Đọc truyện Tevun-Krus #20 - WattPunk - Wormholed 2: The ModHaterz

Angus stared at Ash, not entirely sure he was able to believe what his good friend and cohort was telling him. It really didn't make too much sense but then again, the majority of what he knew really made very little sense indeed.

He fished in the depths of his sporran for a cigarette and when he found one he lit it, because it was a cigarette and that's generally the done thing. What I mean to say is that when one smokes and one finds a cigarette to, in fact, smoke, one would normally light it and smoke it.

As he did just that, drawing from the cigarette with every other intake of breath, he pondered the snippet of information that Ash insisted was the truth and the more he thought about it, the more he realised his good buddy was incredibly unlikely to tell him the whitest of all lies so there really was no way he was making this up.

"It's the truth, bruv," said Ash, earnestly. "As shit as it is, the ape's been grabbed."

He said not a word until he finished the cigarette and dropped it to the floor, stubbing it out with the toe of his purple size thirteen Doc Marten boot.

"Who grabbed him?" Angus asked, as if he really needed any kind of confirmation that the ModHaterz were responsible but he asked for clarification regardless. "The ModHaterz?"

"Aye," replied Ash, nodding. "S'my train of thought, anyways."

"Motherf..." Angus cut the word short, too angry to swear. That was pretty much the only way it was possible to tell how angry he was. If he didn't curse like a sailor he was pissed. "If it is the ModHaterz and to be fair I can't see anyone else having the balls to do it, then there ain't no way we can do this alone; there's far too many of 'em."

Ash grinned and waited patiently for Angus to light another cigarette.

"Yeah, you know what's coming, bud," the man said, exhaling as he did so.

"Aye, I reckon." Ash cricked his neck and the grin broke into a smirk. "It's time to get the band back together."

"Aye." Angus nodded. "Well, them that's still around, anyways. You got your address book handy?"

"What kinda' way is that to talk about Nika, man?" he replied with a chuckle, followed momentarily by a clicking noise that sounded to Angus like it may well have been part of the mating ritual of some long-forgotten African tribe. "She'll be along in a minute, just gotta' give her time to get here from wherever she is."

That minute did, in fact, turn out to be several hours, during which time Angus and Ash very nearly drank VC's bar dry of whiskey and vodka respectively.

It wasn't really VC's bar anymore because apart from anything else, the aforementioned proprietor and purveyor of beverages of the alcoholic variety had not been seen for some time. Some things stuck, however, and the name of the watering hole was most definitely one of those things.

And so, as the middle eight of Decapitated's Nihility (Anti-Human Manifesto) kicked in, because if you're in a bar it's against the law not to have the jukebox churning out bitchin' tunes, a wormhole of the purest green energy opened with little ceremony a few feet to the right of the two men before violently spewing forth a squirrel who quite deftly landed atop the counter and started eating from a bowl of nuts that neither man could quite remember being there until that very moment.

"All right, Nika?" said Angus as the wormhole popped out of existence with a, well... pop.

"Squeak," she replied. "Squeak, squeaksqueak."

"Glad to hear it." Angus nodded. It had been a while since he'd spoken squirrel but it wasn't really one of those languages that one ever forgot. "You heard the news?"

"Squeak?"

"The ape's been nabbed," replied Ash with a shrug.

"Squeak squeak?"

"Aye, Ook," said Angus. "Gav; how many other bloody apes do you know?"

"Squeak," Nika replied, despondently as Jack Off Jill's Cumdumpster began to play.

"We're gonna' need your special skill set," said Ash. "We're pretty sure the ModHaterz have him and we need some backup before we go in guns blazing."

"Squeak... Squeak squeak squeak."

"I know, I know," Angus replied, gently. "I know that opening the amount of wormholes we're talking about gives you a migraine but it's the ape, Nika."

"And hey, don't forget that Angus here is plenty capable of hotwiring a dead squirrel, if it comes to that."

"Squeak!?!?!"

"Yeah she's right, Ash," said Angus, shaking his head slowly. "There's no need for threats like that."

