," he said.
"D00d, who ARE you?" Maxwell asked. The man turned to face him.
"An apt question, my prinny friend. I am the most powerful being in the entire universe. I am-"
A hundred possible answers raced through Maxwell's mind as to who this most powerful being could be, each as likely as the other. Batman? Chuck Norris? A power ranger? Kamina? Maybe even God, perhaps?
"-Plot Convenience Man."

Maxwell's eyes widened in shock, "D00d," he whispered in reverent awe, "No way..."
Plot Convenience Man chuckled, "Yes. Way, d00d. I am the answer to all problems. The one force that is completely unbeatable. I am both the unstoppable force and the immovable object. I am the Deity Ex Machina, the legend spoken of in hushed conversations around fiction circles. I am Plot Convenience Man."
"D00d!" Maxwell exclaimed, "Can you tell me where the magical panties are?"
Plot Convenience Man snapped his fingers again and a portal sliced through the open air in front of Maxwell and Selena, "This portal will take you to Nezia's castle. This is where you must go, Maxwell. Selena, stay close to this man. Regardless of what you believe, in the end, you will be right to rely on him. Now, I must be off. There's a certain Night Elf in need of my services. Take heart knowing that I will always be around when you need me," the most powerful being in the universe said, running and preparing to leap into the sky.
"Wait, d00d!" Maxwell called, "Can you tell me how I'm supposed to save Mankind?" It was the one question the prinny plushie had been asking himself ever since his soul had been forced into his current body.

Plot Convenience Man looked over his shoulder, "A woman holds the answer to your question. But she will not give it to you. You must seek the knowledge yourself."
"Well how does that help me!?" Maxwell demanded.
Plot Convenience Man laughed, "I just gave you hint. Think about it, young Savior of Mankind. It'll come to you." And then the Deity Ex Machina was gone, leaving the crestfallen Maxwell staring at the ground.

"Makthwell?" Selena asked, looking concerned.
"Come on, d00d, let's go save your people," the prinny plushie said without looking at her. He walked through Plot Convenience Man's portal and after a moment's hesitation, Selena followed.

"Something feels weird, d00d," Maxwell said out loud. He and Selena had entered Nezia's castle and they were now in a wide, open chamber. The walls and floor were made of smooth, seamless granite and unadorned, an oddity considering that most final bosses were at least courteous enough to roll out the red carpets and giant pictures of themselves during a castle storming.
"I can't get rid of the feeling that we're walking into a trap," Maxwell continued.
The bronze amazon princess glanced at Maxwell. Ever since he'd spoken to Plot Convenience Man, he seemed...serious.
"Of courthe there'th going to be a trap. Nethia would be a crap villain if there weren't at least one," Selena said brightly, trying to spur Maxwell into a lighthearted argument, but the prinny plushie just sighed.
"Yeah, d00d, I guess you're right."
"Makthwell, what'th wrong?"
Maxwell sighed again, "Well, d00d, I'm having a case of plot-induced depression. It'll probably take the rest of this chapter for it to clear up. If I'm unlucky, it might even take two chapters wherein you are placed into mortal peril and your impending death snaps me out of my slump just in time to save you."

Laughter cut through the conversation and Maxwell looked up and found himself staring at the strangest creature he'd ever seen, and he'd seen himself in a mirror! The man directly across from Maxwell and Selena was clad in a long, black overcoat that fanned out like a cape; he had long, silver hair that covered one eye, though that did not detract from the man's incredibly handsome features: he had a perfect smile and a perfect face, though his expression was dark and brooding, trying to hide deep emotional hurts; his right arm was a tangled mess of robotics and his left arm was bare and was, in fact, a bear's arm; at his waist was a katana.
"Hey..." Maxwell started, "Aren't you the villain guy I met a few posts ago, d00d? The paragraph's even copy-pasta'd."
"Yes," the man responded sinisterly, "But that post doesn't take place canonically until after this."
"Ah."

"Nethia!" Selena hissed, "Makthwell, be careful. That katana at hith waitht thootth out latherth!.
Nezia laughed again, "Ah, Princess Selena. I knew you would be here, and I knew you would bring a champion with you. So I prepared this room specifically for you and him." the villain cleared his throat. Maxwell tensed, hand-things drifting toward the Pouch of Infinity.
"RELEASE THE MOOKS!"

The prinny plushie almost fell over.
"Mookth?" Selena guffawed as holes opened in the floor around her and Maxwell, "You're thending Mookth at uth?" Dozens of lightly clothed soldiers came rumbling out of the holes in the floor. Each soldier wore black pants and a black shirt emblazoned with Nezia's crest - an ornate 'N' - in the center rather than on the chest. They bore no weapons, no armor, and, to Maxwell's shock, no faces, though he supposed that made sense, considering they were Mooks.
"I knew you would say that," Nezia responded, "So I made this special room. Mooks, restrain them."

Selena shook her head pityingly at the Mooks as a bright emerald green aura flared up around her. Maxwell stopped midway to his Pouch and gaped in surprise as Selena gathered her aura in her hands and threw it at a congregation of Mooks conveniently grouped together. The blast of energy hit them head on and then exploded outward, enveloping the rest of the Mooks.
"What?" Selena asked in amusement as Maxwell continued to stare, "You thought I wath jutht a pretty fathe?"
Maxwell opened his mouth to respond, but stopped when the smoke cleared and every single faceless Mook stared(?) at him and Selena.
"Uh oh," Maxwell said, "They don't look happy, d00d."
"They don't have any fatheth!" Selena retorted in frustration.
"Yeah, well..." Maxwell shrugged and delved into the Pouch of Infinity, "Don't worry, d00d. I'll handle this." The prinny plushie yanked out...

...A peanut.

