____________
Home

Episode Three: The Final Act

(The morning after)

“I told you five times already, Moon. You cannot just go pointing my guns at anyone and anything you please.” Linda was lecturing the crestfallen Moon Doggy, who was standing sheepishly next to a rather large hole in the wall. Linda was shaking her finger at him, and holding a bazooka with her free hand.
“It’s not like I hit anything important.” Moon reasoned.
Jebus held up a now broken pair of rose-tinted glasses, “You nearly took my head off.”
Moon gestured exaggeratedly, “See? Nothing important!”
The look on Linda’s face was simply murderous. Moon started inching toward Alucard, whom he supposed would be the best person to hide behind. He didn’t get very far before Linda threw the weapon on the floor and launched herself at him. Moon took off at top speed, and Linda followed at his heels, shouting vulgar rants at him as they left the room and ran down the hall.
Jaque stared after them, “She certainly has gotten faster since we first met her.”
“She has to be,” Jebus said dryly, tossing his broken glasses aside, “in order to keep up with the chaos in this house.”
After the Zombie attack, the neighborhood had actually been pretty calm for the past week. Of course, with the lack of action, the inhabitants of the mansion were starting to get a little anxious. Some were just tired of being in the same place for so long, but most were wondering what horrible tragedy would befall them next. However, the main reason everyone was on edge was quite simple: they were bored. As Jebus began rummaging through draws, looking for a backup pair of glasses, Jaque pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He stood staring at the hole in the wall, pondering the goings on in the mansion. Jebus found his extra glasses and placed them on his face. Alucard watched both of them silently, mildly amused. The three stood for a long moment, before Blair poked her head in the doorway.
“Oh, wow. What happened in here?”
Jaque took a drag of his cigarette, looking very French, “Moon Doggy happened.”
Blair tilted her head in understanding, “Ah, I see. Well, have you seen Linda? There are a few sculptures missing from my side of the mansion.”
Jebus waved his hand in the general direction in which the writer had run off, “She went off chasing Moon Doggy.”
It was then that Demone come in behind Blair, “They ran out into the back yard, and were attacked.”
Everyone spun around to face Demone. Blair’s expression was that of pure shock, “How do you know that?”
Lennon drifted in, playing eerie music on his ghostly guitar, “I saw it happen. They were attacked by ninjas and incapacitated.”
“After a struggle, of course.”
Jaque was holding the cigarette, which was now burning forgotten between his fingers, “So Linda has been kidnapped?”
Lennon was still playing his guitar, “They seemed to be mainly after Moon, and just took Linda because she was kicking thier bums.”
Blair smirked, “That’s Linda for you. I wonder if she’ll end up wearing a funny suit.”

------------

Linda’s head was pounding. She pried her eyes open to see a group of people standing...on the ceiling? No, she was upside down. She realized that she was bound to some kind of table, maybe a rack, and it was just at an extreme angle. Moon Doggy could be seen on a similar table, but his was horizontal. Whoever had taken her to this place, they were going to die a slow and painful death. She was thinking this when she noticed something rather important.
“Why the hell am I naked!?!”

