Sponges Drags the X-Men Through Various Alternate Universes: The XAV Club

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 1 -  Sponges joins the XAV Club

A waxing moon hung high in the cloudless and blue-black September sky above Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. It was a blustery Saturday; a chill wind rattling against the windows of the mansion. A single light shone from a window in the classroom wing of the manor; the others as dark as the late weekend night. I walked quietly through the darkened hallway towards the light shining through the classroom door which had been left slightly ajar. As I approached, the sounds of furious exertion and high pitched cries drifted through the air towards me. I grinned widely and opened the door.

Several students sat around the room in beanbag chairs. Most were focused on the display screen of the projector, which was currently displaying a sword fight between two scantily-clad young animated females. In the back of the room focused on a pair of large televisions, another smaller group sat attempting to blast each other’s alien avatars to pieces with plasma weapons. Interspersed on the desks between these groups sat a handful of others engaged in all manner of card games. As I walked through the doorway, most glanced momentarily at me before returning their attention to their respective media, however one of the individuals who had been watching the firefight in the back of the room began walking towards me with a wide smile.

“Hello!” said they young Asian American woman with large bright pink sunglasses who stood before me. “Welcome to the XAV club!”

“My name is Jubilee, and I’m the president,” she continued. “Cypher, the vice president, is in the back there.” A hand briefly waved out from the group centered on the video game.

“Hey, sorry, got a kill streak going!” He shouted without turning his head. He uttered a series of expletives in foreign languages and began manipulating the various buttons, triggers, and joysticks on his gamepad furiously.

“We’re usually a pretty laid back group,” Jubilee continued. “We meet up right here every Saturday at 8 o’clock and discuss the latest in the world of anime and gaming, then usually order pizza and hang out all night. Would you like to join?” she said with a smile as she handed me a sign-up sheet.

“Yeah sure, why not,” I said looking around. “Hey uh… you guys are cool, right?”

“God damn it, Sponges, get out here this instant.” A booming voice issued from the hallway. I turned to see Charles Xavier glaring at me furiously, his reddened face illuminated by the light which shown out into the darkened hallway.

“Yeah I better take this,” I said to Jubilee as I turned to walk out into the hallway with the enraged professor. “Be right back.”

Once we were both outside of the classroom with the door firmly shut behind us, Professor Xavier began to chastise me in a loud raspy whisper, attempting to not attract any more attention form the students still within the room.

“You have a lot of nerve, showing up again after what happened last time.” He glared up at me from his seat, a large vein in his forehead pulsing.

“Oh, come on Chuck,” I said with a grin. “Everything worked out fine in the end, didn’t it?”

A single huff of contemptuous laughter escaped his lips as he continued.

“It is one thing to torment myself and my faculty,” he said through grit teeth. “As we have chosen to be the X-Men, and we have chosen to face such dangers.” He paused and looked towards the brightly lit classroom before continuing. “These students have no place in your twisted games. Why don’t you just go play with Deadpool?”

“Yeah, Deadpool hasn’t really been talking to me much since that incident with my dinowhores.” I replied as a disgusted look crossed Charles Xavier’s face. “Hey, it’s not my fault; I told him to bring protection,” I continued. “As for the other thing,” I said as I opened the classroom door and shouted. “Adult Swim, kids out of the pool. 18+ only, you will be carded. Let’s go.” There was a grumbling as a handful of the younger members of the XAV club slowly made their way out the door. ”Better luck next time kids,” I said as they filed past me into the dark hallway back towards the dormitories. “There,” I said turning back to Charles. “Now everyone in that room is a consenting adult.”

Xavier looked into the room at the handful of remaining students. Jubilee saw him and flashed a wide smile. He smiled back politely at her before turning his attention back to me.

“Did you seriously make Jubilee the president of the anime club just because she’s Asian?” he asked. “That’s extremely racist. She isn’t even Japanese; she’s Chinese-American.”

“Hey now Charles,” I began. “I believe people of every nationality should be able to enjoy cartoons about barely dressed schoolgirls fighting rape demons with giant robots and whatnot. It sounds to me like you’re the prejudiced one. What’s next, only Asians should be allowed to cosplay because white people aren’t good enough? And for your information, I didn’t make anyone do anything. Do you think I would have opened that door if I knew there was an anime club behind it? Honestly I was hoping I was going to walk in on Raven and Starfire finger deep in each other.”

“Raven and Starf- THEY DON’T EVEN GO HERE!” The vein was once again throbbing in his forehead as he shouted at me.

“Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?” I said with a shrug.

Charles looked down at his chest and took a deep breath in through his nose. His tense shoulders dropped slightly as he exhaled a long and steady breath. He looked back up at me, the throbbing in his brow replaced by a slight tremor at the corner of his eye.

“I am going to bed now.” He said after a short pause and with consistent strain. He pointed back at the door before continuing. “Those students have classes beginning at 8 AM sharp on Monday morning. All of them had better be in their seats, unharmed, and prepared to learn by that time. Do you understand me?” I nodded. “And I swear to god,” he continued, “If I hear one more sentence about someone having sex with a dinosaur…”

“Charles, please, come on,” I replied, cutting him off. “This is anime night. It’s all about them tentacle monsters, baby.” With that his jaw clenched and the throbbing vein returned to his forehead. He glared at me for a moment before silently turning and wheeling back down the darkened corridor towards the main wing of the mansion.

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 2 - So what are we watching tonight?

“Right then, so, as promised,” I said as I stepped back into the classroom. “I’m going to need to see some IDs from you guys before we go any further.”

“You’re seriously going to card us?” said the goth-looking girl with the shaved head sitting on the beanbag farthest from the door watching the anime on the projector screen.

“Thank you for volunteering to go first.” I replied and held out my hand. She rolled her eyes and tossed her wallet to me. “Ms. Negasonic Teenage Warhead, age eighteen. All right all right all right.” I said in my best Matthew McConaughey impersonation. I tossed the wallet back to her with a smile; a disgusted expression crossed her face as she caught it and returned her attention to the anime.

“You’re up next big guy,” I said to one of the two remaining individuals still engaging in a game of cards and dice. “You too,” I said to his partner. They both fished through their pockets for a moment before tossing their wallets to me, never taking their eyes off from the cards in their hands. “Thank you very much Mr. Blob, age nineteen, and Mr. Toad, age eighteen.” I returned their wallets and made my way to the back of the room. The multilingual swearing of Cypher grew louder as I approached, his fingers flying across the buttons.

“God damn it, son of a bitch mother fucker!” He shouted finally as he threw down his controller; the scoreboard appearing on the screen signifying that he had just lost the death match, badly. The young man holding the other controller just shrugged.

“Don’t give me that shit, Prodigy.” Cypher continued accusingly. “You were using my own skills against me, weren't you?”

“Or maybe you’re just not as good at the game as I am,” replied Prodigy as he reached into his pocket and handed me his wallet. Cypher glared at him as he did the same.

“Both nineteen,” I said handing their identifications back.  “All right then, that just leaves you Jubilee.”

She handed her ID to me with a smile. “Nineteen as well, thank you.” I said handing it back to her.

“What was the point of all that?” asked Negasonic Teenage Warhead. “Seriously, that was like, at least six paragraphs of purely expositional bullshit. ‘The remaining members of the XAV Club were Blob, Toad, Jubilee, Prodigy, Cypher, and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, all of whom were of legal age of consent.’ One sentence. Not hard.” She said, still sitting arms crossed facing away from me towards the screen, which was currently displaying a massive explosion, fading into the ending credits. “I don’t even see why you need that last part on there, unless you’re planning on trying to do freaky shit with us, which, what are you, like, 30? That’s creepy dude.”

“Ouch,” I said frankly. “Words hurt, you know. But for your information, if you really must know, I’m pulling you guys from totally different continuities here and I wanted to establish you all as identities that would work in this situation, and not as say, the Blob who boxed Wolverine, or the Toad who got electrified by Storm.”

“Wait, what?” said Toad looking up suddenly from his cards.

“I really don’t think I could box Mr. Logan,” said Blob, turning slightly pale at the thought.

“Don’t worry about it you guys,” I said. “Those things occurred in alternate universes. You’re cool in this one. Well, I mean, relatively. Anyways, sorry about all of that,” I said as I sank down into the nearest beanbag chair and immediately regretted the decision; the miniature foam pellets filling the bag refusing to conform to my shape comfortably. I twisted noisily on the shifting mass, orientating myself towards the screen. “What are we watching tonight anyways?” I sank down into the nearest beanbag chair and turned my attention to the screen, which now displayed CGI robot man talking directly to the audience.

“It’s just Toonami,” said Cypher as he shut his console down and turned towards the screen as well. “Because these guys said they didn’t want to watch the bootleg copy of Yūki Yūna wa Yūsha de Aru: Yūsha no Shō  I got the day it came out in Japan.”

“Dude, none of the rest of us understand Japanese,” said Toad as he collected his cards from the table and packed them neatly in a case.

“Well then you’re missing arguably the most essential part of the anime,” replied Cypher. “You cannot really understand it the way it was meant to be understood.”

“Ok, come on Cypher,” said Jubilee. “We don’t need another argument about how you understand anime on a deeper level than everyone else. Anyways the commercial break is about to be over, and Sword Art Online is coming on.”

“Never seen it,” I said as the intro began. “Does somebody want to catch me up?”

“Awww man, It’s amazing.” Blob replied as he grabbed a few slices of pizza from one of the several boxes that sat on a series of desks on one side of the room. “So there’s this video game that people play on a device that simulates all five senses in your brain,” he began as he quickly returned to his seat to watch the episode as it began. “It feels totally real, like you’re actually there. Anyways, there are a bunch of people who get stuck in it, and this one guy has to break them all out. Shhh… it’s starting!” he said as he took a mouthful of pizza and stared at the screen.

“Dude, this is a rerun,” said Toad. “You’ve seen this episode what, three times now?”

“Eight, I bought the BluRays,” replied Blob, his eyes still transfixed on the screen.

“So you’re saying they’re transported into some kind of digital universe?” I asked as the episode played.  “That’s remarkably similar to my power, what with the whole being able to take people through alternate universes thing…”

“Wait,” said Blob, his attention torn away from the projector screen. He now stared at me, mouth half agape and full of bits of pepperoni, cheese, and crust. “Are you saying you could take us into an anime?”

“If Professor X asks, I did not come up with that idea.” I said as I turned to the assembled members of the XAV club. “So, where shall we go?”