"Well that's no good," Maxwell muttered, chucking the peanut aside and reaching in again. The Savior of Mankind froze, eyes widening in surprise. He dug deeper into the pouch, but no matter what he did, he found nothing. He stared at Nezia, who merely watched passively.
"I knew you would do that when Selena failed," he said, lips curling into a smile, "So I cockblocked you from hammerspace."
"How the hell did you do that?" Maxwell demanded.
"Well I knew that your powers stem from possessing a Bag of Holding. And I knew that Selena is an Action Girl. So I created this room that inverts tropes. In this room, your Bag of Holding, Maxwell, is a regular bag," Nezia replied.
Maxwell gasped, "Then that means that these Mooks..."
"...Are unstoppable," Nezia finished with an evil chuckle, "Yes."

"If that'th the cathe," Selena responded, "How come thethe Mookth thtill lithen to you?" She turned to the Mooks slowly closing in on her and Maxwell, "I'd rebel. If tropeth are reverthed here, that meanth that he'th really weak right now."
Nezia shook his head smugly, "I knew you'd do that. So I found a way to make myself immune to trope reversal. My Mooks aren't foolish enough to rebel against me. Any other ideas?"

Maxwell racked his brain. They were going to be captured if he didn't do something! There had to be something...!
But try as he might, his mind did not offer him any solutions, since it was still in the middle of angsting about not knowing how to save the world.
"Mooks," Nezia commanded, waving his bear arm, "Take Selena to the Giant Paintings of Me Room. I wish to interrogate her. Send Maxwell to the dungeon or something. I don't care about him."

"Makthwell!" Selena cried as the generic enemies encircled the two and captured them. Maxwell didn't bother struggling. There was nothing he could do. Nothing. He couldn't even save one person! He just...didn't deserve to be a hero. And as that fact hit home, the prinny plushie allowed a single tear to drop from his eyes. He felt like dying just then.

Dying...!

"Get ready to run, d00d!" Maxwell yelled, "I hope you Mook d00ds put up a decent fight!" And with that, Maxwell began to struggle against his captors. The Mooks faced one another - seeing as they couldn't actually look at each other - and one shrugged its shoulders and then chopped the back of Maxwell's neck to knock the Savior of Mankind unconscious. Maxwell smiled as he promptly exploded in a burst of energy that completely destroyed the Mooks around him and threw the others holding Selena to the ground.

Run, d00d...

"Makthwell!" Selena screamed.

Run, d00d, run!

The princess of Elinia did as Maxwell requested. She turned and bolted back out the door the two had come through.


Nezia watched. His smile widened as he said, "I knew he would do that." He walked over and claimed the Pouch of Infinity, "So I set up this entire chapter to get my hands on this." He gave a final villainous chuckle before the chapter ended.

Maxwell let out a groan. Waking up after exploding was just like waking up with a hang over. He always had a pounding headache, he'd rather stay in bed, and he usually woke up next to somebody he didn't know, all of which were true in this case.

"Erm...hey, d00d, who are you?" he said to the lump beside him. A man sat up wearing a dusty straitjacket and squinted at Maxwell.
"My label is one of many. It reeks with the odor of a tummy of jello. Time decides what I am, and for now, I am...Mr. Squeegee!" Maxwell's companion spoke in quick, jerky spasms.
"Uh...are you okay, d00d?"
"My skin burns with the germination of a thousand angry flowers!" Mr. Squeegee responded, spasming violently as he tried to free himself from his bonds in what Maxwell assumed was an attempt to scratch his apparently burning skin.

The prinny plushie sighed and took in the rest of his surroundings, ignoring both the pounding in his head and the verbiage spewing from the mouth of his compatriot. The very first thing he noticed was that the Pouch of Infinity was not around his waist. Scrambling to his feet, the Savior of Mankind searched frantically around the room he was in. The room was well-furnished, much to his surprise. He had been sitting on bright red carpeted floor that seemed almost to fold around him to fit the form of his tushie. The room was painted an inviting light blue color with little puffs of white splashed across the blue that were meant - Maxwell assumed - to be semen. You could never really tell with artists.
The rest of the room was barren save for a message tacked onto one wall. There was no sign of the Pouch anywhere. Maxwell sighed again. His heroic sacrifice had hopefully bought Selena her freedom, but what now? What could he do? HOW could he do it?

The prinny plushie glanced at the message on the wall, almost not wanting to read it. It would no doubt be just a lengthy taunt from Nezia about how much Maxwell sucked, but curiosity overwhelmed him and he read,

Welcome to the Dungeon Room! If you awaken to find yourself in this room, it means you have been kidnapped, captured, or are otherwise detained. We here at Nezia Inc. firmly believe in customer satisfaction. We are constantly working to make your prison a better place so that, with any luck, you won't want to leave. If there is anything that we can do for you, just press the button located to the right of this message. Receptionists are standing by to cater to your needs 24/7! Want a nice, comfy pillow to sleep on? No problem! Got a craving for high-quality fine-dining? We deliver only the finest! Need to work off some sexual tension with a romantic interest? Due to the nature of prisons, we cannot provide such companionship, but we DO provide blow-up dolls that can be shaped and painted in the likeness of your romantic interest!
If you need anything of the above and more, please do not hesitate to give us a call!
Thank you, and enjoy your imprisonment! <3

"That's really nice of them," Maxwell said, cheered up somewhat by the thought of such great service, "Hey d00ds. I could really use an escape route right now. Could you provide me with one?"
A feminine voice could be heard as a microphone...somewhere...clicked on, "We're sorry. We at Nezia Inc. do not provide means of escape."
"Yes," Maxwell replied, "But let's say that there was an escape route built into this dungeon, so you don't have to provide it. You just have to tell me about it. It's okay to do that, right d00d?"
"...You must really think I'm stupid, don't you?"
"More like hoping, d00d..." Maxwell sighed, as the voice clicked off, "Well that didn't work."
"I weep for the sighs of the malignant tree monkeys," Mr. Squeegee responded.
"Yeah...me too." Maxwell slumped against the bright blue wall behind him and stared at the ceiling.