-----------

“Who are you calling?” Jaque asked as Blair picked up the phone and began dialing. They had moved into the large kitchen after gathering together as many of the characters in the mansion as they could, including the Keith Richards pirate (whose hat Blair was now wearing, much to Teague’s bemusement).
“Well, if there’s anyone who knows about Ninjas- Alison? Hey, It’s Blair.” Waving off another of Jaque’s questions, Blair turned around, listening intently to the phone. “Oh, well that’s good news. DV’s Zombie killer button must’ve wiped them out across town. Anyways, Linda just got kidnapped by ninjas. I was wondering if you knew anything about that?” Pause. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. That’s right. Alright, cool.” And she hung up the phone.
“What’d she say?” Jebus asked curiously.
“Apparently there’s a ninja convention going on downtown, and they need human sacrifices,” Blair explained casually, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water. Jaque gaped at her.
“Wha- You mean- Linda- HUMAN SACRIFICE?!” he bellowed.
“Don’t worry, she’s not going to die. Alison is on her way over. In the mean time, we should get ready. I want Jaque, Elle, and Alucard on one team. You guys can be the main force, considering you’re all pretty talented at killing people. Jebus, you can be the look out since you don’t believe in violence. Captain Teague, Captain Sparrow? You guys are going to- er- well…” Blair trailed off, searching for the right words. “You’ll be on crowd patrol. I’m sure you can handle mobs of rabid fans.” Both pirates looked a bit confused, but Blair ignored them, now turning to Demone. “You and Christian can go with me and Alison. And John? You provide the music.”
“Gotcha covered, love.”
“What about me?” Aargon asked, looking almost offended at being left out.
“You’re going to take off your bangles and find Linda. Considering you can’t be katana-ed or ninja starred or injured in any way, I figured it’d be best if you did a little recon work.”
Aargon shrugged. “Alright.”
“Sweet. Let’s get to work then!” And with that Blair strolled cheerfully out of the kitchen, leaving silence behind her.
“The only thing I want to know,” Jebus started, rolling a joint, “is why ninjas suddenly do human sacrifices.”
“Makes the story more interesting, I guess,” Jaque pointed out.

-------------{2}--------------
An hour later found everyone downtown and spread out. Blair wondered where all the ninjas were, considering they were supposed to be holding a convention. Then again, they WERE ninjas. They wouldn’t exactly be all obvious about it, would they?
“Alright,” Alison whispered conspiratorially, high tech binoculars pressed to her face. “That should be the entrance.” She handed them over to Blair, who took a look.
“An ice cream shop?” Blair repeated in disbelief, glancing over at her friend who shrugged.
“Hey, it had to be something inconspicuous. Besides, it means free ice cream at all the meetings.” Blair gave her a disbelieving look. “Well there’s a secret lair underneath it!” Alison said defensively, pushing herself into a sitting position and dusting off her ninja suit. Blair, who was dressed likewise, shook her head.
“So where’s DV?”
“He’s guarding the house. Too conspicuous for this mission. Plus a lot of ninjas are huge Star Wars fans, so I didn’t want him getting mobbed.”
“Right,” Blair answered, not really having anything to say to that. “Oh! Here comes Aargon!” Somewhat see through and looking a bit disgruntled, Aargon tramped his way up the hill to where Blair and Alison were scoping things out. “Did you find her?” Blair asked.
“Yeah, they’re holding her in a huge cavern. Moon Doggy too.”
“Well what’s wrong then?”
Aargon grimaced somewhat. “What is up with people stealing people’s clothes in this story?” he asked to no one in particular. “Not that we found you naked, though,” he added as an afterthought. Blair and Alison exchanged a look before the former shook her head and picked up the radio.
“Alright, guys, we’re going in.” After handing the radio over to Alison, Blair crawled down the hill to where the two pirate Captains were guzzling down an admirable amount of rum. “Ready?”
“Love, we could take on the world!” Jack answered dramatically, clinking his bottle against his father’s before both finished them off.

-------------

“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
The almost girlish shriek was torn from the lips of an utterly terrified looking Jack Sparrow who was running in his typically awkward sort of way down the street. A few seconds later, an enormous crowd comprised mainly of girls stampeded after him. Captain Teague smirked from his hiding place behind a couple of trashcans. He always knew that boy was good for something.
Standing up and dusting himself off, he swaggered out of the alley and glanced around, spotting a place dubbed “The Jolly Roger Tavern.”
“Hallo, there,” he muttered to himself, making his way over and stepping inside. Considering it was earlier afternoon yet, the place was mostly empty save for the bartender who was drying off a few glasses. The man glanced up, took one look at Captain Teague and frowned.
“Is it pirate day or something?”