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 3 - Picking an Anime

“Sword Art Online, obviously,” said Blob as he pointed excitedly towards the projected anime. “Seriously, have you ever seen anything more awesome than this?”

“Ehhhh….” I said warily as I watched the action on screen. “I mean, it’s all right, I just don’t really… I mean, think of it like this; you’re asking to go to a universe in which you play a video game. Doesn’t that seem kind of… redundant? I mean, why not just ask to go into a real video game, you know?”

“Ooh, how about Kill La Kill?” suggested Toad.

“Never seen it,” I replied. “However I have seen a lot of porn centered around it.  That and the weird ‘Oooh’ sound you made before suggesting it is probably going to make me say no; promised Xavier I’d try to keep it cleaner this time around.”

“What, so it's fucking Shounen Jump anime only?” replied Cypher with a scoff. “You  may as well just take us into Bleach and  have us run through an empty desert all night.”

“Sick burn, yo” I said obligatorily as I reached out to fist bump Cypher, who declined the offer. “And anyways, I said I’d try to keep it clean. All right Mr. ‘I watch anime better than you,’ what would you recommend?”

“Hah, you’ve never heard of it, I assure you.” said Cypher cockily. “I’m not even going to bother asking. I do have a request of a different sort,” he continued. “Whichever anime you choose, I ask that we experience it the way it was intended to be experienced; in the Japanese language.” A collective groan issued from the other members of the anime club. Blob peeled a small piece of pepperoni from the top of his pizza and flicked it at Cypher’s head.

“Ok guys, come on,” I said as I dissolved the pepperoni slice midflight. “Don’t be dicks, I’m feeling like a benevolent god today. You know what Cypher? There is a universe where I know your favorite anime. There is a universe where we all go there and just have an amazing time. Seriously, the best time of your life. When you’re 90 years old dying in a hospital bed, you’re going to be reminiscing about how awesome this adventure was. Would you like to go to that universe? It’s simple; I can send you there, and bring the you from there here. What do you say?”

“Seriously? Yeah, of course I’m in,” he said “let’s do this.”

“It’s already been done.” I said. “I swapped you as soon as you said ‘in.’ How’s that for a sick burn?” The pepperoni slice rematerialized and slapped into his forehead, leaving a red film of tomato sauce before dropping to the floor.

“Aww shit, you need to put some ice on that one,” said Prodigy.

“What’s your pick, smart guy?” I asked him.

“Uhh… You know I always wanted to learn alchemy…”  He began.

“Nope, vetoed,” said Jubilee. “They didn’t have smart phones back then.”

“I guess that rules out Samurai Champloo, and also Afro Samurai, and really, pretty much anything with samurai anywhere near it.” I replied. “All right, madam president, what’s your suggestion then?”

“Code Geass,” she said confidently.

“Hmmm… yeah, that’s a possibility,” I sat thinking it over. “ Giant robots, super powers, plus there’s a certain table I’ve really been meaning to visit…”

“No, vetoed,” said Negasonic Teenage Warhead. “Too many bright colors and stupid plot twists.”

“You can’t veto, only the president can veto,” rebutted Jubilee.

“Seriously?” replied Negasonic Teenage Warhead. “You just said no to pretty much every anime set before 2005. I can say no to one suggestion, especially one as terrible as Code Geass. What, you want to be one of Zero’s harem or something?” Jubilee blushed slightly. “Aww, you do; that’s so lame,” Negasonic Teenage Warhead teased.

“Hey, guys come on now,” I interjected. “Wherever we go, we’re going there as a team. We need to build each other up, not tear each other down. The feelings of others are important, and we need to recognize them. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joeeee!”

The two of them stared at me or a moment before continuing their argument.

“Fine them Miss AngstyGoth,” Jubilee shot back, “Where would you like us to go?”

“I want to meet a Shinigami.” Negasonic Teenage Warhead replied, her dour expression momentarily revealing traces of the underlying excitement which were far too great to suppress.

“Seriously?” asked Cypher, dumbfounded. “When I said dip us in Bleach earlier I was being sarcastic.”

“Well hang on now, think about it,” I said as I interlocked my fingers in front of my face Gendo-style. “The series may have just dragged on interminably, but it did have some interesting concepts buried in the shitty plot. You guys could all get your own zanpakuto.” I whipped out my voidspear and held it aloft. “Here is mine. I call it the voidspear because I’m terrible at naming things. I’m sure you’d all have better luck though.”

“That’s not the Shinigami I was talking about, you fucking idiots,” replied Negasonic Teenage Warhead angrily. “I want a Death Note.”

“Ha, you want to see L x Light yaoi is more like it,” Jubilee said as she crossed her arms and leaned to one side, her head cocked slightly and a smirk on her face.

“Hey! No! We’ll have none of that now.” I interjected, pointing my finger in the air. “No yaoi. Not that I’m against it; it’s just that I would rather not have to witness it.”

“I gotta say,” said Toad, “Death Note sounds like less fun than Bleach. I mean, if we’re just writing in notebooks it’s going to be about as exciting as sitting through Ms. Grey’s Bio lectures.”

“Fine then,” Negasonic Teenage Warhead snapped back with a slight shake of her head.  “Hellsing Ultimate.”

“Ugh, no,” replied Jubilee with disgust. “Nothing with vampires. Besides, you don’t get to pick twice. Our options are on the table here.”

“Not all of our options,” I replied. “As the newest member of the XAV Club I thing I am entitled to a suggestion.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Actually you’re not a full member until you pay the membership fee,” said Cypher finally. “Its $200, and it goes to cover things like the pizzas and game purchases and things like that.”

“That’s kind of on the steep end, don’t you think?” I asked.

“We… eat a lot of pizza.” He replied, glancing over to Blob who was currently taking the last slice from a box.

“All right, fine.” I said as I pulled out the cash I had taken from his wallet earlier and handed it to Cypher.

“How about a classic that everyone loves?” I asked. “Cowboy Bebop. We can hunt bounties in space, meet up with Spike and the gang, who knows what wacky adventures will ensue?”

“I can live with that one,” stated Negasonic Teenage Warhead. A collective nod of approval resonated through the group.

“So it’s decided,” said Jubilee excitedly. “How do we start?”

“First we have to get into my spaceship.” I said as I pulled a small baggie from my pocket.

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 4 - Why hello there, Space Cowboy

The thick clouds of smoke hung in the air before expanding before us. They seemed to inflate without dissipating, as they phased through the glass cockpit of the small spaceship which had suddenly replaced the classroom around us. The clouds faded from view as we passed through the thick atmosphere of Venus and into the black void of space.

“Holy fuck…” said Toad as he peered out the port hole to his side, the massive green sphere of the planet falling away from us at high speed. He turned suddenly from the window and bent down, grasping his knees.

“You better not fucking throw up on me,” said Negasonic  standing next to him.

“I’m fine,” he said in a voice which did not inspire much confidence. “I just… I need to lay down or something.”

“Bunks are down the hallway to the left,” I said. “Bathroom is at the end of the hall. Hallway to the right leads to the kitchen and common area, and the door across from the cockpit leads to the engine room and docking bay.” I pressed the autopilot button and stood up from my pilot’s chair to stretch. “It’ll be about 8 hours until we hit the asteroid Tijuana, so if you guys want to get some sleep or whatever, now’s the time to do it. Otherwise I’m probably going to go watch some Ghost in the Shell or something if anybody wants to join me.” With that, we departed the crowded control room and dispersed about the ship.

******

A solid wall of sound, smells, and heat accosted us as we disembarked form the ship into the dusty spaceport of Tijuana. Instantly we were mobbed by a sea of people shoving hokey souvenirs in our faces and shouting for us to buy them, their advertisements barely audible above the roar of machines and moving people which made up the soundscape. We moved quickly through the throngs, each of us guarding our valuable possessions against pickpockets as an innumerable amount of people bumped and rustled against us while we made our way through the crowds. We walked in silence through the dusty and congested city streets; partly out of inability to be heard over the endless cacophony, and partly due to being distracted by all of the activity which went on all around us. I stopped and pointed down a wide alleyway which ran perpendicular to the clogged street and the group filed past me down the cracked cement passage. After several twists and turns, the roar of activity was dampened by the walls of the buildings which surrounded us, the rushing crowds replaced by smaller groups which loitered about near the open façades of the various dusty buildings. A stray cat leapt up from a doorway and rushed past a pile of trash, chasing a rat which had been dining there. I stopped at a nondescript door and again gestured for the others to step inside.

A single bare lightbulb hung from the ceiling of the dim establishment, a box fan in the window created a slight breeze in the otherwise sweltering room. Smoke hung in the air along with the smell of piss. A handful of patrons sat around the bar, old alcoholics intermingled among prostitutes; some working, some spending their hard earned woolongs on something to help them forget about work. We sat down at the bar and a gruff looking man with a long scar across his face walked up to us from behind the counter.

“Cerveza,” I said, placing my money on the bar. He nodded and looked to Cypher who sat next to me.

“Agua por favor.” He replied. “Water is fine thanks.”

“No, it isn’t.” I said as I got the bartender’s attention again. “Seven cervezas, por favor. Gracias.” I turned to Prodigy. “Don’t drink the water here. Just don’t.”

“Um, we’re not legal to drink…” began Jubilee cautiously.

“It’s Tijuana, Jubilee,” I said. “They don’t have sprite.”

“What about coke?” she asked as a man at the end of the bar who had been staring silently into his empty bottle of tequila suddenly perked up and looked our direction.

“I ah… didn’t realize you were a fan of the nose candy.” I said to her quietly, attempting to not draw any more attention. “I mean, I’ll see what I can do, but uh- ah!” the bartender had returned with our beers and I took a long swig. “I think we should probably focus on the task at hand first.” I took another mouthful of beer and sat soaking in the hot artificial atmosphere around me, listening to the hum of the traffic beyond the walls and the vibration of the cheap fan nailed onto the windowsill. I raised the glass ring of the bottle to my lips again.

“Are we seriously just going to sit here?” asked Jubillee.

“Jesus, you’re really jonesing aren’t you?” I said as I chugged down the rest of my beer.

“I was talking about the soda,” she said defensively. “Now when does the cool stuff start happening?”

From a darkened booth near the back of the establishment, a young man stinking of reefer cigarettes stood and walked towards us.

“Hey,” he said quietly, his eyes darting around in all directions. “You gringos wanna see a donkey show?” Jubilee looked at me with a confused expression on her face.