"D00d, you ever have something that was really important that you needed to do at all costs, but you had no idea how to do it?" the Savior of Mankind asked out loud.
"Fate is a many-fingered cabbage. Watch out for its tail."
"It is like a cabbage," Maxwell agreed, "but are you saying that I'm worrying about stuff that isn't there? Cabbages don't have tails, d00d."
"The truth is a lie that beats us with hair fetishes. What is real is illusion."
Maxwell frowned, "I'd never thought of it that way, d00d. Maybe I am imagining problems that aren't there...I mean, I am...me. I'm immortal and generally, the Pouch of Infinity and my afro follow me around everywhere. And I can pull anything out of the pouch. How could I fail?"
"Irony is more powerful than fate. Imagination is the reality that drives the hamsters," Mr. Squeegee replied, "they rally to vanquish the evil overlord of wheels."
"Alright, that one didn't even make sense, d00d. Could you give me another one?"

Just then, the message on the wall exploded. Maxwell leaped clear of the rubble and stared at Selena as she walked over the debris.
"I finally found you, Makthwell!" she said with a smile.
Maxwell returned her greeting before saying, "Could you hold on a second, d00d? I'm in the middle of a Plot Epiphany."
Selena rolled her eyes and folded her arms, "Well hurry up." Despite her words, she grinned. Maxwell was going back to his old self.
"So...I may not know what it is I have to do, the important thing is that I just help out people and trust that fate will keep me on the written path," Maxwell stated out loud as he paced back and forth over the rubble, "So really, I'm right back where I started at the beginning of this story. But that's okay. Stuff was working fine for me then any way. Besides, a threat to all of mankind will be pretty hard to miss, I figure."
Selena began to tap her foot, "Hurry up, Makthwell!"

"Wait a second before we go, d00d," Maxwell replied, searching the room for Mr. Squeegee only to find, oddly enough, that his insane companion had disappeared completely. "...Huh. Well that's weird."
"What ith?" Selena asked.
"There was a guy in here with me, d00d. He helped me reach my Plot Epiphany."
"...Makthwell, all of the prithon roomth are one-perthon only. It'th a rule."
"Well, maybe he ran by while you weren't looking," Maxwell decided, "Come on! Let's go save your...uh...what was your plight again, d00d?"
"My kingdom hath been taken over by Nethia," Selena replied, clearly not amused.
"Right," Maxwell nodded, "And the panties. But your kingdom first, of course."
Selena shook her head, "But your pouch, Makthwell. How will you fight Nethia?"
Maxwell waved away her question as the two began to make their escape, "It'll be easy, d00d! I'll just tactically outwit him!"
"..."

"So how'd you manage to rescue me anyway?" Maxwell asked. He and Selena were running down a long corridor filled with smirking paintings of Nezia.
"Well, it-"

"No, no. I'm not letting this crap happen again!" the Writer interrupted.
"Wait, what?" Maxwell asked.
"This entire story has been all about you. I've barely been it! Hell, Ray's barely been in it!"
Maxwell nodded slowly, "Yeah...what's your point, d00d?"
"My point is," C replied, "That it's time that some of the other characters in this story got some screen time while you're off doing...who the hell cares."
"The audience cares, d00d!" Maxwell insisted, "You can't just deprive them of me! I'm the main character!"
The Writer scoffed, "Well why don't we ask them what they would prefer? Audience! What would you rather read more? A droll and predictable escape in which Maxwell and Selena battle the Dragon-"
"D00d! We're going to have to fight a dragon!?"
"Excuthe me, but doethn't thith entire converthathion terrifically break the fourth wall?" Selena asked.
"Yes, it does, but I don't care," C responded, "Now shut up. Anyway. You could read about that OR you could read the thrilling tale of character development in which I feature most magnificently! Oh, and that little kid I beat the shit out of at the end of part four will be in it too...I guess."
"D00d. Everybody loves action much more than stupid character development," Maxwell snorted, "It's simple physics."
"Makthwell, I don't think that-"
"Oh really?" the Writer glared at the readers, "Well? Why don't you answer my question? And remember..." he opened his Book and chuckled darkly, "Your very existences are riding on your answers."
One by one, hands went up and answers were given, all in favor of the Writer.
"Ha!" the Writer crowed, "You see? They'd prefer to read about me."
"You thleathy bathtard! You can't jutht threaten the audienthe!"
"Lalalacan'thearyounowbye."

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Alright," C said, facing Ray and Cele, "This chapter is going to be our time to shine! So just give me a moment to get back into character and we'll really wow the readers!"

Ray eyed the Writer with intense dislike. "Why do you follow him around?" he asked the young girl next to him.
Cele smiled, "He's so kind to me. He took me out of a place that hated me. He's given me so much. My clothes, a book...everything. C is like a father to me. A real one. Not..." Cele shivered, "Not like my other one."
"He's a psychopath," Ray insisted, "He's ranted at least six times about killing everybody, and that's only since he's kidnapped me. He's evil to the bone."
"Then...why hasn't he killed me, I wonder?" Cele asked.
Ray sighed, "Who knows? But that just means he could turn on you at any moment."
Cele shook her head, her long dark hair swaying back and forth as she did, "The Writer wouldn't do that. He isn't a bad person."
"Then what is he?" Ray demanded, frustrated by Cele's defending of the madman. Couldn't she see he was nothing more than a killer?
"He's a good person who does bad things," Cele replied.
"Ew."
"Are you sure you aren't a little biased?" Cele asked.
Ray looked her in the eyes, "Maybe it's you who's a little biased. Have you just completely ignored all of the things he's done for people who aren't you? He ruins lives, Cele! He's not a good person who does bad things! He's a bad person who, for some inexplicable reason, is doing good things for you! He's manipulating you!" The teenage boy had begun shouting near the end, trying so hard to convince Cele.
"He is not!" Cele shouted back, "Why would he? He doesn't even know that I have any power!"
"He's probably-" Ray stopped, "Wait, you have powers? Is that how C knows where to find Maxwell?"