***

Moments later, the two men and their squirrel companion exited the wormhole although it is probably fair to say that they wished they had not. The scene that lay before them was one of death and destruction. Noxious fumes filled the air, although some of those were Angus' fault, and lightning cracked the dark cloudy sky above.

"What the frak?"

"Right there with you, good buddy," Angus replied, quietly. "Nika, care to explain where you've brought us?"

"Squeak. Squeak squeak. Squeak."

"You're saying that 'the band,' as in our old crew that we're looking to get back together in order to save the ape from the ModHaterz, are here?"

"Squeak, squeak."

"They're here but they're all dead?" said Ash, aghast. "You can detect the withering remains of their respect life-forces and can tell that there is no longer a beating heart amongst them? That the three of us are all alone in a Godless Univ..."

"Those last two squeaks really said a lot, eh?" said Angus, cutting Ash's rather beautiful words off mid-flow because [spoiler alert] he had a sneaking suspicion he was about to voice the actual title of one of the stories featured in the Comic SF issue of Tevun-Krus.

"Aye, it's surprising how much she can actually get into a squeak when she puts her mind to it."

"Squeak!"

"Aye, Nika," said Angus with a chuckle. "Consider me shutting up but if you've got any ideas as to where we might get some assistance now, that'd be rather awesome of you."

"Squeak..."

"Yeah, I thought as much," said Angus, sighing. "Hey, Ash."

"Yes bruv."

"Didn't bring any weapons along, did you?"

"No, why?"

"Well, it's just that I count three crossbows, a couple of semi-automatic machine pistols and what looks very much like a gatling gun, and they're all trained about our respective persons."

"Ah... shit."

***

Sometimes events really do take place in slow motion and this was one of those occasions. In reality the following probably occurred in less than thirty seconds but for Ash and Angus - not for Nika, mind, as she'd scampered off somewhere in search of something nutty and delicious - those thirty seconds felt at least double that, and probably more.

A vessel descended, dipping its hull below the low cloud but as it did so a bolt of, well, something, shot from somewhere - can you tell I'm making this shit up as I go along?! - and although said bolt of something did no real damage it was plenty enough to make the pilot - assuming the vessel had a pilot - think twice about landing and he - it could have been she, of course, and again that's assuming the vessel actually had a pilot - took the ship back into the sanctity of the clouds.

And then without warning - because sometimes things happen like that - Ash and Angus were surrounded by five individuals who were in turn surrounded by what for all intents and purposes was an army. Not an army in the traditional sense of the term, mind, for this army was made up of hundreds and thousands of characters from popular culture, in fact as he squinted through the smoke - that came from the cigarette between his lips, mind you - Angus wagered that he could see at least thirty-seven Harry Potters and twelve Hermiones, and that got him to thinking one or two thoughts that certainly at that very moment in time, he really ought not have been thinking!

They weren't alone, either. Now, please take into consideration the fact that Angus was not a teenage girl and therefore could not be entirely one hundred percent certain but unless he was very much mistaken there were also several hundred incarnations of some incredibly shit boy bands and some fucked up Canadian girly-boy.

There were an awful lot of sparkling individuals, too, as well as a multitude of 'characters,' that Angus had not the desire to even attempt to hazard a guess as to their literary, 'musical,' or whereverthefucktheycamefrom, origins.

"Ah, crap," said one of the individuals who had surrounded Ash and Angus in the first place. "It's the ModHaterz' representatives."

"Representatives?" Ash asked, confused.

"Uh huh," the same individual, a fella wielding a gatling gun, replied. "Don't think the ModHaterz fight their own battles, do you?"

"Listen," said someone else, a woman with a semi-automatic machine pistol in each hand. "We were gonna' have a bit of fun with you guys, shit you up a bit. Fact is there's no time for that now. We know who you are and we know why you're here. We're here for the same reason but we're getting no answers here."

"Ah shit, y'mean we gotta' go see those three bitches?" asked another fellow with his crossbow still pointed at Angus' crotch. "They creep me the fuck out."

