Once Upon A Multiverse
"I can't believe this. I really fucking can't."
I have never been more serious in my entire life. By my estimation it will take approximately another case of bourbon before I can start dealing with the fact... the fact... "I can't fucking believe this."
"Yeah," she says, sarcasm dripping thick as honey and acid like my ex- girlfriend. "Powers That Be just don't reward spontaneous self- mutilation as the used to."
Bitch.
She is looking at me like she knows exactly what I'm thinking and is taking it as complement.
I can't fucking believe this.
"Listen," She says and gets up off the floor, not a crease in the immaculate business suit or a single scuff on those shoes... Those shoes did not come from S-Mart, aisle 4, Shop Smart Shop S-Mart, Check Out Our Labor Day Savings Rush! Trust me. I know shoes.
"Now that you lost that truly awe-inspiring glazed look in your eyes that positively screams `Shout in My Ear If You Want to Hear an Echo' perhaps we should try working together on this." Her lips twitch again and she looks me over like something that died in her favorite bag. "Or would you rather try to kill me again?"
Yeah, ok. I'm willing to admit that didn't work out that well. Hey! Yeah, she's hot. She's also undead. What would you do? I went after her with a fire-axe.
Shut up.
I was halfway though my emergency bourbon supplies by that point. I was thinking with perfect clarity and it seemed like a great idea at the time.
"I can't fucking believe this." I tell her and get up. (MY pants have a layer on dirt on them an inch thick, just so you know.)
"You don't say." She goes, turns around and sets off. In high heel shoes. Stepping ever so delicately on your random skeleton and charred remains of whatever it is that has six paws and two heads.
Nice legs though.
So we walk for a while. I stick behind, enjoy the view if you know what I'm saying.
So eventually... you know... So I figure, might as well try, right?
"Hey, baby..."
I don't even get to finish and I have no goddamn clue what the hell happened and where the hell the truck that hit me came from.
"Call me that again and I will introduce you my ex boss."
Riiiight. Somehow I get the feeling there is a story that I want to hear never.
Okay. All right.
Miscalculation.
Should have figured she was batting for the home team. That's cool. I'm down with it, whtchamacallit... alternative lifestyfe. Obviously she's never meat a real ma-...
Crap she's looking at me again Think PC thoughts, think PC thoughts.....
So we walk. And we walk. And we walk some more.
"Yo." I yell. "Your Majesty. When are we getting there?"
"Soon."
For a long and deeply satisfying moment I contemplate emptying a round of buckshot right in her...
Fuck, she's staring at me AGAIN. Maybe she's one of those telepathic chicks like that Frost.
I shudder quietely, and kill all my brain activity. Nobody (mostly meaning me) wants the repeat of the Emma frost incident. Which didn't happen to me. A friend told me. And I forgot what happenned. And let's talk about the weather now.
Hey, she's grinning.
Uhhh.... Hey. Maybe she changed her mind and I'm getting lucky after all. She likes me. I can tell these things.
"So what are we going up against, specifically?"
"Bad things."
"Oh yeah? Well trust me, babe, I'm the baddest thing you'll meet in these here parts. Whatcha got? Zombies? Vampires? Witches? Bring them on, honey, I'll show you how we deal with that sort of thing back home."
"Very impressive." She says. "Here you go."
So I look where she's pointing.
`Crap,' I think. And then I think, `So that's why she was grinning.' And then I think, `Crap.'
Buckshot ain't gonna do it this time, is the last thing I remember thinking before I'm airborne.
Waking up hurts like a son of a bitch.
Something is nagging at the edge of my brain. Something important. Something I should really pay attention to.
I open my eyes.
Oh yeah.
Chickfight.
So I shake off the headache. That doesn't work and instead it triples.
Typical.
"Here." And from somewhere above a bottle of scotch falls in my lap. I gotta say this has been by far my best-lubricated adventure. I kill the cork and apply the medicine. Meanwhile the chick in the black dress is kicking my girl's butt five ways from Sunday. I watch for a couple of minutes before, very carefully, turning my head toward the Blessed Source of Holy Booze.