Cele smoothed her dress and turned away from Ray pointedly.
"Come on," Ray pressed, "You can tell me about them. Can I get them?"
"No..." Cele had begun shaking, "No, I can't." she finished in a whisper. Tears had begun to streak down her face.
Ray could only watch as the girl who held his heart fell into a fit of weeping. Not knowing what else to do, Ray put his arms around her in a hug, "I'm sorry, Cele. I didn't mean to make you cry...I was just curious about what sort of power you have."
"...Why are you so interested in power anyway?" Cele asked after a moment.
Ray tensed, "What are you talking about?"
"I've seen it," Cele said, "The way you stare at C's Book. The way you want to know about my own abilities now. And the way you talk about your friend, Maxwell. Like he's a tool, a weapon. Why do you want power, Ray?"
"...You really are something special," Ray muttered, "Unfortunately-"

"Get your hands off of Cele!" the Writer snarled, brandishing his pen like a sword as he lunged at Ray.

At that moment, the scene changed in order to create suspense.

~*~*~*~*~*~


"Do you think these paintings make me look fat?" Nezia asked. He and a tall, bald man in black robes were conversing in Nezia's throne room observing a massive circular chamber with larger-than-life paintings of Nezia.
"Not at all," Bald Man replied amicably, "They really bring out the color of your...uh...eyes. Is it really necessary to have so many of them?"
"When you've got power, you've got to squander it on frivolous, pointless things," Nezia replied, "Like I made the perfect toilet. And it's-"
Bald Man held up a hand, "That won't be necessary, Nezia. I didn't give you your power so that you would waste it on that."
Nezia frowned quizzically, "But you got what you wanted. It's an even trade. As long as we both get what we want, what do the details matter?"
Bald Man chuckled, "Yes, I suppose you're right. I've figured out the workings of the pouch. It didn't take as much study as I thought it would.
Nezia eyed his conspirator sideways, "...Why do you need more power anyway? Isn't that strange book of yours enough to defeat anybody?"
"The magic I took from the pouch isn't meant for defeating anybody. It is to help me escape this worldly prison."

Nezia frowned, but otherwise he showed no sign of being surprised by Bald Man's words. A worldly prison? What could that possibly mean?
"So anyway, can I get you anything to eat?" he asked after a moment.
Bald Man shook his head, "I must politely decline. I estimate that you will have guests very soon."
"Ah, yes," Nezia glanced at the grandfather clock framed over the large double-door entry into the room, "It is about time they got here. Quickly, we should start talking about important plot-things to make them think they just missed something important."

Bald Man rolled his eyes, "No, I think I'll be leaving now. Try not to die." A strange rip in the air opened in front of him and Nezia's provider disappeared through it just as one of the double doors opened and in strode the Savior of Mankind and Selena, looking as though they owned the place.
Smiling to himself, Nezia turned to begin the Final Boss Monologue leading up to the Final Boss Battle.

"So let me make sure I've got this right," Maxwell said as he and Selena stepped onto the escalator that would take them to Nezia's throne room. It was really nice to at last see final bosses adapting to new technology and replacing the Ridiculously Long Staircase(TM) with more modern conveniences. There was even some out of place elevator music playing in the background. "Everybody in Elinia has a Gift. A magic of some sort that only they can use, right d00d?"
"Yeth," Selena nodded, "That ith exactly what I jutht finithed telling you offthcreen in the latht chapter."
"Right," Maxwell said, "And your Gift is the Gift of Aura, which you can basically use to manipulate energy itself," the prinny plushie shivered, "I hope none of the bad guys ever get that ability."
"Yeth."
"And Nezia's Gift is the Gift of Foresight, meaning he can see the future. Which is how he knew all of those things before."
"Ath long ath you don't make eye contact, he can't uthe that ability," Selena finished.
"A convenient flaw," Maxwell said, "But one we can exploit, d00d. As long as we avoid that, the only thing we'll have to deal with are the rest of his supernatural powers granted to him by the panties."
Selena smiled as she and Maxwell topped the escalator and stood before two massive steel doors, "Exactly." She had gained a lot of offscreen respect for Maxwell in the last chapter and had really begun to see him as a warrior. A savior. And a friend.
Maxwell returned the smile, "Come on, d00d. Let's save your country." The two of them opened the door to Nezia together.

The man himself turned to greet the two companions, and Maxwell just barely caught a glimpse of another man departing through...a hole in the air? That made no sense, but he didn't pay it any mind. He focused his gaze on Nezia.
"Heroic resolve heroic resolve! Resolve, resolve heroic!" he said.
"Philosophy," Nezia replied, "Philosophy, philosophy. Flawed logic, logic flawed. Logic logic, philosophy logic flawed."
"Righteous anger!" Selena retorted, "People, people, righteous anger!"
Nezia waved her away dismissively, "Selfish desire. Taunt, taunt, selfish desire taunt."
"NO U!" Maxwell replied angrily.
Nezia laughed and shook his head, "Pointless bickering, overconfidence, confidence bickering pointless."
Maxwell and Selena nodded in unison.
"Very well then," Nezia said, "Now that the formalities have passed...let it begin. Oh wait a second."
Maxwell and Selena almost fell on top of each other as they stopped their lunges. "I'll be with you in just a moment." Nezia walked into a side room. Maxwell and Selena allowed the villain to go, knowing that he would do them the courtesy of not fleeing or setting up a trap. That just wasn't the way things worked.

When Nezia returned, he was holding the Pouch of Infinity.
"Here." He let go of the Pouch and the utility belt of hammerspace flew toward Maxwell and wrapped around the Savior of Mankind's waist, master and weapon reunited at last. "Now. As I was saying," Nezia began, "Let it begin."
If Maxwell or Selena found Nezia returning Maxwell's main supply of weaponry strange, they said nothing about it. Before Nezia could even begin his attack, however, Maxwell and Selena each flashed a pair of sunglasses and put them on.
Nezia raised an eyebrow in amusement, "You don't actually think that will work, do you?"
"No, d00d," Maxwell responded, "We just want to kick your ass in style is all."
"Ah."