----------

“Now that there aren’t any more people-“
“Yeah, they’re all chasing after Jack,” Alison pointed out wryly, causing Blair to glare.
“Well we couldn’t have bystanders interfering! Anyways, let’s go. Christian and Demone are meeting us at the entrance.” Together Blair and Alison trotted down the hill, meeting up with the vampire (holding his pink parasol) and pseudo-vampire (holding his knife). “Have Jaque, Elle, and Alucard already gone in?” They nodded. “Sweet, let’s go.”
Alison led the way into the ice cream shop, waving amicably to the man behind the counter before moving to a nondescript back room. She waited until everyone was inside with the door shut before pulling up what appeared to be a piece of the floor.
“Ninjas,” Blair muttered with a head shake, slipping down through the hole first and landing softly on semi wet rocky ground. She realized they were in a sort of cave labyrinth system with torches hanging in brackets on the wall. Alison came next, followed by Demone and finally Christian (whose pink parasol was now gone, cause it’s convenient like that). Alison took the lead and headed off down the cave corridor, and as soon as the others started to follow, the Mission Impossible theme started up- obviously the ghost rock star at their house was keeping his side of the deal. How he managed to make background music was beyond any of them, but he WAS a ghost after all.
They followed Alison for several minutes, at last ending up overlooking a huge, cavernous room filled with black-suited ninjas, all of whom were staring towards the raised dais where a man wearing a horned hat was talking. Blair frowned. The scene looked oddly familiar.
Linda could be seen hanging upside down in the back of the room, stark naked and looking annoyed. Moon Doggy, however, was lying on the table. The man with the horned had was speaking in a frenzy, and the crowd of ninjas began chanting.
“And now, the chosen one shall be made one of us!” he was shouting, flailing his arms about. “Rise, Moon Doggy, and put your friend into the cage!”
Obediently and as though in a daze, Moon doggy rose up, climbed off the table, and made his way over to Linda who appeared to be shouting furiously at him. He cut her down, letting her land rather painfully on her head where she instantly began shouting again. Blair had a feeling the word “fuck” was being said a lot. A bunch of ninjas helped Moon Doggy wrestle her into a full body cage that was tall enough to fit a grown man, but only about a foot and a half deep. They had obviously secured her wrists to the cage, and were now working on her feet.
“Hang on a minute,” Blair whispered, the scene finally clicking. Everyone else, though, shushed her.
The man with the horned hat was chanting now as the cage door was shut and Linda was moved closer to a pit of fire. He was holding up on hand, shouting as though speaking to a god before walking ominously towards a still cursing Linda.
“Uh, guys-“ Blair started.
“Shhhh!” they all hushed, staring intently as the man now spoke directly to Linda.
“No, er, you don’t understand, I think-“
“Shut up or they’ll hear us!”
The man’s hand was reaching towards the area above Linda’s chest so that Blair couldn’t keep quite any longer. “HE’S ABOUT TO STEAL HER FUCKING HEART!” she shouted, so loud that the entire cavern fell silent and everybody- ninjas, guy in the horned hat, Moon Doggy, and even Linda- turned to face her. “Oh.”
“SEIZE THEM!” the leader shouted, and Blair, Alison, Christian, and Demone turned to run. They split up almost instantly, each running for their own lives. Alison disappeared in her ninja-like way, Demone and Christian took off to the left, but Blair tore down the right passage. Which of course only led to the edge of a very long drop down into the main cavern full of the ninjas. She turned around only to find two ninjas closing in on her. Well wasn’t that just great.
A crack like a whip struck out, making Blair jump- did someone just get shot?! No, it actually WAS a whip- the end of it had wrapped around a random wooden beam sticking out of the wall. The Indiana Jones theme song blared out of nowhere- as theme songs often due- and just as the ninjas pounced, an arm was wrapped around her waste sweeping her off into the air. Blair screamed, knowing for sure she was about to fall into the abyss of ninjas at least fifty feet below her when suddenly ground came under her feet again. She looked over to see the roguish face of Indiana Jones.
“What the hell?!” she asked, unable to stop herself. He grinned.
“Don’t worry, I’m not staying.”
“Oh Thank God, I don’t think Linda and I can afford another character,” Blair said with a sigh of relief, just as Indiana Jones uncurled his whip from around the wooden beam.
“Let’s go,” he said, grabbing her hand and practically dragging her along the path that led down into the cavern. Right at that moment, the main doors burst open, and Alucard, Jaque, and Elle came tumbling into the room, kicking ass almost immediately. Alison, meanwhile, had descended cat-like from the ceiling and had pulled out her light saber.
Once Blair and Indi had reached the cavern, the adventuresome archaeologist began throwing punches and fighting in his usual manner. Blair, on the other hand, weaved her way through the crowd and up onto the dais where she was almost hit in the head with a fire poker wielded by Moon Doggy.