Whatta...
"The eighties are over man."
He scowls at me and takes back the booze. Damn.
"Who are you?" I try again.
"Spike."
Oh, wonderful. I'm trapped in a Hell dimension with a GothPunk. I don't fucking believe this.
"Call me Ash." I tell him.
"I'm a vampire." He goes.
Fuck.
"With a soul."
Oh.
"I'm the cool one. Don't confuse me with Peaches, or I'll rip your legs off."
Uh-huh...
"That's my ex, slapping your bird around out there." Lights a cigarette and doesn't even offer to share, the asshole. "Dru is really in top form these days. I guess fusing with a demigod will do that to a girl."
Ummm..
I have way too much headache to think this through, so I figure to cut right to the chase.
"So do we fight?"
He looks at me a little uncertainly. "Do you want to?"
"Not really." I admit.
He nods.
We sit back, enjoy the show.
Lilah does some thing with a heel and the other chick's groin and it all look unbelivibly painful.
Me and Spike wince pretty much in unison.
Women, man.
Animals.
"So what brings you here?" Spike asks and finally offers me a cigarette. "Actually don't tell me. Lemme guess. Champion of Good and Fluffy? On a Mission to save the Multiverse?"
"Yeah." I go. "How'd you know?"
"Same deal here." He smirks as his ex punts Lilah through a building. "Sucks, don't it?"
I don't even reply, I just show him the stump where my hand used to be.
After that he tells me a story about being burned alive.
I tell him one about being split down the middle and having an evil twin.
We figure we're about even.
"So the PTBs sent you here to fight you ex?" I ask. "That's fucking cold, dude."
"Yeah. Those bastards, man. Go, fight evil demigod, and thou shalt get a second chance at life. So like a bloody fucking moron I say `All right. Brilliant. Second chance. Where do I sign?' I sign. Turns out I gotta take on my ex who is still sore about how I dumped her."
He flicks the cigarette away and look at me. I nod.
Pretty much in unison we chorus. "Fuck THAT shit!"
Then there's a big explosion and some freaky helicopter thing lands right on Druscilla.
"Hey guys. Mind if we join you?" So, yeah, I turn around and there're these two jokers. One a kid, that's obviously trying his best to grow a manly beard and the other... well, you know those bodybuilders that go a little overboard with testosterone treatments? Yeah. No. This was worse. I felt my inner child scream piteously and faint dead away.
"Connor." The kid says. "And this is ... umm..."
"Tex." The Man-Mountain says. Or at least it sounded like Tex. He looked like something that Texas would produce in any case.
Spike was looking at him strangely. "Hey, mate. You wouldn't happen to be a demon cyborg with a uranium core in the middle of your chest, would you?"
"No."
Spike sighed, clearly relieved. "Oh good. Thought you smelled familiar for a second."
"Yeah." The kid sits down, steals my bourbon and makes himself at home. "No demon. Just regular cyborg."
I looked at Spike. Spike looked back at me, his eyes shining with deep commitment not to ask for clarification. They might actually answer.
Seemed like a good way to go.
"So, lemme guess." I point at the redhead who was very energetically machine-gunning Druscilla and dropping napalm on her Legions of the Evil Minions, while Lilah was determinedly and rather successfully detaching a cannon from the helicopter thing. "Your nearest and dearest?"
"Yeah, we're kinda engaged." He admits modestly. "Way to go, sweetheart!"
`Sweetheart' waved back at him absently and made three blocks disappear in a mashroom cloud.
"You're a lucky bloke." Spike commended him.
"Yeah." I nodded. "Congrats."
"Thank you."
Next thing I know there this ton of bats flapping around and I can't see a damn thing.
"Shay, chapsh. Wouldn't happen to have a bottle to share witsh an old and only reshently reshurected hunter, would you?"