The fight began in a burst of energy as Selena flared her Aura. Green energy exploded outward from her body and sped toward Nezia as a flurry of bright green bolts of energy. The evil overlord danced through the barrage with ease, unsheathing his katana and firing his own laser barrage out of its tip in a single fluid movement as he did so.
The lasers all disappeared into Maxwell's afro, who had anticipated the move and bent over and used his afro as a fully body shield. There was an itch in Maxwell's back as he dove into the Pouch of Infinity for a counterattack. The plushie couldn't quite explain why, but there was something coming. Something far bigger than panties.
He shook the feeling away and lifted whatever he'd grabbed out of the Pouch of Infinity. What was unveiled was a very angry giant crab. On fire. Maxwell, having grown used to this sort of thing after possessing the pouch for many, many millennia, just shrugged, but Selena and even Nezia could not help staring at the flaming crustacean.

Maxwell threw the fire crab at the stunned Nezia who managed to come to his senses in time to slice off one of the crab's pincers. The infernal menace made whatever sounds that giant crabs on fire make when they're in excruciating pain and a jet of fire burst from its mouth. Unfortunately, the flaming death hurtled toward Selena rather than Nezia and the Princess of Elinia was forced to gather her Aura in front of her as a shield.
In that space of time, Nezia had disappeared and reappeared behind Selena, katana poised to end her life. The Savior of Mankind acted quickly, not even bothering to look at whatever he took out of the pouch.
Nezia sliced the projectile instinctively, an action he quickly regretted as thousands of angry bees stormed out of their destroyed home and began to sting the nearest fleshy being they found. They had a particular animosity toward Nezia, perhaps because of his bear arm, and as a result, the usurper became a mass of angrily buzzing insects. The air was occasionally pierced by Nezia's girlish screams, which irritated the already very disgruntled giant crab on fire. The crab sent another blast of fire, this time at Nezia, who managed, somehow, to see the oncoming threat and spin his katana like a massive propeller. The fire parted around Nezia just enough to singe the bees without hurting the man himself.

Selena took the opportunity to strike out with her Aura, this time as a spear of energy. Nezia swiped at the energy with his katana and deflected the attack at the crab. The crustacean gave a final twitch before collapsing as the fire around it extinguished to reveal a giant hole through its side. Nezia became a blur as he fired laser blasts at Maxwell from every direction with his katana. The Savior of Mankind barely managed to evade the deadly projectiles - mostly by ducking and allowing his afro to take the harm - and screamed in frustration. This was just plain ridiculous! Not making eye contact with Nezia wasn't helping! He was moving faster than Maxwell could follow. Shutting his eyes would just be a deathwish!
"Well, well. This does look like trouble."
Maxwell gasped. That voice...!
"D00d! It's Plot Convenience Man!"
The Deity Ex Machina descended from out of no where, landing in the middle of the destroyed throne room.
"Having difficulties?" he asked Maxwell with a knowing smile.
"D00d! This is just like the time you fight Mithos in Tales of Symphonia and he's unbeatable no matter what!" Maxwell told him. Nezia let out a bloodcurdling scream as his assault stopped and he ground to a full halt.
"Wh...what did you say!?" he demanded.
"Err...I said this is like the time you fight Mithos - you know, Yggdrassill - where he's unbeatable. After you fight Kratos."
"Nooooo!" Nezia screamed, "No, I haven't got that far yet! Don't spoil it!"
Maxwell stared. Could it be...? Nezia could see the future of anything that he made eye contact with. But books and video games had no eyes to make contact with. Could it be that Nezia's weakness was...spoilers? He looked at Plot Convenience Man who nodded and then winked.

As completely stupid as it sounded, Maxwell didn't have anything else to go on, and so he said, "Murtagh is Eragon's brother!" Nezia let out a howl and recoiled as though struck by a particularly strong blow. That confirmed it.
"Selena, be ready! I'm going to weaken him and you do the finishing blow, d00d!" Maxwell called. Selena nodded. She looked confused, but she nodded. Maxwell turned back to Nezia with fiery fury in his eyes.
"Gandalf isn't really dead!" Nezia convulsed.
Maxwell took a step toward the fallen ruler, "Darth Vader is Luke's father!" Nezia took a step back, agony all but etched into his face as Maxwell advanced.
"Einhorn is a man!"
"Bella chooses Edward!"
"Mid-Boss is Laharl's father!"
"Gatsby dies!"
"Auron is an Unsent!"
"Tommy is the White Ranger!"
"Zero was created by Dr. Wily!"

By the time Maxwell was inches away from Nezia, the once mighty foe had furrows in his face from where his fingernails had dug in and he was glaring at Maxwell with wide-eyed, unbridled hatred. Maxwell leaned in close and met Nezia's gaze, preparing to deliver the final blow.

"...Snape kills Dumbledore."

"Noooooo!" Nezia began to thrash, swinging his katana violently, swiping at the air as though to ward off the spoilers. Maxwell watched in grim satisfaction as Selena's Aura slammed into him.
"Finish him, d00d!" Maxwell told Selena in his best Mortal Kombat voice.
"Hurry!" Plot Convenience Man added. Maxwell frowned. Why was he so tense? The threat was over now. They'd won. But then...why was his heart racing? It wouldn't stop. Maxwell shivered. It wouldn't stop. His heart pounded. Why? The itch on his back was stronger than ever. Something...something was coming.

The ceiling overhead cracked and shattered. Maxwell's gaze snapped upward as the stony walls began to crumble and fall. Selena's aura spread over Maxwell, though she had to release Nezia to do it. The green energy cut and sliced the stone apart until the only remnants that reached Maxwell were harmless pebbles, but the Savior of Mankind didn't even bother brushing them off. His gaze was held by the man who stood among debris with an open black book in his hands. The man's eyes flitted toward Selena and Plot Convenience Man, the latter of whom was gritting his teeth and looking extremely apprehensive.

"Non-entities..." the man said, "Kill them."

Selena barely had time to react. She threw up her Aura as a shield just as a bolt of lightning struck. The air resounded with a loud crack as it struck her Aura, but the shield held. Barely. Real lightning shouldn't have even come close to damaging that. The old man standing beside the one with the Book had his arm upraised. Was the lightning his doing?
"Who are you!?" she demanded.
The man with the book forced out a laugh, "Well isn't that ridiculous," he said, "Mere words, making demands of me!?" He scribbled something into his book.
"Run!" Plot Convenience Man shouted, but Selena had a different idea. She concentrated her Aura on the roiling ground beneath her. The earth gave way as Selena dug beneath Nezia's palace.

