The Constellator, in all her glittering metal splendour, watched as yet another one of her faithful servant warriors was slain by a heathenous bandit. That made four in the past minute alone, and these were only the ones she could see. Screams and shouts came from all direction, and she recognised many of the voices to be that of her mighty horde.

The great Stars above had certainly unleashed all hell on the Waste, as could be predicted when the Starry Place goes to war. But, the Constellator wondered, could they have perhaps toned it down just a little bit? So it wasn't so damned hard to see. Or fight. Or breathe.

She bounced to her left, driving her sword through the eye socket of the bandit that slayed'th the nearby faithful servant warrior. The slim metal blade drilled easily through the man's skull and into his brain, poking out the other side to point straight at another bandit, who was to be the Constellator's next victim. But before she could so much as pounce, a hail of machine gun fire burst through the storm and poured over the area in front of the Constellator. She threw herself backwards in panic, narrowly avoiding the worst of the stream as it raked across the landscape, unsure of its target. A sharp pain sung in her leg, and she looked down to see her magnificent black armour punctured on two sides, blood seeping out the bottom as dust crowded into the top.

The Constellator winced with pain, dragging herself backwards away from the bandit she had sworn to destroy, but was now not quite as confident about.

The battle did not go well.

* * *

Meatsack couldn't find anyone he knew, and it was beginning to stress him out. He half-walked, half-ran through the seemingly infinite dusty shroud, deafened in his sensitive ears by its constant, grinding howl, and of the shouting and fighting that seemed to be happening everywhere. He fought down tears in his eyes and a lump in his big throat, determined to find Berty Bert and protect her from whatever the bad people might try to do.

His cowardly legs threatened to carry him back the way he came, to his room, safe at the back of Smack-dab, where he could lock the door, curl up on his bed, and pretend nothing was happening. He so desperately wanted to run, but he couldn't just leave Bert.

Plus, he didn't know where Smack-dab was anymore.

A figure ran out of nowhere and slammed into Meatsack's side, knocking itself to the ground. Meatsack, completely unmoved by the knock, flinched wildly with his club in fright. He felt it collide with the figure's skull and watched as it exploded into a large mist of red and purple goo, scattering into the winds. The decapitated figure fell to the floor, lifeless, but Meatsack didn't hang around to check the body.

He turned immediately away and ran off in a random direction, hoping that the figure he hit was wearing dungarees, but too scared to actually confirm it.

He sniffled as the tears broke free in his eyes, and snot bubbled in his nose.

* * *

Terrance Leeland, clothes covered in blood and dust, stalked through the storm after the silhouette he was certain to be Bert's grey mutant. He had watched as the thing swung its club at someone, and then that someone promptly fell to the floor as limp as an empty sack. He snarled beneath his mask, thinking that the giant beast should be kept on a leash like the animal that it was.

The creature darted out of sight somewhere ahead, and Terrance was forced to move a little quicker so not to lose it in the turbulent weather all around. He gritted his teeth in frustration, scanning the horizon constantly with his dark eyes, curses forming on his chapped lips at the fucking storm that currently chewed up Smack-dab. He stepped over a bloodied corpse, its head all but evaporated, the rest of its body slowly disappearing beneath trails of dust.

He ran faster, desperate not to lose the disgusting creature. And his efforts were rewarded. Soon he spied its silhouette, closer than ever before, and standing still ahead of him looking left and right, clearly wondering which direction to go next. Well, Terrance knew exactly which direction he intended for it to go.

Down.

* * *

Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind smiled grimly to himself, his band of ferocious warriors gathered in a cluster at his tail. Before them lay his prize, his prey - the great spiked grentuputron beast, in all its scaly glory.

Humans sat atop it among its great back spikes, using some kind of chunky sticks to spew noise and fire into the blustering winds. The sound shook Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind to his very bones, the sheer force of the strange sticks rattling his rib cage and threatening doom on all who dared oppose the great beast. But he would not be undone by trepidation, for an insult had been made and an insult was to be met with the most ferocious of vengeances.

He turned to Helga Who Eats Your Internal Organs and gestured an order towards the beast. She nodded slightly, her sharp pincers bowing down and up, before getting down on all eights and scuttling on her belly towards the truck. Helga Who Eats Your Internal Organs would go in and scout first, for the beast looked to be at ease right now, its glaring yellow eyes closed. They would need to test the waters before blindly rushing in. A wild attack with no intelligence would be the undoing of those reckless enough to charge. Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind was not so foolish - not like his predecessor.

Many humans fought nearby, some getting a little too close for the group's comfort. Humans, tall and pink and hairless (most of them), were highly disrespectful of rabbit-like kind, and all its many cousins of other species. Perhaps, whilst he was here, Randolf the Conqueror, Ruiner of Worlds, Bringer of Shadows and Lord of Rabbit-Like Kind, along with his mercenary band The Many Sons and Daughters of the Grentuputron Moon, could teach some of them a painful lesson, so that they might think twice before pulling a rabbit-like creature's ears in the future.

Yes, he thought. This would be a day of reckoning.

* * *

"Brown, you bastard!" Bert yelled into the winds. She watched, eyes narrow, brow furrowed, as the monstrous shape of Farmer Brown, lord of the Farm, stood upright and listened. Something gooey continued to drip from his anvilhammer, and also from his hands. His shape appeared to turn, facing towards Bert, then it hunched slightly, as if peering into the thick air to see what might peer back. Next, the shape took a step forwards, and then another, and soon the mighty figure of Farmer Brown appeared through the rolling currents like a carnivorous blue whale crashing through the waves of a stormy ocean. His armour was scratched, dented, or just plain missing, his body covered densely in filth. Bert could now see that the ichor dripping from his hammer was the meat of ... somebody, still clinging to the end of the weapon and falling off in slimy chunks.