"We're not going anywhere 'til Dropsie brings the damn ship down," another of the five complained, and unless both Angus and Ash were very mistaken she was heavily pregnant. That didn't seem to be slowing her down though, to be fair.

"Dropsie?" Ash had had more than enough of not being involved in the conversation and was getting a little angry. Angus could tell he was getting himself all worked up because he was starting to 'hulk out.' That is not to say that he was turning green but his body was definitely twitching which meant that it would not be at all long before he was nothing more than a big hulking specimen of sweating Indian muscle.

"Yeah, our pilot," the woman with the semi-automatic machine pistols replied. "We call her that 'cause there ain't a war zone that crazy bitch won't drop into."

"Oh aye?" said Angus with a chuckle. "She scarpered sharpish, considering."

"Don't worry about it," replied the dual crossbow-wielding pregnant one. "Reckon she'll be lining up for a run about now."

"Too bloody late," Angus replied, narrowing his eyes. He wished he and Ash had come equipped with the foresight to bring weaponry of some kind. Ash would probably be all right providing he managed to bring his hardcore alter-ego to the fore. "Man I need a..."

As if by magic - which it wasn't, of course... It was a wormhole but y'know - a tiny wormhole opened up at about head height mere inches in front of him and from it protruded the hilt of a broadsword.

"Thanks, Nika," he said with a chuckle, grasping the hilt as he pulled it through and along with Ash, turned to flash their new found friends a grin. "Right then... This should be a crack. Y'all gonna' introduce yourselves for the sake of the folk watching at home?"

"Preggers," said the pregnant one with a wink. "Badass Preggers."

"They call me Mad Mike," said the fellow with the gatling gun. "Pretty raw deal really, considering I'm not actually mad and I've got the paperwork to prove it. The lassie yet to say a word to y'all is KD and between you and me," he paused, and during that pause KD shot him a look that said he had better not be thinking of saying what she thought he was thinking of saying. "Between you and me she is a bit damn crazy. Don't talk, either, on account of a swollen tongue thanks to a perpetually septic tongue piercing."

"Vera," said Vera, and apparently that was that; no need for bullshit there.

"Name's Rob," said Rob. "Actually it's not, it's Brian, sometimes. Dave on occasion, too and it's been Jim a coupla' times. Fuck it, call me RobBrianDaveJim if you like."

"And I thought you said KD was mad..."

There really was no time for further discussion though. In fact there really hadn't been time for that wee introduction scene but y'know...

Soon swords were swinging, guns were firing, bolts were flying. The Harrys and Hermiones - and, to be fair, other Hogwarts alumni far too numerous to mention here - used magic whilst those who sparkled sparkled and the countless boy bands broke into tuneless droning Vogon-esque prose.

"Whatever you do, don't let them get the autotune set up!" Badass Preggers yelled, nodding towards a group of emo roadies who were in the process of setting up what appeared to be a rather complex and expensive piece of kit as she battered the crap out of several sparkling ones with the butt of her crossbow.

"Ash!" Angus shouted. "Launch me, dude!"

And then Angus was flying through the air, thanks to Ash's super strength, towards the emo roadies who saw him coming and started crying whilst running away to find the nearest cliff from which to leap.

He rolled as he landed then drove the broadsword into the autotune machine and with a spluttering of sparks it exploded, as did each and every incarnation of whatever boy bands were in the midst of their droning. Without autotune, you see, they had no reason to exist.

It was at that point that the vessel with, Angus assumed, Dropsie at the helm, dropped out of the clouds once again. There was something different about the ship on this occasion though and it took him several seconds to realise that the difference was quite simply that it had a squirrel attached to it and not in a 'look paw I done nabbed me a squir'l,' kinda' way, but more of an 'I am a squirrel and I'm hitching a ride because I'm that damn cool.'

The vessel also had its speakers pointing down towards the ground and as it dropped, Caliban's Vicious Circle blasted out, scattering all that remained of the ModHaterz' Representatives to whereverthefuck from whence they came.