She and Plot Convenience Man landed in a surprisingly vast underground cave. The only light came from the crumbling ceiling above them.
"Well thith ith convenient," Selena remarked, "Who knew there wath an entire network of caveth beneath Nethia's cathle?"
Plot Convenience Man raised his hand, "I did."
Selena rolled her eyes. "Where'th Makthwell?"
Plot Convenience Man's eyes sharpened, "He didn't come with us?"
The Princess of Elinia took a quick look at their surroundings, "I don't thee him anywhere..."
"We've got to hurry and get him away from that man," Plot Convenience Man said, "Come on!" The Deity Ex Machina began to take flight when a figure plunged down the opening Selena had created.

It wasn't Maxwell.

It was a man, tall and lean with short black hair and wearing light leather armor. His hands and feet gleamed in the dim cave and Selena saw that contrary to the light protection he wore, he was wearing what appeared to be very heavy gauntlets and greaves. The man did not appear to possess any weapons, though.
His mouth stretched into a feral grin, "Hi. Call me the Killer. Pleased to kill you."

Selena hurled her Aura at the man, the green energy forming into a lance. The strange man raised his arm faster than thought, stopping the energy lance from impaling him. The lance did, however, pierce through his gauntlet. Blood sprayed from the hole Selena's Aura had drilled into his hand, but the pain only seemed to make his grin wider. With a quick jerk, he sliced his hand clean open, freeing it from Selena's Aura, and followed through with a powerful kick. Selena dodged and the Killer's leg smashed into the rock wall. The entire cavern trembled with the force of the blow and a wide-eyed Selena came to realize just a part of what she was truly up against.
"A little help here!" she called to Plot Convenience Man.
The Deity Ex Machina could only shrug sadly, "I'm not allowed to directly interfere. I can give you a magic super weapon, give you a hint about what needs to be done, or tell you his weakness but you have to be the one to actually finish him."
"Fine! I'll jutht deal with him mythelf! You go find Makthwell!" a frantic Selena shouted as the Killer let loose with a flurry of precision punches and kicks while Plot Convenience Man turned and ran back down the passages connecting Nezia's castle to the surface. Selena thanked her Stars that she'd been conveniently trained in hand-to-hand combat and was not a Squishy Mage archetype. She took extreme care to avoid the Killer's blows completely, knowing that even if he managed to so much as nick her, the power behind his attacks would likely be enough to rip apart whatever he managed to touch.

Finally, the Princess of Elinia got an opening. The Killer threw a wide blow which she ducked under and then threw her Aura at the Writer's avatar once more, this time aiming for his heart. Her Aura struck no flesh and she heard only the Killer's laugh. His body had...stretched to the side as though it were made out of gum or rubber and making him look almost cartoonish. His fist flew toward her. Selena grit her teeth. She was too close to dodge now...

She forced the energy in her aura outward in an explosion, the resulting blast throwing both her and the Killer backward. A deep groan pushed past Selena's lips. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping it would also shut out the pain. It did not. The explosion had ripped apart her right arm, which was now a bleeding mess. A few tears managed to force their way out of her tear ducts and run down her face. Stars, the pain! She tried to calm her rough and ragged breathing. He had to be dead. That had to have killed him. Overhead, there was a loud crack and then the cave walls rumbled again as bits of stone crashed down from the ceiling.

Maxwell

She had to get to him. Selena opened her eyes and stumbled to her feet. She didn't dare to look at her mangled right arm, fearing that if she did, she would almost certainly collapse once more.

"That was fun!" A wave of cold washed over the Princess of Elinia. She shut her eyes and uttered a curse in her native language - "Bleep!" - before ignoring both her body's and mind's frantic protests and facing the Killer once more. To her credit, the bizarre creature was far worse off than she was. Her Aura's explosion had torn a very large chunk of flesh out of the Killer's torso and completely blown off his left hand. And yet despite that, he was still grinning manically.
"Y...you do know that there'th a hole in your left thide, right?" Selena asked tentatively.
"What about it?"
"...Nevermind."

The two stared at one another for a moment; a moment that Selena was grateful for. Her tired mind worked frantically to think of a way to defeat the monster before her, but all that her brain could come up with was: "STAY THE *bleep* AWAY FROM HIM!" He was a melee fighter. He had to get close to attack. If she could keep him on the defensive, all she would have to do was wait for an opening and take it. If she could manage that, she'd be-
"OhGodwhyishepickingupthatboulder?"
The Killer hurled the enormous rock at the Princess of Elinia as though it were a pillow. Selena's Aura burst into existence and she wrapped it around the flying rock of death and swung it around her in a full circle, finally sending it flying back toward the Killer. The man barked a laugh, balled up his fist, and punched the boulder. Like everything else he had touched, the giant clod of rock and earth exploded into tiny pebbles and stone. A cloud of dust was kicked up in the wake of the stone's destruction. Selena squinted into the dust and debris, waiting for the Killer's movement.

A pebble flew out of the dust and ripped straight through Selena's left leg. She cried out in pain as stone after stone flew from within the dust cloud like a machine gun. Selena gathered her Aura around her in a tight shield, the impromptu bullets bouncing off of it harmlessly. And then another giant rock came hurtling toward her. Selena squeaked and lashed out with her Aura, this time destroying it completely, and then retracted her Aura completely. The green energy dissipated and faded into nothing. Selena was completely defenseless. Just as planned.

The Killer took advantage of the lull in her defenses and lunged out of the dust and closed his fist around Selena's throat, slamming her against the rock wall.

"I'm not one to monologue about how much I'll enjoy doing this," the Killer told her, "but I will really enjoy doing this. Time to die."
"I agree!" Selena choked. The Killer's eyes widened. He looked down at the gaping hole in his side and saw Selena's Aura coursing into it. He had time to look back at the Princess of Elinia in outrage before her Aura forced its way out of his body and he was blown apart from the inside out. Selena slumped to the ground, silently congratulating herself. The Killer's flaw was that he could not feel pain and thus could not know the condition of his own body, or whether there was something inside it.