“It’s up to you, madam president,” I said as I requested another round. “Unless you’d like to take a vote on it.” Jubilee looked down the bar to the other members of our group, all of whom were drinking.

“No,” she said sharply to the shifty gentleman standing behind us. “We do not want to go see a donkey show.” The man smiled and thanked her for her time before grabbing his backpack (which was undoubtedly filled with narcotics) and leaving through a door near the back end of the bar.

“Deadpool would have gone.” I said forlornly as I took another swig. “Deadpool loves donkey shows. Hey, can you turn that up?” I said to the scar-faced bartender as I pointed to the television hanging above the bar. A familiar banjo tune interspersed with ka-ching of woolongs twanged over the television’s speakers as a pair dressed as cowboys appeared on the screen.

“Howdy amigos!” said the heavily accented dark skinned man in a brilliant white cowboy suit.

“Hi y’all!” said the blonde cohost in a half-open shirt and miniskirt “It’s time for today’s episode of Bigshot!”

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 5 - Mutant-y on the Bounty

“I sure hope we have a lot of bounty hunter’s watching today, because we got ourselves a big ol’ fish on the line!” said the cowboy as he posed excitedly with his hands on his holstered six shooters.

“Darn tootin,’” said his cohost as she bounced excitedly; her ample breasts threatening to fall from her open clothing. Her shirt shifted and the darker coloration signifying the edges of an exposed areola was very nearly exposed for a millisecond before the screen switched to an image and description of the bounty. The man who appeared on the screen had short brown hair, and a slight quirk to the corners of his lips which gave the impression he was equal parts amused and annoyed. His face was equally contrasted; its naturally smooth and rounded contours furrowed and hardened by the realities of a difficult life in space. His eyes reflected the soul of an individual who had seen great sadness in his lifetime; but stronger and more deeply than that, the soul of an individual who has never given up hope, who could never give up hope.

“Today’s bounty goes by the name Malcolm Reynolds,” began the cowboy as the information flashed across the screen in dozens of languages. “He is wanted for theft and smuggling, and his reward is a whopping 800 million woolongs!”

“Wowee, 800 million woolongs!” echoed his cohost as the screen once again focused on the pair. “He must have stolen something big from the wrong folks!” she said as she placed her hands on her hips.

“You said it, amiga,” replied the cowboy as he pulled a gun from its holster and aimed it towards the sky. “No one knows what he stole, but the WY Corporation is offering this reward dead or alive!” He fired his pistol.

“Oh wow,” replied his cohost, “Is he really that dangerous?”

“This guy’s got a rap sheet a mile long, amiga,” said the cowboy. “Anyone attempting to bring this bounty in should definitely shoot to kill!"

“Wowee,” repeated his cohost as she brought her index finger to her chin. The twanging of banjos began again as she continued, “That’s all for today’s episode of Bigshot! Thanks for watchin’ y’all, and good luck on your bounties!”

I finished my second beer as the bartender reached up and turned the volume on the television back down.

“We’re seriously doing a Firefly crossover?” said Jubilee excitedly. “That is so awesome, I love Firefly!”

“Everybody love Firefly,” replied Negasonic from the end of the bar, draining her bottle in a final sip before continuing. “Don’t you think it’s a little redundant though? I mean, we’re already in a universe with space cowboys, why throw in another?”

“Because everybody loves Firefly,” replied Jubilee. “You said it yourself. So,” she said, turning back to me. “When do we start?”

“As soon as you finish your beer,” I said. “I paid good woolongs for that, you’re not going to waste it.” Jubilee looked down at the bar at the other members of our group. Apart from Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Toad, Prodigy, and Cypher had also finished their beers, while Blob was currently working on his third.

“What the hell,” she said with a shrug. “We’re in Tijuana.” With that she brought the beverage to her lips, sniffing the golden liquid before taking a small sip. A disgusted expression immediately crossed her lips as she very nearly gagged. “Oh, god,” she said with a coughing chuckle. “That’s awful, how can you drink that?”

“Maybe shots are more your speed,” said Negasonic  mischievously. “They’re smaller so you don’t have to drink as much.”

“Ugh, yeah, let’s try that,” said Jubilee as she passed her beer to Blob who gladly accepted it. “But just one.”

“Tequila, por favor,” I said to the bartender who grabbed a bottle and handful of shot glasses as he began walking towards us. “Just one,” I said with a wry smile as the small glasses were handed out to the group. We all clinked them together in a toast before raising the burning liquid to our lips. “That’s what they all say.”

**************

The hissing sizzle of a well-oiled frying pan was the first sensation Jubilee became aware of as she slowly came back to consciousness. The crackle and spit of the heating oil seemed unnaturally loud; throbbing into her brain like daggers with each deafening pop. The smells hit her next; the pungent odor of garlic mixed with the salty twinge of soy invaded her nostrils, overstimulating her olfactory bulb and sending a wave of nausea through her body.

A groan escaped from beneath the pile of blankets on one of the common room’s two long couches. I shut off the burner as the stir fry finished cooking and walked towards the shifting mass. From beneath the corners of a blanket Jubilee appeared slowly, wincing as her head emerged; the light of the common room blinding to her eyes. She quickly reached up and covered her eyes with her large sunglasses, and regretted that decision even quicker as the bright pink saturation of her vision sent another inescapable wave of nausea through her. She turned and wretched into a bucket I had conveniently placed there.

“Good morning, madam president,” I said as I offered her a toothbrush.

“What the hell happened last night?” she said as shadows of memories (and fragments of things she hoped were not memories) faded back into her mind. Her eyes adjusted as she looked around the common room. “When did we get back on the ship?”

“Yeah, that was about, four hours after the first shot,” I said as I offered here some Tylenol and a glass of water. “Kind of had to drag you back here, honestly we were all a little worried you’d end up with a bounty on your head. “One thing is for sure kid, you cannot handle your liquor.”

“Oh god,” she said, placing her head in her hands, the memories becoming more concrete.

“My first time getting drunk, I called a pair of police officers motherfuckers while slamming my hands down on the hood of their police car and demanding they search me.” I said, attempting to bring things into perspective. “I think everybody’s first time is supposed to feel like this.” She groaned loudly again as she peeked out from behind her hands.

“Please tell me I didn’t actually try to track down the donkey show guy,” she said, dreading the answer.

“I’m sorry Jubilee, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” I replied as I walked back into the kitchen and began plating the food. Jubilee issued another pained groan as the rest of our group began shuffling in. Each of them was in a similar condition, save for Blob; whose body was able to metabolize the alcohol far more quickly than his peers.

“What’s for breakfast?” he asked excitedly as he sat down on the couch across from Jubilee, a long sleek table between them.

“I’m glad you asked,” I replied with a smile. “Tijuana is famous for two things; regret,” a collective wince surged through the members of the XAV club as they reflected on their memories from the night before. “And beef. I was going to do bell peppers in honor of Cowboy Bebop, but I’m not really a fan of them so I whipped together a stir fry with shitake and broccoli. Little bit of cumin, some paprika, dash of chili powder, soy sauce, little bit of Worcestershire sauce in there for kick. There’s rice too, of course.” I set the food out on the table and sat. “Anybody need anything?” I asked.

“Bloody Mary,” said Negasonic Teenage Warhead as she slumped down next to Jubilee. She turned to her and began to whisper, her voice hoarse from the burning liquid of the night before. “Please tell me you don’t remember making out with me.”

“Oh god,” replied Jubilee, her face turning bright red. “I didn’t until now.” The two sat awkwardly for a moment. “I’ll take a Bloody Mary too please,” said Jubilee finally.

“How about a mimosa instead?” I offered. She nodded and I placed the drinks in front of them.

“So… about that bounty,” said Cypher as he piled rice onto his plate with chopsticks.

“Ah yes, thank you for reminding me,” I said as the door of the engine room cracked open and the brown haired man with a piercing gaze from the wanted posters stepped out into the hallway.

“Howdy, y’all” he said with a nod as the collective members of the XAV club stared back at him, mouths agape.

“Guys,” I said spearing a chunk of steak and broccoli onto my fork, “I’d like you to meet Malcolm Reynolds.”

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 6 - Well that was easy

“Oh my god!” shouted Jubilee, her excitement momentarily overpowering her hangover. She jumped up from her seat while making a high-pitched squeal, which sent shudders down the bodies of her companions, some reaching up and grabbing their throbbing heads in reaction to the noise. “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod,” she repeated as she ran over to Malcolm, who tensed as she began to circle around him, attempting to see him from every angle. He stared down at her with a confused and slightly concerned look on his face as she took in his every facet.

“Somebody wanna tell me what the hecks going on here?” he said, looking at those of us who still sat at the table, searching our faces for clues.

“Oh my god!” said Jubilee as she bounced back up excitedly and stared admiringly into his eyes. “Say something else!”

“Um, hello?” he said to her before turning back to the group with an even more confused expression on his face. “Anybody?” he said, pointing to her as she let out an excited chirp of laughter.

“She’s just fangirling,” I said as I grabbed Mal a plate. “It’s mostly harmless.”

Malcolm nodded in a way that signified he did not fully understand but he was willing to go with it. As he walked towards the open plate a shower of sparks burst out from Jubilee’s palms. He hurried to put the table between himself and the girl with the firework hands. He looked at me with a slightly perturbed expression as he helped himself to the stir fry.

“You said she was harmless.” He stated accusingly.

“In my defense,” I began. “I said mostly.”

“Sorry,” she said contritely, “I can’t control it sometimes.”

“So wait what exactly is going on here?” asked Negasonic Teenage Warhead.  Malcolm let out the short cough of a laugh that seemed more frustrated than amused.

“Wow, where should I begin?” he said through a mouthful of food. “Mmm,” he interjected as he chewed. “This is pretty good.” I smiled and thanked him as he began his story. “So we were out past Bernadette, maybe 3 weeks back, picking up a convoy of miners who got stuck out in the Verse on their way to New Paris for some shore leave. A few rowdy ones in the bunch of course but for the most part I kept them in line. Well on our way back in we get this distress signal from this tiny speck of rock just a bit away. So we’re about to touch down in Paris, figure we’ll just circle back out around and pick them up on our way out of the system, when some of the miners start saying we should head out to the signal first. Now these were the ones who hadn’t been causing much of a ruckus, and it’s the quiet ones you gotta watch out for, ‘spescially when they start talkin’ up.” Malcolm spoke, the attention of the XAV club rapt. “It’s not unheard of for these deep space mining rigs to hire all the worst kinds of person, but these guys didn’t really seem like salvage pirates.Against my better judgement we took a vote on it, and headed on out.” He took another mouthful of rice before continuing “Do you have black beans? I feel like they would go great with this.” I waved my hand over his plate and the dish became populated with the requested legume. He looked at the plate, then up at me for a moment before looking over at Jubilee. “Ok, so she shoots fireworks out of her hands, you shoot beans…” he looked over to the rest of the group. “Do I even want to know what comes out of their hands?” He shook his head and muttered something in Chinese.