“Oh my GOD can’t we PLEASE just make this simple for once?” Blair asked the ceiling, dodging another blow by the entranced Moon Doggy. He ran towards her again, and Blair pulled the only weapon she had left- she bitch slapped him hard across the face. Moon Doggy halted mid-step, blinking in confusion as he dropped the fire poker.
“What happened?” he asked, blinking around at the cave in confusion.
“I’ll explain later,” Blair said, moving over to unlock the cage where Linda was out.
“Bout fucking time you got here,” Linda muttered grumpily.
“You’re naked,” Moon Doggy pointed out blankly.
“No shit,” Linda snapped as Blair unlocked the manacles around her wrists and ankles. Alison defied gravity (as all Ninja’s can) and landed gracefully next to her, handing over a spare ninja suit. “Thought you could use it,” she said, flipping at least seven times before landing in the crowd of ninjas and resuming her ass-kicking As Blair and Linda stared after her.
“How the hell does this shit happen to us?” Blair asked.
“No idea.”
Linda slipped into the ninja outfit and looked out into the fray, “Is that Indiana Jones?”
Blair gave a small sigh, “Yeah.”
Linda shook her head, “What is this, Ultimate Showdown?”
Moon and Linda felt the barrels of guns pointed at the backs of their heads, “I’d say that’s a pretty good comparison.”
Blair turned around. The three of them were being held at gunpoint by three figures in black cloaks. Linda didn’t dare turn around, but didn’t show any fear in her body or voice, “Is that Xigbar, member of Organization XIII?”
The figure behind Linda pulled back his hood to reveal a man with an eye patch and dark graying hair pulled back, “Whaddaya know? The little bitch knows us!”
The figure aiming his gun at Moon Doggy removed his hood, revealing long blue hair, an X-shaped scar, and pointed ears, “Not that familiarity will help her.”
Linda smirked, “Xigbar and Saix, how nice. I’ve been wanting to kick your asses for a while now. You sorry fucktards.”
Blair saw the transparent Aargon sneak up behind the third figure, who was standing slightly behind the other two and aiming his gun at Blair. The ghost slipped his hand through the figure and plucked the gun out of his hands, then proceeded to knock him out with it.
Saix and Xigbar didn’t notice, “Confident, aren’t we?” Xigbar grinned, “You were the one caught-“
“Off guard?” Aargon pointed his aquired weapon at Saix. Xigbar turned and shot Aargon, and the bullet whizzed right through him. Linda took the opportunity to jab her elbow into Xigbar’s crotch, (seriously, why didn’t anyone think of that in the game?) Making him crumple onto the ground. Linda picked up the gun and pointed it at the man now gasping in pain. Moon calmly turned around and confiscated the gun from Saix. Meanwhile, Blair just shook her head at how easily Linda targets the genitals.
Linda felt more secure now that she was dangerous again, standing over her fallen enemy, “Alright, shitbags, What the hell is going on?”
A voice came from above, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Linda and Blair looked up, while moon and Aargon kept their eyes on the Nobodies. Standing on a cliff were a group of cloaked figures of various shapes and sizes. There must have been a uniform for this batch of badguys or something. The only one whose face could be seen clearly had tufts of blonde hair sticking up in random directions.
Linda raised her eyebrow, “Cloud Strife is a villain?!”
Blair’s eyes widened in recognition, she pointed up to the blonde and shouted, “It’s the girl!”
The entire cavern went silent as the exclamation echoed throughout the room. The chaotic battle came to a complete halt as dozens of eyes turned to stare at Blair. Cloud stared down at the busty blonde with a look that said he would so Limit Break on her ass, when the silence was broken by the sound of stifled laughter. All the eyes in the room turned to a figure standing near the far entrance to the cavern. Sephiroth was leaning against the wall, one hand over his mouth, trying his damnedest not to laugh, when he couldn’t stop himself and burst out into a fit of laughter.
Cloud looked even more pissed than before, “Sephiroth! What the hell are you doing here?”
After taking a moment to regain his composure, Sephiroth began floating to the end of the room which held Cloud and the other people of his interest, “I was wondering why nobody invited me to the party. What is it, a coming out party, Cloud?”
A smug smile came to Cloud, “I’m not the one with the pink bow in my hair.”
Sephiroth reached up and yanked the bow out, “Damn, missed one.” He saw cloud pull out his sword, and did the same, “I see you’re still using the smaller weapon, Cloud.”
Cloud’s smile began to fade, “Your weapon may be longer, but mine is thicker!”
Linda and Blair burst out in a simultaneous “oooh!” and Moon Doggy just gave them a look.
The two FF7 characters were about to begin one of their battles, when something yellow crashed through the wall by Blair and Linda. Everyone stopped and stared at...a yellow submarine? After a moment, the Beatles, looking rather cartoonish, crawled out of the submarine and brushed themselves off.
Linda threw her hands up exaggeratedly, “That’s it! This is officially the most random adventure we have ever been on!”
However weird and/or random the appearance of the Beatles was, the entire group of good guys decided that it was rather timely, and they all miraculously climbed into the submarine. Somehow or another, there was a lake on the other side of the cave wall, which neither Linda nor Blair even wanted to try to explain. It was far too convenient to make any sense, but no one really cared. They were out of danger for the time being.

