Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Dimensional Travel

Orange unvanished at the foot of a towering mountain. It was close to sunset, and menacingly fluffy clouds loomed in the orange distance, threatening that a hard rain was soon going to fall. More immediately threatening were the three enormous birds hovering far above Orange but descending too quickly for comfort. They had long, spiked tails, fierce beaks, and wingspans large enough to fry an egg on. ...Or maybe that was the wrong metaphor. In any case, Orange knew he had to escape, or his figurative goose would be figuratively deep-fried.

"Over here," yelled a voice. Orange looked to where it came from and saw a man standing on a path that led round the mountain. He had a prankish grin on his face, and he carried two umbrellas for no apparent reason. Orange ran towards him, because anything was better than those giant birds.

"Looks like you've got a bad case of cliff racers, son."
"Is that what those awful bird-like monstrosities are?"
"Yep. You're lucky today though. When they migrate every week, the flocks of them create solar eclipses."
"Wow...so, um, how do we actually escape them? Because it looks like they're following us."
"Well, cliff racers are the slowest animal living when they're not flying, so we can pretty much just casually walk up this mountain trail and they won't catch us. I know a village at the top where we can stay until they get bored and fly away."
"Sounds good. I'm Orange, by the way. Who are you?"
"Hmm, that's a familiar question...I'm Keenan Mo'otha."

So Keenan led Orange up the long, winding road, until they neared the top and started to see cave-like houses carved into the rock.

"These people live in caves?" scoffed Orange. "How primitive." At that moment, a rock hit him in the back of the head, as if to illustrate how primitive the fighting style of this culture was as well. Orange turned to glare at the rock-thrower and saw a short, plump man whose head was illuminated by what appeared to be tribal war paint.

"You don't like our rock buildings? Then get out, foreigner! We don't like the likes of you in Detroit, anyway."

Keenan hurriedly burst in "My ignorant friend here was just...joking. We love all the fine people of Detroit, and we need someplace to say for a couple of hours to get a few cliff racers off our tail."

"All right, I guess we've got an empty cave. But...I still don't trust strutters like you. I've got my eye on you...SCUM."

Orange and Keenan walked through the village as the fat man led them to their place for the night. Everyone they passed seemed to be wearing variants on the same war paint, and it was familiar. Hauntingly familiar...

Kenkon seemed to weigh more then usual. normally Afro could have walked a mile to where the giant explosion occurred with no big deal but being teleported takes a ton out of you (mostly just potential energy) although all of his efforts had not gone to waste he had reached the place where the explosion had sounded.

Many trees were charred; bits of charcoal littered the area and Briefcase Man and Chair were pinned under a fallen tree. The tank was also was there but it was everywhere now as it had exploded.

Afro walked over to Briefcase Man and Chair and lifted the off them and threw it into another tree. both trees died upon impact. Briefcase Man was awake but Chair looked unconscious.

"What happened? Are you alright?" Afro asked Briefcase Man genuinely.

"No," he responded, "My birds dead and my briefcase holding arm is broke."

"What about Chair?"

"i think she's alright. i checked her earlier, she's just unconscious although i'm fairly sure her leg's broken."

"So what happened here?"

"That happened." Briefcase Man spoke grimly and pointed behind Afro. A large half mechanized dinosaur was lying dead over a few trees it must have been about six stories tall when it was upright. "some kid started yelling at me about field bonuses and suddenly placed some card on a 'Duel Disk' and threw a card at it which he called 'Mecha-Gigasuar' then this giant dinosaur appeared from no where and attacked us, i had to fire a shell at it from point blank to kill it but it hit us too, were pretty damn lucky to have survived. i think the kid wanted something called star chips from me but what the hell are those?"

"Damn it, i read about this land in my five hundred years of training. this is Duelist Kingdom." Afro said gravely

"What the hell is that?" Asked Briefcase Man.

"There is a tournament that has lasted over one thousand years where the objective is to collect 20 'star chips' to get into the final round, but no one has ever got that many before being beaten... or stabbed. what happened to that kid anyways?"

"Oh, he's over there." Briefcase man pointed to a boy that had crazy hair in a triangle formation with a box under it, he was completely blackened but a small disk was on his arm with seven star chips.

"Alright well i've got nothing else to do but join up in the tournament to pass some time, lets camp here for the night but hopefully we can meet up with Orange and Ghosty later, i bet they couldn't pass up a challenge like this and we'll most likely see them in the tournament later if we do well."