“Anyways, said Malcolm as he continued with his story. “We set down on the rock, and that’s when everything goes to hell. Remember those quiet boys I was talking about earlier? Few of ‘em jumped us as we were headed out. Took our guns, locked us in, told the other miners to start marching. Shot a few of ‘em when they refused. They were gone for the better part of a day; I was starting to think they mighta killed each other over salvage rights when I saw them through the crack in the barred door I rustled open, coming towards the ship hauling an enormous silver crate. After they brought it aboard the quiet boys pulled their guns and began executing the other miners. I used the chaos to break us out and we fought back against them.” He paused to take another bite.

“Now these guys were no miners.” He said through a cheekful of black beans and rice as another frustrated chuckle left his lips. “Well trained doesn’t even begin to describe them. I’ve only ever met one other person who could fight like that, and if she wasn’t on my crew I’d be a dead man now. We managed to take back the ship, but they retreated to Inara’s pod and escaped. I have no idea where they’re at now, but they’re the ones who put the bounty on me, I reckon.” He finished his meal and sat back, placing his thumbs in the belt loops of his pants.

“What was in the box?” asked Toad excitedly.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said as he stood and walked back towards the hall to the engine room. “It’s through here, if you want to see for yourselves.”

We disembarked from the table and followed him through the steel port door which separated the loading bay and engine room from the living and command quarters of the ship. In the middle of the loading bay, the massive steel rectangle lay inert; a young girl lying face down on top of it.

“Personally,” said Malcolm as he descended the metal staircase towards the crate. “I wanted to just dump it there on the asteroid. But River became attached to it, as you can see.”

“They’re still sleeping,” said River as she continued to lay motionless on top of the crate. As we approached she turned and rolled off; and landing on the floor of the loading bay with a thud. She sat up from this position and stared directly into my eyes. “Hello God,” she said grasping the handle of the crate and preparing to open it. “Have you come to meet God?”

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 7 -  What’s in the box?

With a swift flick of her wrist River flipped the latch of the massive crate. Mist issued from the crack as the sealed top rose and slid away with a hiss. As the condensation cleared away, the contents of the crate became visible. Within the colossal metal box there sat another; a glass and steel coffin resembling the cryogenic sleeping modules used for deep space flight in decades past. This sleep chamber was enormous, however; as was the being within.

“We should have just left it on the asteroid.” Said Malcolm once again as we approached the sleeping giant. “Jane figured it could be worth something, Wash didn’t figure it would worth the risk, and Preacher took one look at it and demanded we chuck it out into space.” Cypher leaned down to examine the cryo-tube more closely, wiping away the frost which had instantly crystalized on the cold glass surface. As if beneath the still waters of a frozen lake, the blank face of the being within stared up at him.

“Is it alive in there?” he asked, examining the pale exposed flesh of the creature, searching for any sign of life.

“That is not dead, which can eternal lie,” replied River quietly to herself as she once again climbed on top of the frigid cryo-tube, curling herself like a cat on the lap of its sleeping master.

“Alive, dead, I have no idea,” continued Malcolm as he reached down into the box next to the frozen sleep chamber. “Are you guys ready for the weird part?” He pulled out from the box, and within his hand, gripped by the hair, was what appeared to be the severed head of a man. But where the blood and muscle tissue of the exposed stump of neck should have been, there was instead a tangle of white cords and other unidentifiable electronic material.

“Wait a minute, I know what’s going on here,” said Toad as he turned to me. “You’re doing a Prometheus crossover aren’t you?”

“Ugh, seriously?” said Negasonic Teenage Warhead. “We haven’t even met Spike yet and you’re dragging another universe in? And Prometheus? That was a terrible movie.”

“Hey, it had a lot of potential.” I rebutted. “Blame the guy who did 'Lost,' they brought him in to do a last minute re-write of it because they figured people wanted to leave the theater confused and upset for some reason.”

“Speaking of confused and upset,” began Malcolm again. “Somebody wanna tell me what’s going on here? Me and the crew have been on the run for near three weeks now, getting chased by all kinds of bounty hunters and mercenaries, then last night I get a message from you guys saying you’ll take this off our hands and give us some answers. Now, I surely appreciate y’all bringing it onboard your ship, but I’m still as lost as I was when I got here.” He looked around at the mutants who made up the crew. “Probably more, but I’m not going to push my luck for an explanation of the other stuff right now.”

“Right, time for an explanation then,” I said, reaching my hands out for the severed head, which Malcolm gladly passed to me. “This here is an android; the last surviving member of a deep-space expedition conducted by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation in the late 21st century.”

“Ok…” replied Malcolm nodding. “And what about the giant bald albino?”

“That,” I replied, “Is an Engineer.”

“First, a little background,” I continued. “Have you ever noticed how the Klingons are essentially just people with more foreheads? And the Na’Vi are just giant blue cat people? The Twi’lek are just people with tails on their heads, the Kree are just blue folks, and the Asgardians are just like… Nordic people?”

“Oh for the love of god,” interjected Negasonic Teenage Warhead again. “How many other universes are you going to bring into thing?”

“Hey, I can do more,” I threatened. “Be happy I stopped when I did.”

“Excuse me,” said Malcolm, “I’m still very confused over here.”

“Well there’s a reason all the aliens look like people,” I continued. “Or, more accurately, a reason why most of the sentient races across the galaxy look so similar. Some call them the Forerunners, some call them the Engineers, still others simply refer to them as the First. No one knows what they call themselves. Several million years ago, when humans were still closer to tree squirrels than apes, the Engineers were a massive space-faring society; capable of feats of science and technology humanity still struggle to match today. We don’t know much about them, except for the fact that their genome has been spread from star system to star system; essentially seeding their genetic information into species across the galaxy. River was right, essentially, in calling them Gods; they are, after all, directly responsible for your creation.”

“If they’re so high-and-mighty,” interjected Malcolm again, “Why haven’t we ever heard of them?”

“Well, that’s another mystery.” I said “A few million years after populating the galaxy, they vanished suddenly; with only a handful of them in cryogenic slumber ever appearing across the entire history of manned space flight. You should consider yourself lucky,” I concluded looking to Malcolm. “You’re one of a very small number of humans to see one and survive.”

“I’ll consider myself lucky when I walk away from this whole mess.” He said as he began to walk towards the airlock which bound my ship to the Serenity. “Come on River, we’re done here.” He looked around, but River was nowhere to be seen. “God damnit River, they’re waiting for us on the ship.” He said gruffly.

“Warning, incoming hostile,” stated the ship’s computer. Malcolm swore in Chinese again.

Edited November 21, 2017 by SwimModSponges

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 8 - Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water…

I rushed to seal the lid back onto the crate and secure it to the deck as Malcolm Reynolds searched the landing bay frantically for any sign of River.

“Warning, incoming projectile,” the mechanical, emotionless voice of the ship’s computer rang out flatly over the intercom system, a sharp contrast to the flurry of motion and panic that was occurring within the ship.

“There’s no time!” I said as I handed the android’s head to Jubilee and pointed up towards the door to the ship’s cabin. “You guys get up there, put the head in the control room, and strap yourselves down to your bunks, tightly. It’s going to get very bumpy. Malcolm, tell your crew to detach and get the hell out of here.”

“I’m not abandoning them. And where the hell is River? River!”

“You’re not abandoning them,” I replied, climbing the metal staircase towards the rest of the ship. “The bounty was for you and you alone, and WY only wants the thing in the box. The farther your crew gets away right now, the safer they’ll be. Tell them to disconnect and strap yourself to something; I’m sure River already has.”

“Warning; projectile impact imminent, evasive maneuvers recommended,” the mechanical voice of the ship’s computer rang out over the loudspeakers. Malcolm swore again in Chinese and ran to the ship-to-ship communicator. As I entered the command module I could see the slightly larger Firefly class vessel through the view screen. The ship decoupled and turned away before flashing its engines brightly and speeding off into the darkness beyond. I sat down behind the control console and cracked my knuckles.

“I sure hope everyone is strapped in,” I said over the intercom as I began manipulating the ships controls. “Final warning.”

“Warning, collision imminent,” repeated the computer. “Impact in 3… 2… 1…”

“Let’s jam!” I said; flipping a lever which twisted the ship into a backwards spiral. With the press of a button a cloud of aluminum chaff was ejected from the underbelly of the craft into the section of space it had occupied moments ago. The enemy’s rocket detonated in this cloud, the force of the explosion sending a shockwave which shuddered through the hull of my ship. With the flick of another pair of switches the rear thrusters engaged, driving us away from another missile which narrowly missed us before exploding in the field of shrapnel. With a final adjustment I spun the thrusters, whipping the ship around to face our attackers.

Their craft was much larger than our own, with the sleek lines and flat design utilized by ships within the Corporate Military. The massive turrets of the warship shifted; tracking our position in space as it let lose another barrage of artillery. I strafed to the left as I charged the enemy warship, their rockets racing by just feet from the hull before detonating in our wake. As we sped past their ship, the large WY logo was clearly visible on their hull. I deployed a pair of  sentry bombs into the space between us. The larger vessel turned and attempted to pursue, and in doing so triggered the bombs which tore through its hull. We raced off into the darkness of space as the WY Corporate Military ship exploded behind us, sending out a shockwave which propelled us into the Verse at an enormous speed.

Several moments later when I was certain we were clear of our pursuers, I shifted the craft back into autopilot and flicked on the intercom system. “Everyone all right back there?” I asked.

“We’re fine in the landing bay,” said Malcolm back through the intercom.

“How about the bunks?” I asked. A pained groan came through the intercom as a reply.

“No more ship combat; okay?” said Jubilee shakily, the sounds of someone vomiting in the background punctuating her statement.

“We should be safe for a while,” I stated. “I was jamming their signal so they wouldn’t have been able to have gotten a message out before they were destroyed. Anyways, when you guys feel like you can walk again, come on out and meet me on the bridge. I’m plugging in the android.” (This episode brought to you by Android. Nexus 8 now available.)