“This is SO sweet! Getting rescued by the BEATLES. The CARTOON Beatles!!!” Blair exclaimed, ogling.
“Cartoon?” Paul repeated, as though confused.
“What’s she saying?” John asked.
“Dunno, she seems to think we’re cartoons,” Ringo pointed out.
“Well she’s the cartoon,” Paul answered reasonably with a shrug. George didn’t say anything. Neither did Blair.
“How do we drive this thing?” Linda asked, looking around at all of the controls, none of which seemed to make sense.
“Dunno, you’d have to ask Fred,” Ringo said, walking over to stand next to her.
“Fred?” Linda repeated.
“He’s the one who came from Pepperland to get the Beatles,” Blair explained briefly. “Where is he?”
All four cartoon men shrugged. “I think we’ve lost him,” John said.
“You’ve lost him?” Blair repeated. “How did you lose him? No, wait, the important thing is where- where did you lose him?”
“Not sure,” George interjected finally.
“I’ve got a hole in me pocket!”
Everyone turned to look at Ringo who had pulled the floppy, one-dimensional black hole out of his pocket. There was a moment of silence and then-
“Sorry,” Ringo apologized, but as he went to put the hole back inside his pant’s pocket, a howling erupted from it. A moment later a hat, followed by a ruddy pink head and a large body came crawling out of it.
“Fred!” John, Paul, George, Ringo and Blair all shouted. Everyone else just looked confused.
“We need to leave,” Moon Doggy said suddenly, staring out the porthole window where a mass of ninjas was approaching.
“Right… Uh…” Fred pushed one of the many buttons and they were off.