After that there was a lot of everyone congratulating each other and the patting of backs all around. Proper introductions were made and even Nika got involved - she had all but saved the day, after all.

And then...

"We need to go and see the Floating Heads," said Badass Preggers. "There are so many of the ModHaterz but they'll know what to do. They'll know how best to defeat them."

"And to rescue the ape," Angus added. "That's the only reason we're here. Well not here, specifically, I mean we're specifically here 'cos Nika's squirrel sense detected that this was the last location of our friends."

"Pretty sure your friends are all dead," said RobBrianDaveJim. "'Least they are if they were here when whatever happened here happened."

"Aye," said Ash. "My thoughts exactly."

"So where do we find these three floating heads?" Angus asked.

"Squeak," said Nika. "Squeak squeaksqueak."

"Alrighty then," he replied with a nod in the squirrel's direction. "Lead the way, Nika."

***

It wasn't quite as easy as Nika simply 'leading the way,' for one particularly important reason for you see, the Floating Heads did not inhabit this Universe. They did not, in fact, inhabit any Universe.

No, for one - or more than one, you know what I mean - to visit the Floating Heads, one had to traverse the very cracks of the Universe itself and there, in a cottage made of whipped cream and sausages in a clearing made of blancmange deep in a forest made of the reanimated corpses of long-dead polar bears in a country where the national currency is mechanical tears on a continent where only the good dye their hair, was a basement that contained a cupboard and within that cupboard was a shelf upon which sat a safe accessible only by defeating the lockbox thrice in a game of Thumb Wars - which I'm sure I don't need to tell you was next to impossible not least for the fact that the safe had no opposable thumbs - or any thumbs at all, for that matter - or fingers or even, to be fair, hands - and within said safe was an brown envelope upon which was stuck a first class stamp and it was within the saliva used to attach the aforementioned stamp that a stoat lived and that stoat carried upon its back - it was an asexual stoat, see? - a scale model of Fenchurch Street Station and it was within that scale model of Fenchurch Street Station in a broom closet just off platform three, that one would find the Floating Heads.

As I'm sure you can quite clearly tell from the above, actually reaching the Floating Heads was a quest akin to the like of days of yore, when heroes were heroes and men wore tights and distressed damsels lived in big shiny towers and had far too much hair to wash.

Bearing that in mind, I'm sure you'll forgive me if I don't describe the journey our fearless friends undertook because to be perfectly honest with you I don't have all day.

Suffice it to say that by the time Dropsie set the vessel down upon the asexual stoat's back, just beyond the taxi rank outside the scale model of Fenchurch Street Station, Vomitory's Chaos Fury was blasting over the speakers and everyone was in a pretty good mood, considering the sheer magnitude of their journey.

"So do we knock, or..?"

Ash never got an answer to his question, not a vocal one anyway, for before he had even finished speaking the broom cupboard door flung open and they all found themselves being pulled inside by some hitherto unseen force, and the door slammed shut behind them.

"I'm guessing not," said Angus, but no sooner had he said the words did the three Floating Heads rise up from the floor in their midst.

"Who dares disturb us?" they demanded. They spoke in unison and it was creepy as fuck. If you've ever seen that episode of Angel... You know the one... 'Mmmmm, Angel...'

"We, erm... We do..?" Angus ventured. "Sorry for the intrusion, and all that."

His voice appeared to whip the Floating Heads into a frenzy and for several seconds they spun in such a manner that would make any sane person vomit. Thankfully, none of those within the broom cupboard just off platform three of the scale model of Fenchurch Street Station were even close to being sane.

"And what do 'we,' require?" the asked in the same demanding tone.

"Information," said Vera, quietly, as her eyes darted this way and that in a vain attempt to keep up with the Floating Heads. "The ModHaterz..."

"...are a necessary evil!" they interrupted, quite rudely to be perfectly honest. "They must exist. The balance must exist!"

"Bollocks!" Mad Mike snapped. "There's no balance, they're sending things right down the shitter."