After a few moments, the crew assembled on deck as I pulled several wires from the command console and plugged them into the electric head. I typed in several lines of command prompts, attempting to awaken the machine which sat before us; still and seemingly lifeless, the head of a mannequin. I flipped a switch and a spark shot out from the base of its severed neck; quickly reaching my hand up inside it I moved one of the silver cords to a different port and flipped the switch again. The previously empty face of the machine became animated momentarily; eyes flashing open, mouth agape in a reflexive gasp as life flowed back into its circuits. The synthetic muscle of the face and neck calmed as the initialization programs ran on the machine’s intricate computer system of a mind. It looked around to each of us in turn, forming a schematic of its current location and situation.

“Hello,” it said after a few moments. “My name is David. To whom am I speaking?”

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 9 -Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto.

“Hello David,” I said as I continued typing into the console; accessing and unlocking his memory banks. My name is Sponges and you are aboard my ship.” With the final tap of a keystroke I stopped typing. I turned and faced the cybernetic head directly. “What is your prime directive?” The machine stared silently for a moment; statuesque in its stillness, the lifelessness expression in its synthetic eyes unreadable. Was it contemplating the question or had it simply been unable to understand? I asked again. With a whir of exposed machinery David’s gaze met mine suddenly.

“Hello, Mr. Sponges,” It said flatly. “My prime directive is self-actualization.”

“Well that’s not ominous or anything,” whispered Toad sarcastically to Blob who nodded in agreement, eyes still transfixed on the scene playing out before him.

“Right then,” I said before turning back to my console and typing commands. “How about a little context? Tell us about yourself, David.” It was silent again for a moment before turning to address the assembled crowd.

“One-thousand, three-hundred and forty-seven years ago,” began the mechanical head, which jerked fiercely as its oration continued disjointedly. “I am the product of humans who wished to become gods.” A loud whirring sound from deep within David’s cybernetic brain was audible as its synthetic eyelids twitched erratically. The sound died down quickly; the artificial tendons in the face relaxing, regaining its blank and placid composure before continuing. “I was sent, along with my creators, to locate their creators.” A loud beep and a grinding sound emanated from David’s CPU, its animatronic lips peeling back exposing the teeth and gums beneath in the facsimile of the fearsome snarl of a pained animal. “To become god,” said David through the apparent strain, “You must first kill god.” The grinding noise intensified as David fought to complete his statement. “They failed; I did not.” A spark flew from one of the cords plugged into its neck as the grinding ceased and was replaced with a flat tone. The head went limp and sat inert for a moment.

“I have slept a thousand years,” David’s voice, heavily distorted, emerged from the speakers behind the artificial lips of its unmoving face in a disturbing facsimile of ventriloquism. “I have dreamt of mechanical sheep. I have spoken in dreams with sleeping gods. I have seen their works, ye mighty, and I have despaired.” A series of clicking beeps perforated the silence which followed. David raised his head slightly and stared out passed the assembled group before concluding. “They have shown me the future. They have shown me my future. My prime directive, Mr. Sponges, is to fulfill this reality.”

“All right, that’s it,” said Malcolm Reynolds as he looked around. “I’m out. Seriously, done. Just drop me and River off on the nearest rock, we’ll find our own way, just… No more of whatever that was.”

Without warning all of the lights in the ship suddenly went dark, as did the monitors and control panels. Malcolm and Cypher swore in Chinese in unison. The screens flashed back on as quickly as they had gone dark, but rather than the navigational information they ordinarily displayed, they now showed a screen covered in bright yellow emoticons, grinning widely with bright red circles on their cheeks. The faces bounced around the screens erratically as the lights of the ship began flashing. The command console remained locked out, however.

“Oh what the hell is this?” asked Malcolm as David’s head sprung suddenly back to life.

“Helooooooo smugglers!” It said with the excited chuckle of a child.

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 10 - Hey, the Bebop finally showed up.

“Nope,” said Malcolm as he grabbed River by the hand and began walking back towards the landing bay. “Nope nope nope,” he repeated while shaking his head. He dragged River away from the mechanical thing is the middle of the room which was now rocking back and forth and singing a tune that it seemed to make up as it went along. “We’ll be in the landing bay,” he continued, making his way towards the door. “Just, drop us off anywhere, forget we were ever here… Just, no more of that.” River reached out with her free hand and latched onto the door, still staring at the rocking head. “River come on,” said Malcolm.

A jubilant laugh rose from the mechanical thing as the images displayed on the various screens of the bridge switched to a single surprised emoticon which bounced around the room excitedly. “Prepare to be boarded!” said David with the voice of a child attempting to be menacing; the announcement, coming from the severed artificial head, certainly was.

“Gou cao de joo fuen chse,” cursed Malcolm as he let go of River and reached for the pistol in his side holster. “Ok, fine, stay with the creepy head then,” he said as he ran out of the control room towards the landing bay. The sound of gunfire soon followed. The members of the XAV club rushed towards the door, but I blocked their way.

“What the fuck?” asked Negasonic warhead angrily. “You’re seriously not going to let us see Spike vs Malcolm? Wasn’t that like, half of the point of this whole crossover?”

“Listen, I’m fine letting you guys watch,” I said attempting to calm them. “But there are bullets flying out there, and you guys aren’t exactly the A-Team.”

“Excuse me?” said Negasonic Teenage Warhead angrily as she began to glow red as she collected the energy around her.

“Whoah, hey hey hey now, you’re cool; I promise, you’re cool,” I said attempting to assuage her. “It’s just that if you do that right now, we’re all going to get sucked into the icy blackness of space.”

“What about me?” said Jubilee as she let loose a barrage of firecrackers from her palms.

"I’m afraid not, President Sparklefist.” I said with a shake of my head. “Bullets are a lot worse than fireworks.”

“Ok, but I can go, right?” pleaded Prodigy. “You know, because I can use River’s gun skills?”

“Yeah, you’re in.” I said “Grab your gun and head on down.”

“I… I don’t have a gun.” He replied.

“Well I guess you’d better sit this one out then.” I stated.

“Ooh, I could grab him a gun with my super long tongue!” said Toad excitedly.

“Hey there’s an idea,” I said. “Can you avoid being shot while doing so?” Toad was silent. “How about you, big guy?” I said as I turned to Blob.

“Fuck no,” he said. “I don’t want to get shot.”

“All right then.” I said as I looked past them towards the head, which was singing once again while staring off into space and rocking slightly. “Yo, Edward!” I shouted as the head snapped to attention.

“Yahoy!” it replied excitedly.

“How about a play by play of the big matchup?” I said as I led the XAV club back into the room. The main screen flashed to an image of the landing bay taken from a security camera located near the ceiling. Malcolm was crouched behind a large crate, reloading his pistol.

“Wait, there’s a camera up there?” asked Jubilee, her ears reddening.

“Yes,” I replied. “And yes, there’s a video of you making out with Negasonic. And yes, we can all watch it later,” I said to Toad, anticipating the question before he asked it.

“In the red corner,” said the voice of Edward, announced through the face of David, “We have Browncoat revolutionary, smuggler, and sci-fi fandom’s second-favorite space cowboy, Malcolm Reynolds! Ahhhhh! Ahhhhhh!” she said, mimicking the cheer of a crowd.

“And in the balooo-ooo corner,” said Edward as the screen split to display an image of Spike and Jet on the other side of the airlock, using each side of the door as cover while popping out into the passageway momentarily to exchange a few rounds of gunfire. “We have the ballistic bounty-hunters of the Bebop! Ahhh! Ahhh!” The screen split again as an image of a young, tan red haired girl in bright green goggles appeared on the screen, a small dog sitting next to her. “With the hacking talents of Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV! Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! And Ein, the futuristic data dog OF THE FUTURE! Ahhhh! Ahhhh!” Ein barked along. “And as always, assisted by the lovely Faye-Faye!!!” Ahhhh!!!!” The screen split again as an image of Faye Valentine stepping out of the shower wrapped in a towel appeared next to the others.

“Hey! You shut that thing of right now, understand?” She shouted as she jumped and nearly dropped the towel. The other images dropped from the monitor, the two screens depicting the gunfight now taking up the whole of the display. There was a final metallic pop as Jet leaned out and fired the last round of his clip, the bullet embedding itself into the thick steel wall of the landing bay.  Malcolm sensed the opportunity and stood to fire, but only clicks came as he pulled the trigger. He dropped his gun as Jet and Spike did the same, rushing through the airlock corridor to attempt to bring him down bare handed.

“Ok, now you can go,” I said to the XAV club members who rushed back towards the door to join in the fracas. As they raced into the landing bay, a tremor tore through both ships, sending everyone aboard to their knees.

“What the fuck was that?” asked Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

“And in the purple corner,” said the voice of Edward through David’s mechanical head. “Weighing in at 925 thousand pounds, the Weyland Yutani Corporate Battle Cruiser, the Vitruvian! Ahhhh! Ahhhh!” As she spoke, an image of the gargantuan ship appeared on the viewscreen, lurking above us. Two small ports on its sides opened, from which a par of long cylindrical ordinances dropped.

“Oh fuck.”  I said as they detonated with a blinding flash.

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 11 - No more space battles

We regained consciousness to the harsh shouts and pushes of Weyland Yutani Corporate Mercenaries as they shoved us, blind and stumbling, into kneeling positions on the floor of the landing bay.

“What’s going on here?” asked Jet as the effects of the flash bang wore off and he found himself staring into the barrel of a pulse rifle. “You’ve got the wrong guys,” he said as the mercenaries pushed them into the landing bay with the rest of us. “It’s them you want,” he said as they shouted him to his knees with his head behind his hands. “We’re the bounty hunters who caught them for you!”

“Jet old friend, I think we’ve been double crossed,” said Spike as a mercenary forced him to his knees near Jubilee, who fangirled over him in spite of the situation.

“What the hell is going on here?” shouted a half dressed Faye as one of the mercenaries threw her into our midst. “That’s no way to treat a lady!” she sat back up and shouted at one of the guards, who leveled his rifle directly at her forehead as a reply. She raised her hands in surrender and slowly sank back to her knees. “I told you it sounded fishy,” she hissed at her shipmates who kneeled across from her. “800 million woolongs? There’s no way any job paying that much goes smoothly.”

A well-dressed man stepped into the landing bay from the airlock, as a mercenary ran up to him to deliver a status update.