And when he spoke, the ground trembled. "Woman," he said, the anger clear in the gravel of his voice, "it's 'bout time I found ya."

Bert clutched at the revolver holstered by her side, keeping her feet apart in case she needed sudden and immediate balance. She glared at the towering creature before her, not sure whether to berate him for his twisted rage earlier, shoot him straight away and save the conversation, or attempt renewed peace talks. At the look of his bruised face, a little pixie voice on her shoulder suggested that, perhaps, peace talks were not going to be an option. So that left two...

"You lumbering great troll," Bert shouted, "look what you've done to my bar!"

"Me!?" Brown roared back, his voice far louder and scarier than whatever the wind could throw around. "I almost gave ya peace, ya two-faced bitch! But noooo, ya had t' bite th' hand feedin' ya, eh? Well, now yer gonna learn that I bite back."

Bert stood her ground, determined not to be the villain of the story. She had done her best to halt the battle and talk with this asshole, despite what he'd done to her precious bar. And here he was, taking the high road. Well fuck his high road, Bert thought. She was gonna kick the foundations out from under it and see it crumble down to her level. "I was trying to accept your peace, you lumbering great- oh bloody hell," she yelled, cutting herself off and diving to the side. An atomic hammer strike struck the ground just where she had been standing.

Bert staggered to the side, drawing her pistol and hammering it back in the same motion. She didn't wait for Brown to regain himself, pulling the trigger immediately and aiming straight for his skull.

Click.

Her weapon didn't fire. Again! Why did this keep happening?

Click, click.

Brown was back to full height, hefting his ludicrous weapon for a new assault. Bert, meanwhile, was learning very rapidly that her weapon had jammed in the storm. She took a deep, calming breath, holstered the pistol and bent down to grab a discarded axe at her feet. It seemed to be an old axe shaft that someone had lost the blade from, and to repair it had duct-taped a second, shorter axe to the end of the shaft, rather than just use the shorter axe by itself. She realised, of course, how useless her new weapon must have looked against Brown's needlessly huge hammer, but there was something distinctly psychological about having at least a small thing with which to stab and slice when facing your nemesis.

And so, axe-axe in hand, feet apart, and face set to Full Glare, Bert readied herself for the final battle.

* * *

Phoenix opened his eyes and decided that he wasn't dead. He came to this conclusion primarily because he could still feel, and what he felt was horrible, horrible pain.

Smack-dab's adventurer rose to a sitting position, finding himself lying in the dust somewhere near where he was previously standing in the dust. His chest cried out at him to stop moving, and begged for him to just lay down and die. He glanced down to see what the sensation was, only to find a crumpled bullet stuck to his body armour. It looked sad, like it had deflated when it failed its one and only purpose in life. On the bright side, though, Phoenix's armour had now been properly tested and he could conclude without the shadow of a doubt that, yes, it was bulletproof. It felt good not to have been scammed.

Ahead of him a few feet stood a small, pudgy bald bandit clutching an automatic rifle in his hands. He was staring in shock at the quite noticeably still-alive figure of Phoenix, but occasionally hazarded a look down at the rifle that failed to kill the adventurer. Phoenix watched the little man pull the weapon's trigger a few more times, but nothing came out but disappointment and regret, although arguably those came from the wielder, not the weapon.

Phoenix sighed. "You jammed it up, mate," he said, glad to not be dying from his own weapon but also sad that he was going to have to completely clean it out.

The bandit looked back at him, his previously red face returning to its sheet-white ghostliness.

"Yeah, see when ya fired the first shot without being careful, that flap there will have opened up and now dust'll be all up in its mechanisms. You know, that's gonna be a real pain in the ass for me to clean."

Phoenix glanced quickly around the dust to find his Waste Beast tooth knife, feeling satisfied that it was jutting out of the dirt patiently waiting to be picked up again. He did so, and tossed it casually from one hand to the other to intimidate his foe. Then, when the wind tried snatching it mid-flight, he hastily grabbed the knife before it toppled away, cut himself on the finger, and decided to stop throwing it.

Plumpy McStealsyourgun flipped the aforementioned automatic rifle around in his hands, now holding the barrel like the shaft of a club. Phoenix tensed his leg muscles, lowered his torso and dropped a shoulder, about to spring towards Baldasaurus and tackle him to the ground with a shoulder plate, before stabbing him a few times while he presented a lecture on the disrespectful nature of stealing somebody's personal belongings.

But...

Four more bandits dissolved into view. They looked around for a moment, clearly disoriented from the storm, before identifying both Phoenix and his rotund opponent. Each of the newcomers was wearing dungarees, splattered with runny globules of blood. They brought their various stabby, slicey or choppy weapons to bear and faced Phoenix with their angry, bandity faces.

Five bandits, eh? Phoenix thought. He took a step back, ready to adjust his battle plan - he could do it.

Then five more farmers appeared, stumbling, coughing and screaming into the immediate vicinity in a messy arc around Phoenix. They too scoped out the players, coming to the conclusion that there were ten of them and only one of him.

So, ten bandits. Well, Phoenix had talked the big talk, so now he supposed it was time to walk the walk - preferably all over these wise-asses.

He lowered his body and carefully removed a couple of throwing knives from a bandolier, gripping them both in his left hand while he clutched the Waste Beast tooth with his right. He eyed up the ten bandits surrounding him, and they eyed him right back again.

And charged in all at once.

 * * *

That's right, folks. These minions don't all just wait for their turn in combat - they all charged Phoenix at the same time, as they absolutely should have.

Good minions. Well done. Go on, give 'em a Vote. You know they deserve it.

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