"You beat him." Selena turned to see Plot Convenience Man approaching her, looking quite impressed.
"Of courthe," she said as though it had been no effort at all on her part, "Why aren't you up on the thurface with Makthwell?"
Plot Convenience Man shook his head, "It wouldn't do any good now. It's too late."
"What?"
"We need to get out of here. Now."


How did it come to this?

Maxwell distinctly heard Plot Convenience Man yell, "Run!" And yet...he couldn't. Not that he didn't want to. He did not need a scouter to know that this new enemy's power level was definitely over nine thousand. And yet...something held him there. Something drew him to that man. His speeding heart quickened even more. He could feel the ground shaking. Rumbling. Roaring.
He took a step forward. And his heart beat faster.

There exist beings who live outside of the Plot. Beings I have no power over. Those who drive the Plot itself.

Someone was shouting. Maxwell wished he could hear them over the rhythmic pounding of his chest. His arms twitched. Not toward the Pouch of Infinity. Toward his afro. Why there? Why...?
He took another step.

And Makthwell ith one of thethe beingth?

Fire danced around him as he advanced toward his foe. His fear was gone. Was the fire around him...or inside him? It consumed his emotions. Fear, doubt, confusion...all burned away until there was only himself left. Maxwell could feel something. Something was trying to escape. He looked down at the Pouch of Infinity. There. That's what it was. He opened the pouch.

No. He is the antithesis of those people.

There was nothing to take from the Pouch of Infinity. Energy exploded out of it, pure strands of red and white energy swirling and gathering around him, all coming from the Pouch. The glow became brighter and brighter. His arms felt at his head and pulled off his afro. The hair was twisting, melding, and absorbing the energy being emitted from the Pouch of Infinity. His afro became a sword whose blade spanned all the colors of the spectrum. A godly weapon of unmatched power.

Tho he ith a weapon?

He looked at his opponent, watching him with a mixture of surprise and interest.
Writer The word pounded through his mind. That's what the man was. A Writer. Just then, everything felt right. This was what he had been born to do.

And that was the end of rational thought.

No...at least, I do not think so. What's happening to him now is more like...a defense mechanism to keep him safe. He won't stop, no matter what, until that man is gone.


C stared at the strange...thing advancing toward him. This was it? He had thought that at last, he had found a clue that would take him to the next Writer, but this creature was too strange to have come out of the mind of a Writer. All of the trouble he'd gone through and it had turned out to be a waste of time that he did not have!
"Beast, destroy him!" he screamed in fury. Somewhere behind him, the boy - Ray? - began to protest as the Beast bounded down the ledge they were on and threw himself at Maxwell with a piercing screech. "You have no room to complain!" C snapped, rounding on the boy, "I was led to believe that this 'Savior of Mankind' would be much more than this."
"D...Don't take Psyduck lightly!" Ray said, "He'll win!"
The Writer scoffed, "I doubt it." He turned to stare down at the battle and his eyes widened in surprise..

The Beast had reached the bottom and was a speeding blur headed toward Maxwell. But the creature himself was surrounding by red and white energy. THAT was all the confirmation he needed. More than enough. He wrote quickly into his Book and ripped a hole in the air.
"Knowledge, take Cele and get out of here," he ordered, unable to stop a gleeful smile from spreading across his face.
"As you command," the Knowledge said obediently - for once - "Cele, it's time to go." The teenage girl stared at Maxwell for a moment; the afro on his head had been pulled off and, apparently, become a sword; and then she followed the Knowledge through the rift C had created.

The Writer turned back to the battle, "Now then..."

Maxwell had stopped and was eyeing the Beast with...disdain? The Beast pounced with unrivaled speed and the prinny plushie did nothing to protect himself, nothing to save himself. He just turned and punched the Beast in the face then followed through with a swipe of the strange rainbow sword that cleaved the Beast in two, but his eyes never left the Writer.

C ground his teeth, "I will not back down! You are nothing more than words on a page! You are nothing to me! Nothing!" he screeched. Maxwell stared at him silently in response. A chill ran down the Writer's spine, but he shook it off. Fear? No. No! The boy! Yes! He could take the boy hostage and...!

Maxwell had leaped off the ground and was rocketing toward C. The Writer screamed in rage and raised his book as Maxwell brought down the Pringer Sword. The unstoppable force and immovable object collided with the force of a small explosion.
The Writer could only stare in wide-eyed disbelief. This wasn't happening! No! Nonononono!
The prinny plushie glared at him and finally spoke, "You don't deserve life," he hissed.

Finally, it settled in. Fear. It shook C to the bone. Maxwell leaped off of C's Book and to the Writer's furthering shock, a long, jagged scratch had been etched onto the cover. Reckless rage overcame fear.
"You..." he hissed, "Unforgivable!" He opened his Book and wrote the words that would erase the creature from existence.

Maxwell turned his gaze upward as the sky opened up to reveal a swirling mass of red and white energy collecting, gathering at a single point before exploding out of the tear in the sky in a beam. C watched in grim satisfaction as the Light of Creation sped toward Maxwell, but the prinny plushie watched silently for a moment and then raised his sword. The beam split around the sword in a brilliant flash of light, for no more than a few seconds, and then it was over.

C could only stare. No. That was purely and simply impossible. Nothing should have been able to do that. Nothing. Not even he himself could manage what this creature had done. There was no doubt now that Maxwell was definitely a creation of the Writers. But who? Which one could have created such a monstrosity!?
C lost time for thought. Maxwell had raised his hand and was gathered energy from his strange pouch in front of it.
"Psy-Psyduck!" Ray cried out from behind C, "You're not gonna use Pringer Beam here are you!? You'll kill us all!"
The prinny plushie silently continued to gather more energy. The Writer ground his teeth. No! No! Nothing would work! The creature clearly didn't care about his companion; taking him hostage would be pointless - and besides, C would NOT hide behind words. There was no way out. No way out!