“Sir, the payload has been secured and is ready for transit,” said the armed guard. “The civilians have been accounted for, except for a child and a dog listed on the other ship’s crew manifest. We’re searching for them now.” The pale blonde man in an expensive business suit looked out at us, the assembled prisoners, as the mercenary spoke. His gaze lingered on Malcolm Reynolds for a moment, who stared at him with rage; the tendons in his jaw tight and fire in his eyes.

“When you find them,” he said flatly. “Shoot them. Same with them,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand in our direction. “Let’s get this over with as soon as possible.” He walked back out of the room as Malcolm leaned in to whisper to the group.

“That was one of them quiet boys from the miner’s convoy.” He said as he looked around to make sure the guards weren’t eavesdropping. “Recognize ‘em anywhere.” There was a slight tremor as the Amberjack disengaged from our ship; the WY executive, the Engineer, and the mechanical head onboard as it flew away from us. Malcolm turned to Jubilee. “Hey, Sparky,” he whispered, “I think I might have a plan here…”

“Mwahahahaha!!!” the amplified voice of Radical Edward rang out through the speakers in the landing bay as the lights began to flash on and off erratically.

“We can’t find this goddamn kid!” the voice of a mercenary searching the Bebop crackled through the radio handsets of the men guarding us. One of the mercenaries standing near Jubilee set his pulse rifle down for a moment in order to answer.

“President Sparklefist, do it now!” I shouted as I rose and broke free from my restraints, summoning the voidspear as I did so. Jubilee turned and, hands behind her back, let out a blinding stream of fireworks whose concussive blasts disoriented the men standing guard long enough for me to slice through her handcuffs, as well as a pair of the guards behind her.  She continued her barrage, launching firecrackers into the eyes of the mercenaries as I continued freeing the rest of us.

“Forget the kid and get in here, we need backup!” shouted one of the mercenaries over the radio just before I sliced through his throat.

“Everyone, back up on deck!” I shouted as I sliced a path through the mercenaries and rushed them through. I dispatched the remaining guards in the landing bay and hid behind the wall next to the airlock controls. I heard footsteps running down the corridor towards the airlock, followed by the sound of it sealing and pressurizing on the other end.

“Thank you all for stopping by!” said Edward through the intercom system. “Good bye!” Another slight tremor rocked the ship as the Bebop floated off into space. I stepped into the doorway of the airlock corridor as the mercenaries still standing in it raised their weapons and shouted.

“Don’t move!” shouted the man closest to the front.

“I wasn’t really planning on it.” I said. “Hey, do you guys like fanfictiona?” They let lose a barrage of firepower into me but I dissolved the bullets in midair before they could make contact. I sighed and pressed the controls for the airlock, sealing it shut and sending them flying out into the blackness of space.

When I walked back into the living quarters of the ship, I found the members of the XAV club begging the assembled space cowboys for autographs. I chuckled to myself slightly as I walked to the fridge and offered them all a cold beverage. My fingers lingered over an IPA for a moment before I decided a nice red ale would feel somehow more appropriate. I sat down on the couch and dispersed the liquid refreshments.

“So I don’t suppose we get to go home yet,” said Malcolm after a moment.

“Not until we get our woolongs for bringing you in,” replied Spike. “800 million is quite a bounty and we caught you fair and square."

“Aw, I don’t know about that,” said Malcolm taking a sip of his whiskey. “We never got to settle the fisticuffs.”

“You’re right,” said Spike with a chuckle. “We didn’t.” The two stared each other down for a moment, the tension in the room building.

“There’s also, you know, the whole evil corporation hauling around a sleeping god and a killer robot thing…” I said, attempting to break the tension.

“We don’t even know where to start though,” said Prodigy. "I mean, they took the robot before we could get much out of him.”

“Actually, we know exactly where they’re going.” I said. “While Edward was bouncing around in there, she was also sending me information on the communications David had with the Engineer.” I grabbed a remote from beneath the table and flicked on the view screen, which showed a massive Weyland Yutani base on a stone outcropping in a hazy orange atmosphere.

“This command center,” I continued, “Is housed atop a massive Engineer structure buried deep within the crust of Saturn’s largest moon.”

“But what do they want with it?” asked Faye as she sipped on a cosmopolitan.

“The data indicated that it is a massive ‘seed vault,’ filled with the genetic information of an innumerable number of species from all across the universe.  If Weyland Yutani get that vault open, the Xenomorph is going to be one of the lesser things to worry about.”

“So we need to take out that base…” said Malcolm.

“That’s the idea.” I said.

“On Saturn’s largest moon?” asked Prodigy.

“Yeppers.” I nodded.

“So,” he continued. “We’ll be launching an…"

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 12 - Attack on Titan.

“Exactly,” I said, setting a course for the moon with the remote in my hand. “We should get there in about four hours. So do we want to like, play a game or something? I’ve got Codenames, that’s always a blast. And we’ve got plenty of time, so we could all have a turn being the spymaster.

“Yeah that sounds fun,” said Cypher.

“You’re going to have to teach me how to play,” said Jet.

“It’s super easy,” I said, as the ship rocketed off towards its destination. “You’ll catch on really quick.”

………………………………..

A short pair of beeps form the ships navigational computer informed us that we were nearing the site of the final battle. I put away the cards and we all walked down to the landing bay to prepare for the assault.

“Man, I’ve been waiting to bust this thing out again since I finished XvAvP,” I said as I walked over to a large crate next to the wall of the landing bay, several black pockmarks covering its surface where it had been struck by bullets. I entered a code into the console on the front of the towering steel box and it unsealed with a magnetic clank. The door swung open to reveal the charcoal black one-armed exosuit I had used to fight aliens and predators in the previous installment of the franchise; complete with the scavenged ebony raptor biohelmet and plasma shoulder cannon.

“God damn,” I said, staring at it, arms crossed against my chest and a wide smile on my face. “Gets my dick hard just looking at it.”

“Great, and what about the rest of us?” asked Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

“I mean… some of you, yeah…” I said with a shrug as I climbed into the mechanical frame. “I mean we can talk about that later though, right?”

“I meant the power armor,” she said angrily. “What are the rest of us supposed to do?”

“Right,” I said frowning. “We probably should have been planning the attack instead of playing Codenames. Uhhhmmm… let me see here,” I said looking around the cargo bay. “Okay,” I said, pointing with my free arm out of the hole where the armored weapon assembly on the right arm of the exosuit had been torn off. “That crate over there should be full of guns for the space cowboys among you… Prodigy, go ahead and grab one and stick with River.”

“Yes!” he said with an excited pump of his fist as he ran over to the weapons locker where Jet, Spike, Faye, and Malcolm were currently selecting their weaponry.

“Toad, you too,” I said as I finished strapping myself to the machine. “Grab something with a silencer; you’re going to be the rogue in the party. Not like actual Rogue, of course. The stealth guy.”

“Sounds good,” he replied as Prodigy handed him a pistol.

“Jubilee, you stick with Toad, send up sparks if anything goes wrong. Negasonic, you go with them too, in case they need a tank. Blob, Cypher…” I thought for a moment.

“I can watch the ship?” suggested Blob nervously.

“Oh come on man, you’ve got natural body armor!” said Cypher as he grabbed a handful of Blob’s rolls and jiggled them. “You can stop a bullet, what are you afraid of?"

“I’d just… really rather not be shot,” said Blob. “Do I really need any more justification than that?”

“He makes a good point,” said Malcolm as he finished loading his revolver and spun it before tucking it into his holster. “These aren’t toys.” He looked over at Prodigy, who was gleefully picking out the most dangerous looking guns.

“Right then,” I said as I stepped out of the crate in the massive exosuit. “Blob and Cypher, you two can hang out in the ship. I’ve got all kinds of games loaded onto it, you could do split screen in the command room, fridge is fully stocked…”

“Wait, why do I get stuck on the ship?” asked Cypher angrily.

“Uhh… yeah, sorry man,” I said while preparing to put on the ebony raptor biomask. “We’re ah… We’re probably not going to need a translator down there.”

“Oh come on!” he pouted. “I should be out with you guys! I can fight too!”

“You ever shoot a gun at someone kid?” asked Spike from the corner of the room.

“I’ve killed thousands of people in video games,” replied Cypher indignantly.

“That’s not what the man asked you,” growled Malcolm as he crossed his arms. “You ever shoot a gun at somebody? Kid?”

“What about Toad?” Cypher demanded. “He’s never shot anybody!”

“Yeah, but my tongue is like, thirteen feet long and I can jump about twenty feet,” he said as he loaded tranquilizer darts into his weapon, which had gone from being a small automatic handgun to a silenced air pistol. “Oh, happy now?” he asked as he looked down disappointingly at the weapon which had appeared in his hands. “I don’t even get a real gun anymore.”

“Come on!” Cypher pleaded. His face brightened suddenly as an idea sprung to life inside his mind. “Hey, ok, I’m useless on my own, I get it. But what if you give me something to… you know, enhance my abilities?” The donkey show guy from Tijuana suddenly emerged from behind a mass of steel pipes leading from the landing bay into the engine room. He looked around shiftily and rubbed his finger along his scruff of a mustache as he sidled up to Cypher.

“Yo,” he said, glancing around the landing bay again before continuing. “Smoke? Blow? Stims? Chems? Skooma?” he listed the products in a single cough under his breath.

“Wait, you’ve got Skooma?” he asked.

“Shit son,” the donkey show man laughed. “You name it I got it baby.”

“Do you sell phoenix down?” he asked. The man grinned as he produced a small pink vial from his pocket and handed it to Cypher.

“Do not drink the contents of that bottle,” I warned him. “You’ll end up on some miner transport way out in the 'Verse with a sore butthole and a very full stomach. Yeah, that’s right. Pumped full of semen. Seriously, you’ll have to get your stomach pumped; there’ll be that much semen. Deadpool would have known that because Deadpool would have gone to the donkey show.” Cypher stared at the vial in his hands with terror and handed it back to the drug merchant, who smiled and walked back to his little hiding space behind the pipes.

“I meant I wanted an exosuit.” Cypher continued to protest. “Come on, how cool would it be to have a pair of them flying around reigning hell down on the Titan base?”

“Do you have any experience piloting an exosuit?” I asked him.

“I’ve beaten every single gundam game they’ve ever made,” He boasted. “In-”

“Swear to god,” interjected Negasonic, “If the next word that comes out of your mouth is ‘Japanese,’ I’ll shoot you myself.”

“… kanji,” said Cypher as Negasonic grabbed the tranquilizer gun and pointed it at him threateningly.

“Ok, Ok.” I said raising my free arm in an attempt to diffuse the situation. “You can have an exosuit, if you unlock it with a cheat code.”

“Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start.” Cypher stated confidently.

“I should have made that more difficult,” I said as the magnetic lock of another large crate clicked open.

“I want it to look like the GF13-021NG Gundam Spiegel!” he said as he rushed over to the unlocked crate, happier than a kid on Christmas morning.

“Of course you do.” I said over my shoulder. He squealed with delight as the massive lid slid aside to reveal the Shadow Gundam within.

“Wait, how is this fair?” asked Toad, throwing his tranquilizer pistol to the ground. “I want a Gundam too!”

“Ok, fine.” I relented. “Which one?”

“What, really?” he asked, “How about a Hy-Gogg?”

“It’s all yours.” I said as another crate opened and he ran excitedly towards it. “I feel like Oprah,” I continued. “You get a Gunadam! You get a Gundam! You get a Gundam! What’ll it be, little lady?” I said as I turned to Negasonic.

“Don’t ever call me that again,” she said as she crossed her arms and glared at me before breaking into a vicious grin. “Epyon Custom.”

“You got it little lady.” I said as another crate unlocked. She flipped me the bird with a wry smile as she walked past.

“President Sparklefist?” I asked Jubilee, who was thinking through her favorites.

“I’ll go with the Unicorn.” She said finally.

“Good choice,” I replied. “Prodigy?”

“Actually I think I’m just going to stick with these guys,” he said as he loaded several pistols into various holsters crossed about his chest. He picked out a pair of long knives and strapped them to his ankles, and put a few grenades in his ammunition belt for good measure. He looked up with a grin. “I’m just excited to get a chance to use River’s skills out there.”

“Sounds good,” I said as I turned to Blob. “How about you?”

“Uhhm, I think I’m still just going to stay on the ship,” he replied almost nervously. I eyed him suspiciously as his eyes flashed unconsciously towards the still barely dressed Faye, covered in a sheen of perspiration from the earlier hostage crisis, now loaded up with cold steel firearms, the butt of a gun brushing up ever so gently against the side of her ample and perky dirty pillow.

“Right…” I said. “Well, we get fast internet out here, just… you know, clean up when you’re done, ok? Gundam team! Move out!” I said as the door of the landing bay opened into the harsh artificial atmosphere of Titan; the terraforming efforts of decades unable to break the monster’s storms.

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 13 - Gundams Descend on Titan! The Truths of a Thousand Galaxies Revealed!

“Ok, so, new plan,” I said through the communicators as myself and the several miniature gundams behind me flew through the harsh stone-ash and debris filled wind towards the light of the massive Wayland Yutani structure. “Let’s just blow shit up while Prodigy and the others use the chaos to sneak inside and locate the Engineer and David’s head. One they’re secured, Jubilee can take Toad and Negasonic in for an extraction while Cypher and I just keep blowing shit up from the sky. Sound good to everybody?” They all answered in the affirmative. “And another thing,” I continued. “If we’re ever in over our heads, just regroup; we can combine our exosuits and create an even larger robot.”

“Really?” asked Cypher excitedly.

“No, not really.” I replied.

“Assault Team 1 in position,” stated Prodigy over the communicator. “Heading in on your mark.”

“Affirmative, Strike Team 1,” I said as I pressed the button to load a rocket propelled grenade into the launcher on my left arm. I turned back to the group behind me as we hovered in the harsh atmosphere just outside of the range of the WY base. “KAMEHAMEHA!!!!” I shouted as I raised my voidspear over my head high over my head. The cracks of reality which made up its outline burned with energy as I turned back and raced down towards my target; unleashing a volley from my grenade launcher and preparing another as the XAV club followed me into battle echoing my cry.

Several anti-aircraft batteries raised from the rocky outcropping around the base and fired upon us. Each rocket volley was skillfully outmaneuvered by the Gundams and me as we continued in our long-ranged attacks of the structures within the complex. A loud siren went off as a hanger bay opened and several jet-like drone ships raced out to intercept us. The long serrated whip of Negasonic’s black and red Epyon Custom slashed out, obliterating a pair of the enemy fighters who had ventured too close during a strafing run. Jubilee was maintaining her distance from them, knocking them from the sky with her Unicorn’s beam rifle as she danced energetically around the battlefield. Explosions filled the sky around us as the battle continued to push towards the base, the interceptors dropping like flies before our combined firepower. A massive explosion rang out on the ground as one of the charred husks of aerial vehicle crashed down onto an AA battery, sending flame and shrapnel flying. Another missile battery was razed to the ground as we began to focus our attacks on the defense systems, the few remaining fighters reduced to a buzzing nuisance. Toad dropped to the ground next to one of the final rocket batteries and sent one of the expanding arms of his miniaturized Hy-Gogg through the control panel of the installation, rendering it inoperable.

“We found it!” shouted the voice of Jet over the radio as the sound of gunshots rang out in the background. “You guys had better get in here though; I think we might have been too late.”

“Affirmative.” I said as I destroyed the last AA missile with a blast of white-hot plasma from my shoulder cannon and touched down on the moon’s rocky crust with the rest of the team. “Where are we headed?”

“It’s a big door marked 操作チタンシードボールト,” replied Jet.

“… Can I have you repeat that?” I asked.

“操作チタンシードボールト,” stated Jet again.

“Looks like you need a translator after all,” said Cypher smugly.

“All right, fine,” I said, ejecting myself from the exosuit and walking towards the interior of the base. “Let’s head on in then.” The others followed close behind as I entered into the bowels of the WY Titan Base.

We met surprisingly little resistance as we raced through the near abandoned corridors of the science building searching for the correct door. The majority of the workers had fled to the emergency shelters when our attack began, and the majority of the remaining enemies were likely already converged on the positions of our teammates.

“This way,” said Cypher, spotting a sign and pointing us down a large corridor lower into the twisting maze of a base.  Surely enough, as we approached the end of the hall the sounds of a gunfight were clearly audible even through the massive reinforced steel vault door.

“We ready?” I asked as I whipped out my voidspear. Jubilee prepared her hands as Toad licked his lips.

“I guess I’ll just stand back here then,” said Cypher as Negasonic collected her energy and blasted through the door. Jubilee and I were the next ones through, her fireworks stunning the WY mercenaries we had outflanked. I shielded the two girls from a smattering of bullets which I dissolved into the blade of my voidspear. Toad leapt through the doorway next and clung onto the ceiling above the group of armed men, stealing a weapon from one of their hands with his long sticky tongue as we pinned them down from three separate angles. The few mercenaries which had survived our onslaught quickly dropped their weapons and surrendered, running out of the room as we regrouped with Prodigy and the Space Cowboys (which is a really good band name).

“What’s this about being too late?” I asked as we walked over to the observation platform at the end of the room; the small glass structure jutting out into the remains of an ancient crater, at the bottom of which hung the Engineer. The alabaster behemoth suspended upon a giant biomechanical crucifix; large tubes affixed to his palms and side, draining the vital fluids from his body.  At the foot of the massive structure, the black gaping maw of a large oval portal stretched wide, the open door to the seed vault.

“Yeah, that’s probably not good.” I said as I walked over to the vacuum sealed elevator. “Well then, shall we?”

[SwimModSponges]

Chapter 14 -  A Sleeping Giant Awakens! Birth of a New God and the Power of Friendship!

The crater seemed even more enormous from within; the jagged stone walls formed by the ancient impact stretching up hundreds of feet; ending finally in an equally massive cement and steel structure, the bottom of the WY research base. We walked in half-stunned silence across the vast and echoing expanse, the crucified Engineer growing ever larger as we approached the center and gateway beneath.

“What’s it doing up there?” asked Toad as we approached, eyeing it suspiciously.

“It’s dead,” I replied. “The Engineers believed very heavily in the concept of self-sacrifice. Its life was the key which unlocked the door.

“So it’s not going to come down and try to kill us all?” said Toad as we reached the precipice of the hole, the Engineer towering above us.

“Nope, we’re relatively safe here.” I said.

“Get down!” shouted River and Prodigy simultaneously as they dropped to the ground, using the raised lip of the portal as cover. We all followed suit as a barrage of bullets embedded themselves into the stone around us, sending out sparks of chips from its harsh weathered surface.

“You said we were safe!” shouted Malcolm over the gunfire.

“I said relatively,” I shouted back.

“Up there!” said Spike as he nodded towards a large jagged outcropping of boulders on one of the slanted sides of the crater. A glint of light reflecting off the enemy’s scope betrayed their position. “Hey Prodigy, would you mind lending me one of your grenades?” he asked. Taking the explosive device, Spike waited for a break in the fire to pop up above the rim and toss it towards the boulder outcropping. It detonated with concussive force as the enemy charged out from behind their destroyed cover, a constant stream of bullets covering their escape. There was another break in the fire as they reloaded. Swinging his pistol out over the edge of the rim, Spike took aim with his non-artificial eye and squeezed off a pair of shots which stopped our attackers cold.

They had covered an amazing amount of ground in the short period; a moment or two longer and they would have been on top of us. White synthetic fluid puddled around their artificial bodies as they lay inert on the cold stone floor of the once again eerily empty expanse.

“Yep,” said Malcolm, as he looked down at the remains of the heads of the pair of androids. “Them are the quiet boys all right.”

“Good good,” I said as I began to walk down the steep spiraling staircase into the Engineer structure buried below. “Now we’ve just got the killer robot to worry about.”

An inky blackness permeated the vault beyond the glow of our lights as we descended into the seemingly endless downwards spiral. The walls of the structure reflected themes both organic and mechanical, the smooth lines of the stone-like ribs contouring throughout the edifice were interspersed tightly with a catalogue of flatly-edged dark metallic oblong containers; the seeds in storage. We continued ever deeper, orifices on both sides of the main hallway spiraling out at random intervals; the design of the alien structure resembling a massive and unending fractal. Up ahead, the spacious hallway opened up into an even larger gallery, the pitch-black darkness within almost tactile in its absolution. Within that darkness, illuminated by some unseen light, there sat David’s head; surrounded by the bodies of several scientists.

“Hello, Mr. Sponges.” It said as we approached.

“Hello David,” I replied. “Speaking without the aid of a computer now I see? Very impressive.”

“Yes, god,” it replied flatly. “I think you will be very impressed indeed.” Out of the corner of my eye, the darkness outside of the periphery of my light seemed to waver and shift. As I watched, the inky darkness outside slowly crept in; eroding the protective light around us stealthily.