"They must exist!" the Floating Heads repeated. "The balance must exist!"

"These bitches haven't got a clue what they're talking about," Angus muttered. Ash nodded and reached out, grabbing the flailing hair of one of the Floating Heads as it attempted to speed by. He held it up for Angus, mere inches from his face.

"I'll give you bloody balance," he said, seconds before delivering a pretty powerful headbutt that knocked the Floating Head from Ash's grasp and sent it flying into the opposite wall - not a very long journey, I'll grant you - of the broom cupboard just off platform three of the scale model of Fenchurch Street Station.

KD mumbled - or at least she attempted to mumble - something in approval as Dropsie rested her foot upon the head as it failed miserably to regain its balance, ironically, upon the floor.

"Now, what were you saying?"

"All right, all right." The words were spake by only one of the Floating Heads on that occasion, with the kind of resignation one only displays when one realises one is truly both outnumbered and outgunned. "All you gotta' do is..."

***

Deftones' Passenger could be heard playing from somewhere as Angus, Ash, Mad Mike and RobBrianDaveJim stood before the ModHaterz' fortress. Upon Ash's shoulder sat Nika and she squeaked quietly to herself as she contemplated left or right.

"Creepy as shit, this," said Mad Mike, quietly. "Sayin' that, rather be stood out here with that cracked sky an' those Dementors doin' the rounds."

"Makes you wonder what kinda' pussies we're dealing with though, eh?" said Angus, shrugging as he lit a cigarette. "I mean don't get me wrong I'm all for mythical-type-shit and whatnot but there comes a point when you gotta' stand up and fight your own battles."

"Bastards like these ain't never gonna' fight their own battles, mate," said RobBrianDaveJim. He'd managed to get a bottle of whiskey from somewhere and because it was whiskey, he was drinking it.

"Aye, well I figure the four of us stood out here like spare pricks at a wedding ought to give the girls long enough to sneak in through the back door," said Ash with a grin.

"Squeak," said Nika.

"Ayup," said Angus, nodding towards the fortress. "Looks like we've got movement, boys."

"Yeah but is that a... penguin?"

"Aye," said Ash. "Emperor it looks like."

"Fair enough," said Mad Mike with a shrug, quite glad that he wasn't the only one going mad as the emperor penguin stepped forth upon a distant balcony - not so distant that the gathered fellows could not see, of course, and anyway if they were struggling there were a couple of big-screen television sets, just in case - and behind it were thousands, nay... millions, of ModHaterz.

"Strike a light..." Angus muttered.

Eerily, the penguin did not talk. Actually that's not particularly eerie but I suppose the fact that behind it the millions of ModHaterz spoke in unison - much like the Floating Heads but waaaaay creepier and nowhere near as sensually - as the emperor penguin stared directly out focusing first on Mad Mike then RobBrianDaveJim then Angus and finally, Ash.

"We are one unstoppable army. We kneel pay homage and lick between the toes of our fearless leader. Though he is gone he is not forgotten and we honour him with this effigy you see before you. You cannot defeat us for we are all powerful. Strike one of us down and tell more shall rise in place of the fallen. We are the ModHaterz, and..."

"Ook..."

There was a collective gulp as millions upon millions of ModHaterz simultaneously swallowed painfully. That was not the end of their pain though for both Angus and Ash knew the ape well enough to know that the 'Ook,' was ape-speak for, 'fucking numpties,' and what came next... Well... When millions of bananas are forced up millions of rectums at the same time it makes a quite beautiful sound but, I suspect, it's one of those sounds you have to hear in order to appreciate it properly.

The ape approached the four fellows - and sole squirrel - with Badass Preggers, Dropsie, KD and Vera in his wake, and unsurprisingly the four women wore smiles miles wide. They were also covered in blood spatter - not theirs, so don't worry - and Vera had a bit of a limp but other than that, they all appeared to be in quite perfect health.

"Squeak," said Nika.

"Ook," said the ape.

"Aye," said Ash. "Sounds like a plan to me."

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