-------------{3}--------------
That evening, everyone- including the four cartoon beatles, Fred, and the crashed submarine- sat in the large living room, talking serious. Blair was braiding Sephiroth’s hair (who didn’t seem quite AS resentful since her Cloud insult), which put a slight hilarity on the otherwise somber situation. It didn’t help that the ghost John Lennon and the cartoon John Lennon were staring blankly at each other.
“I thought Cloudy was supposed to be a GOOD guy,” Blair said for the fourth time, looking confused.
“He normally is, but then again Sephiroth is supposed to be a bad guy. Maybe they got reversed,” Linda suggested.
“Yeah, but Saffron still wants to blow up the earth, so I don’t think he can REALLY be classified as a good guy,” Blair countered reasonably, clipping in a glittery sequined bow to the end of the braid she finished. “You should star in a shampoo commercial,” she said suddenly to Sephiroth, who was staring so hard at the fireplace across from him one might think he was trying to telepathically start a fire. Linda had a feeling he was trying to restrain from turning around and snapping Blair’s neck. “Anyways, what are we going to do? He can like….defy gravity and shit.”
“So can Sephiroth!” Linda insisted.
“Yeah, but doesn’t he get beat in the end?” Blair asked. Linda considered this quietly. “I don’t friggin’ get your Advent Calender shit,” Blair muttered, shaking her head.”
Linda didn’t bother correcting her this time. “Look, we have an army of fictional characters, ghosts, and cartoons on our side. That’s got to count for something!”
Blair glanced around, eyes roaming over the lesser strange characters like Jaque, Elle, and Christian, to the dead characters like Aargon and John, to the pirates, and to the cartoon Beatles and Fred. “You’ve got a point. Maybe we could come up with a strategy?”
“We’ve still got a problem, though,” Jaque interjected suddenly, frowning. Blair and Linda turned to him questioningly. “We still don’t even know who- hell, even WHAT we’re fighting against. It’s a bit hard to wage a war when you don’t know what to fight.”
“Well,” Linda started off with a deep breath, “There’s Cloud, there’s the ninjas-“
“-that perv Chelsea,” Blair interrupted with a look that could kill. Linda bit back a grin. Blair was obviously still smarting over the bunny outfit.
“Yeah, Chelsea. There were zombies, but they were taken out by Darth. Umm…” she trailed off, scratching her chin thoughtfully with a frown.
“It’s a bit hard to categorize, isn’t it?” Blair commented with a wry grin, twisting the many braids in Sephiroth’s hair into Princess Leia style buns. Linda choked back a laugh. “I mean, everything has been so random.”
“Yeah,” Linda agreed, still trying very hard not to laugh. Finally, she could hold it back no longer. “You know, Seph, all you need is a scanty beginning and you’ve got the look down,” she said, breaking down into snickers. Everyone burst into laughter, even Blair who hastily began to undo the hair style before Sephiroth could get up to see what Linda was talking about.
“Damn you!” he cursed, trying to bat Blair away.
“Stop being a baby! If you don’t want people to play with your hair, get it cut!”
“Aaaargh!”
“Oh shut up, I’ll leave you alone,” Blair agreed, standing up and moving to sit amongst the cartoon Beatles who seemed to be her new favorites. “Anyways, who do you think is the leader? I guess that’s the important question. I mean, in the movies it’s the whole take the head off the snake thing. Maybe if we destroy the leader, everything else will settle down.”
“Maybe,” Linda considered, following the thought with a sigh.
“Well, I think,” came a voice from the doorway. Every head turned to see a blue fox standing in the doorway. It had a dolphin-like tail and fin ears. The fox trotted across the room and perched itself on Linda’s lap, “The culprit here can be determined pretty easily, if you consider the types of storylines that are being used.”
Everyone continued to stare at the strange animal.
Linda noticed the staring and decided that introductions were necessary, “Guys, this is Vaperfox. He’s a friend of mine.”
Blair raised her eyebrows, “You’re friends with a talking fox-fish. Linda, what are you smoking?”
“Apparently the same thing you are.” Linda commented offhandedly.
“So what do you think is going on?” asked Jebus.
Vaperfox settled onto Linda’s lap, crossing his paws, “Well, as a writer-“
“The fox can write?!” Moon raised his eyebrow.
“- it seems that your villain in not a who, but a what. Whatever power granted your wish is the same power that is sending all these people after you, with the exception of Chelsea, who is just a pervert.”
“Makes sense.” Linda nodded her head.