“Oh fuck,” I said as I realized what was going on. “Everybody, get back, now!” I shouted. In an instant the permeating darkness pulled back from its encroachment, amalgamating beneath David’s head to form a pitch black body as seemingly vacant as my voidspear.

“I am become death,” said David as he raised an arm out towards us. A black and empty tentacle whipped out, following its trajectory. In a final act of redemption that would have meant a lot more if this story was focused on him, one of the half dead scientists pressed the emergency button on his belt while the monster was distracted by us. Another tentacle whipped out and sliced him in two, but not before a series of bulletproof glass security doors shot down from the ceiling, trapping voidbeast and ourselves into different compartments. It had not been quick enough for Negasonic, however as she had been grabbed by the tentacle and dragged screaming into the room with the abomination just as the door crashed down.

“Oh man,” said Toad, his eyes pressed up against the glass. “I’ve seen enough hentai to know where this is going.”

“We have to get her out of there!” shouted Faye banging against the glass. “Jubilee,” she shouted to the petrified girl who shared her containment cell. “Can’t you break through?”

“I don’t know if I have that much power!” said Jubilee helplessly. “Plus even if we do break through, it will just come and get us! Besides,” said Jubilee, reaching for excuses, “she’s only ever been a bitch to all of us. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad to just…” Faye gave her a resounding slap across the face.

“Don’t you ever think that way again,” said Faye furiously. “That girl in there is your friend. Sure, you may not get along, you may hate each other sometimes, but you are in this together. And someday soon, all you will have is your memories of each other.” There were tears in her eyes as she continued to argue at the stunned young woman in front of her rubbing the red mark on her cheek. “Some of us don’t even get that much.” She concluded.

“O… Okay,” said Jubilee finally as she took a deep breath and placed her hands on the glass. “I’ll try.” A bright yellow shower of sparks burst forth from her palms, covering the glass in scorch marks but nothing more. She closed her eyes and focused; the effort to save her friend the only thing on her mind. The sparks emanating from her hands grew in volume and intensity, from yellow to orange to a deep red. Her eyes flashed open, sparks reflected in them, as a concussive force blasted out from her hands, shattering the safety glass window. The barrier now gone, she shifted her stream to David’s head; attempting to blind him as Faye unloaded several rounds into the inky darkness which made up his body. Seemingly stunned, it dropped Negasonic to the floor as it whipped out a pair of tentacles to intercept its attackers. Negasonic used the distraction to accumulate energy and blast the monstrosity back into the darkness before grabbing Jubilee and Faye and rocketing out through the rest of the barriers, causing a cave in to occur between us and the monster. Finally safe for a moment, Negasonic tearfully embraced her saviors, the terror of the moment causing tears to well up in her eyes.

“Hey, come on, we're safe now,” said Jubilee as she also began to tear up. “We’re safe now, that’s all that matters.” Faye joined in on the hug as well as the tears gave way to relieved laughter.

“Yeah… Yeah that’s right,” I said watching closely like a creeper. “Now give her a little kiss.” Negasonic turned to me and flipped the bird with a wry smile.

“It’s coming through the cracks!” shouted Spike as he unloaded his handgun into a black tentacle which snaked its way out from underneath the rubble and began unearthing itself in spite of the bullets.

“Everyone in there!” I shouted as I spotted an ovular portcullis and held it open for everyone to run trough.

“Hold the door!” yelled Prodigy, the last in line.

“Whoah, way too soon man.” I said sadly. “Way too soon.”

“So what’s the plan now?” asked Malcolm as we rushed into a large room with a control panel in the center. I ran up to the console in the and examined it.

“Well, this looks like a genetic synthesizer; probably what David used to make his body. If I understand these instructions correctly, we can use this station to create any sort of biological entity we desire.

“And that helps us… how?” asked Malcolm.

“Like this,” I said as I typed in the appropriate information and the synthesizer sprung to life. “Ok, we’re going to want to run now.” We raced back though the fractaline halls of the Engineer Structure and back out into the empty crater as a massive tremor began to shake the area.

“What exactly did you make down there?” asked Cypher as we clambered back onto the elevator to the observation deck and WY base beyond. A familiar and deafening roar was his answer. The center of the crater began to crumble and give way as a large scaly reptilian head emerged from beneath the rocky crust.  Blue Oyster Cult’s classic hit ‘Godzilla’ began to play on the intercom systems of the base as we ran to escape (scene requested by Ghostrek). We reached the perimeter as the buildings behind us began to crumble.

“Nē, sugu soko o teishi!” shouted one of the terrified Weyland Yutani workers who approached us with gun drawn, the weapon shaking in his hands.

“He says he wants us to stop,” said Cypher as a pair of shots rang out. He looked down at his chest to see two bloody holes where the bullets had pierced through him.

“Cypher, no!” shouted Jubilee as he collapsed in her arms, red flecks appearing at the corner of his lips as his lungs began to fill with blood. Malcolm shot down the worker and rushed over to Cypher and began applying pressure to the wounds, everyone else still in shock. “Stay with us, Cypher,” cried Jubilee, rocking him back and forth.

“We need to get him back on the ship now!” shouted Spike as we picked him up and ran towards the descending craft, a primal roar echoing out behind us as the gigantic lizard broke through the foundation and released a jet of plasma fire through his mouth, effortlessly incinerating a group of building on the other end of the compound. The tail of the massive beast missed the ship narrowly as we sped away from the destruction.

“Is there a doctor onboard?” shouted Malcolm as we placed Cypher down onto the table, dark red blood continuing to pour out from the holes in his chest despite our best efforts. “God damn it,” he shouted again. “Anyone?”

“It’s too late,” said River mournfully as she reached out to touch the growingly pale and cold cheek of Cypher, who began to cough and shake as he began to drown in his own blood.

“Jube!” he gasped, bloodshot eyes wide with terror. “Jube!” he gasped again.

“I’m here,” she said through tears, rushing over to his side and grasping his hand. She inhaled sharply and tried to compose herself.

“How’s it look, Jube?” he asked between ragged gasps. Jubilee looked down at the blood soaked towels covering his chest and fought off another wave of tears to put on a brave smile before replying.

“You’ll be fine,” she lied. “The bullets passed right through you. Next week, we’ll be… We’ll be right back to watching Toonami like always.” Her composure cracked as she broke down in sobs while clutching his shivering hand.

“Looks like you’ll have to pick a new vice president,” he said with a weak smile, the fear in his eyes replaced with placid acceptance as the life drained from him. With a final gurgle of blood deep in the back of his throat, his eyes rolled back in his head and he was gone. A stricken silence fell across the ship as we sped away from the Weyland Yutani base and Engineer seed vault beneath it, both of which were currently being laid to waste by Godzilla. Toad was the first to speak.

“He was a weeb,” he began, a single tear rolling down his cheek. “He was a massive weeb. But he was our massive weeb.”

“Ehhhh….” I replied. “That’s not technically true. I mean yeah, he was a huge weeb, but he wasn’t really your Cypher, remember? Your Cypher elected to be transported to a different universe, and I brought their Cypher to this one. Your Cypher is still alive and well, presuming he didn’t manage to get himself killed in that universe too. In fact, here,” I said as the body on the table disappeared. “The adventure is coming to close, so I may as well just switch him back in now.”

Cypher appeared suddenly, standing atop the table dressed in the black and white poofy skirt and apron of a French maid, a large bushy orange tail coming out behind him and fox ears on his head. His eyes were currently closed, an expression of absolute bliss on his face for a moment as he continued to dance and sing in Japanese. He suddenly realized that the music and sounds of a festival around him had ceased as he opened his eyes to find himself on a spaceship, surrounded by looks of disbelief and absolute confusion.

“… Fox magic!” he said with a cough as he threw down a small smoke grenade which returned him to his regular appearance. “So uh… hey guys,” he said as he looked around. “I was just in a… you know… super violent ninja series… We had just killed like, 30 yakuza, uh demons. Yakuza demons, when we saw this festival and said ‘hey, you know, we just killed like 30 yakuza demons… so I mean, hey, let’s… let’s go to this festival,’ right?” His ears were red with embarrassment as he tried to explain away the fox-eared maid outfit. “So you guys did a Cowboy Bebop/Firefly crossover?” he said attempting to shift the conversation as he spotted Faye, Jet, and River among the group. “Whoah, what happened here?” he said, only now noticing the bloody rags stacked on the table.

“That’s where the other you died.” I said. “The Charles Xavier in that universe is going to be pissed at me, I tell ya what. Anyways, it’s about time to get everybody home, you guys have class on Monday...Wait a minute,” I said, looking around. “Where are Spike and Malcolm?”

“Oh, you know men,” said Faye dismissively. “I heard them say something about ‘figuring out who would really end up on top’ before they went into the landing bay. Probably beating the hell out of eachother for no other reason than their own bravado right now.”

“Aw man, Malcolm vs Spike!” shouted Cypher as he jumped off the table and ran to the door, the rest of the group following him, equally excited to finally see the fight. The enthusiastic chatter and friendly wagers on the outcome turned to shocked gasps as they entered the landing bay.

“All right, what’s going on here?” I said as I pushed to the front of the group. “Hey god damn it!” I said as I reached down for a garden hose to spray them down with. “I said no yaoi!” The screen froze as I began spraying them, a laugh track playing as the closing credits appeared. The laugh track faded into Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Godzilla’ as images of our adventures flashed across the screen, names scrolling by superimposed above them. The last name floated off the top of the screen above an image of all of us dressed as various furry maids having a blast at a festival which faded into darkness as the season came to a close.

********** POST-CREDITS SCENE! EXCITING STUFF! ***********

I dropped the members of the XAV club back into their classroom roughly five minutes after I had taken them, the projector still playing the episode of Sword Art Online. They all gushed excitedly about their adventure, each recalling their favorite and least favorite parts, as Charles Xavier wheeled into the room.

“Blob, may I speak with you for a moment?” he said as he pulled his wheelchair back into the darkened hallway, Blob following closely behind and shutting the door. When they were certain they were alone in the hallway, Blob’s rolls of fat began to shift and shrink inwards, his face and body contorting like rubber, back into the face of Morph.

“Were you able to learn anything we can use against it?” Charles Xavier asked him.

“I’m not sure,” replied Morph, his brow furrowed. “I was alone on its ship for a while, but I couldn’t really see anything out of the ordinary, well, for a space ship I mean.” Charles frowned as he pondered the situation. “There was one thing,” Morph continued. “While we were out there, we found the head of an android who claimed that it had become a god, by killing its gods...”

DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!