"Makthwell!"
C looked up. That woman was back? That meant she had beaten the Killer. Not that it mattered at this point. What did matter was that it made Maxwell pause. He glanced in her direction. The Writer reacted immediately, shoving Ray toward the prinny plushie and writing another gateway in his Book. The Writer did not spare another glance as the hole in the air opened up. For the first time since he had entered his own world of fiction, C fled. The air behind him became electrified and the monster fired the energy he'd been gathering. Light flooded C's senses as he plunged through his rift. The gateway closed behind him. He was safe. He was whole.

He was furious.

---

"Hey, he's waking up!"

Maxwell's eyes flitted open. Ray and Selena were standing over him.
"Hey d00d," Maxwell said to Ray. He got up, making it a point not to look at Selena's battered body. The sun had just begun to set and the sky was a messy haze of melded colors flowing into another.
"Psyduck, you were SO cool!" Ray gushed, "You were all, 'Rargh.' and then that guy went, 'Kill him' and then that other guy was all 'Imma bite you!' and then you were like, 'bitch, please' and-"

He had done that to Selena. He could still see it in his mind. He had prepared to fire the Pringer Beam, even at the expense of Ray, when Selena had appeared. Her Aura had flashed around him in a tight cage as he fired the Pringer Beam. The energy had completely shattered her Aura and the recoil had sent energy back at Selena and pierced her body. Though thanks to her, enough of the Pringer Beam's power had been diverted so that instead of killing them all - like it should have - it had merely knocked them unconscious. But...still.

Why couldn't he have forgotten about it like in all of the stories about heroes with magic berserk buttons? Knowing what he had done hurt. It hurt a lot.
"I'm really sorry, Selena," the prinny plushie said, interrupting Ray's adulation.
"It'th fine, Makthwell. Plot Convenienthe Man patched me up before he left. It'th okay."
"No, it's not, d00d," Maxwell said, "What I did then is something that's never happened before. Ever. And I've been alive for a really long time, d00d. I've gotta understand why that happened."

Selena didn't speak for a moment. Maxwell glanced at her. She wasn't looking at him either. He couldn't blame her.
"Plot Convenienthe Man told me a few things," she said at last, "He thaid that you were made for a very thpethial purpothe and that what happened to you wath a defenthe mechanithm to prevent you from being dethroyed."
That was interesting. "Did he say who made me?" Maxwell inquired.
"...No. He wouldn't say," Selena said sadly.
Maxwell shut his eyes. That figured. Of course Plot Convenience Man wouldn't say. But...well, that was okay. He didn't think Plot Convenience Man was the only one who knew.

"Tho what are you going to do?" Selena asked.
Maxwell shrugged, "I don't know, d00d. I think I have to find that guy again."
"Are you inthane!?" Selena demanded, "After what jutht happened, you want to go after him now?"
"No, think about it," Maxwell said, "Plot Convenience Man told me that the person who knows about my purpose and what I am is a woman, but if I want to find out, I need to see the knowledge. And that guy had another guy who was called the Knowledge! Do you see it now, d00d?"
"...When did you thuddenly thtart making tho much thenthe?" Selena asked.
Maxwell chuckled, "Well, this is serious, d00d. And I've always known what to do when things were serious. Problem is, I don't always know when things are serious."
Selena smiled and put a hand on the Savior of Mankind's shoulder, "Don't worry. I'll go with you, to help you out."

Finally, Maxwell turned and stared at her, "D00d, what about your kingdom?"
Selena shrugged, "Have you even actually seen anybody from my kingdom besides me since you got here?"
"...Good point, d00d."
The Princess of Elinia chuckled, "Thee? It'th no problem. I owe you for helping with Nethia anyway. Don't worry, Makthwell. We'll find your creator."
The prinny plushie nodded, "I know. I can feel it, d00d. It was distant before, but it's getting closer now. My destiny is waiting for me. By the way, d00d, whatever happened to Nezia?"
"Who careth? We beat him. He'll never be heard from again."

"-And then you were all 'You don't deserve life!' It was AWESOME, Psyduck!"


Maxwell walked back into the hotel. He'd been gone for quite some time, having accidentally tripped and exploded twice on his way back. He hoped that Ray was still here.

He jumped the final step that took him to the third floor of the hotel and rounded the corner to where he'd left Ray waiting in that girl's room. He wondered if the other him had found those panties yet.

When he entered, the room was completely empty. "D00d! Where is everybody!?"

[center]~*~*~*~*~*~[center]

"Director, what are you doing standing out here all alone?" The woman closed the book she had been staring at so intently as the words inked themselves onto the pages. Maxwell was safe and she had managed to prevent him from killing his friends as well. That was all that mattered. But...was it truly a victory? Just briefly, Maxwell had seen someone she knew very well. And it only served to reinforce just how little time she had left.
"Director...?" She collected herself in an instant, not turning to look at the man who had spoken, her other creation.
"Just star gazing, Kalek."
"Star gazing? You don't strike me as the sort of person to do that sort of thing, Director." the young man said.
The woman laughed, "Believe it or not, I used to do this sort of thing all the time with someone very special to me. We'd watch the stars come out one by one. But, for the longest time, I just haven't been able to get out here anymore to see that happen, what with running this organization and all. And this could very well be the last night to so much as glimpse the stars."
"I'm not sure I follow, Director."
"Please..." she said, "call me Ambellina."
"Th-that would be a breach of protocol, ma'am!" Kalek responded, "Everyone knows not to say your name."
Ambellina shook her head, "It doesn't matter anymore, Kalek. I cannot afford to hide now. It's coming."
"What is?"
Ambellina turned back to the sky as dark red inked over the yellows and oranges and set the sky ablaze in a fiery wrath.



"A Blood Red Summer."

I would just like to point out that, no matter how many times I read this, it's still effing brilliant.

Needs more Camo, though

I've only read a few of these so far, but I love it. XD Maxwell is amazing (but we already knew that).