Afro set up a small tent out of Kenkon and some branches in the charred remains of the patch of un-forest. He treated Briefcase Man and Chair's wounds, put them to bed and took the first watch. it was going to be a long night.

Ghosty Ghost was indeed still a ghost. He was happy that being teleported did not make ghosts disappear, contrary to popular academic thought. Having proved his college thesis, Ghosty Ghost was so happy he forgot to look around and realize he wasn't in Harmonix anymore.

After partying for a few days, Ghosty Ghost finally looked around to see where he was. It was essentially a blank void, with some uninteresting ground on the...ground. The only thing in sight was what looked like another ghost. As usual in Ghosty Ghost's life, the closer he got to him, the farther he moved away. After pondering how deep he was, he gave up on reaching the ghost and turned around to go in the opposite direction...and he saw another ghost.

"DAMNIT" Ghosty Ghost said as he started running towards the next ghost, with similar results. Since Ghosty Ghost was an in theory an astro-physicist, he hyothesized that he was in fact seeing a light refracting white hole, occupying zero space in the 3 dimensional world. "Luckily, Ghosty Ghost wrote the paper on these non-existant holes, and therefore invented the way to KILL THEM!!!!

Remembering that the only way to kill a white hole was to outsmart it, Ghosty Ghost tried beating it in invisible chess, stratego, risk and yahtzee. The white hole seemed unwilling to die however, so Ghosty Ghost used his last and most powerful resource, and started playing invisible monopoly. The white hole finally vanished, along with the fake Ghosty Ghost, replaced by a door, a very closed door, which was subsequently opened by Ghosty Ghost. Walking through, Ghosty Ghost looked back and realized he had escaped a giant building labeled "Ghosty Ghost's Imagined Academic Records".

Little did he realize (since he wouldn't accept that he didn't graduate college) that he was in fact trapped inside HIS OWN MIND!!!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?! One thing he did know however is that his former dead wife, who was now alive, but had amnesia was in here, but also having amnesia, he forgot who she was and why he was afraid. Whether his conscious mind knew it or not, this was not the kind Chair he knew back in reality, this was the psychopathic murderer spy that Ghosty Ghost imagined her to be in his delusional paranoid mind...or was it?...yeah, it probably was...

Orange was full of questions. Why was this primitive village made of stones named Detroit? What was the significance of the war paint? Why had the sellout coalition sent him to this mountain? And where the hell could he get some more poptarts?

However, he had to stifle each of those questions as they triggered and was able to fall into an uneasy sleep on the filthy floor of the small cave he was sharing with Keenan Mo'otha.

A few hours later, Orange was awoken by ominous ululations from outside the cave. The chanting became even more ominous when he realized that the chanters were talking about murdering him.

"KILL INTRUDERS, SACRIFICE SOJOURNERS!" they bellowed from outside and getting closer. Orange shook Keenan.

"WAKE UP!"
"Huh? ...is the car in the pool again? I'm telling you, that wasn't me..."
"What? No, there are people planning to KILL US!"
"Oh...I was afraid this would happen."
"You knew they were going to try to murder us?!"
"Well, they do have a long history of sacrificing anyone who stays in their town...I just thought they might have turned over a new leaf."
"..."

At that moment, the first of the villagers came bursting into the cave, holding a torch aloft in one hand and a large rock in the other. "MAN I wish I had my tank" thought Orange. He looked behind him and saw the cave wall standing, as unmovable as cave walls tend to be; he looked in front of him and saw hordes of facepainted citizens of Detroit, wielding rocks and torches and the occasional pitchfork when they wanted to seem trendy and hip.

"Guess we've got no choice but to surrender," muttered Keenan defeatedly.

"But we can't give ourselves away to them that easily!"
"You got any answers to an army of people with rocks?"
"No..."

And so the two were led to the center of Detroit and led onto a stone platform in the middle. It seemed like everyone from the town was there to witness the sacrifice; the crowds stretched out for hundreds of feet in every direction. There was an ominous tension in the air, like everything was about to be revealed...

Afro woke up in the nice safe comfort a small sheet of blanket he had made into a makeshift tent with Kenkon's help. he checked himself for the various nick-knacks he had collected throughout his journeys to see if those things had been separated from him in the night. His alcohol flasks had. Chair had still not waken up, and Briefcase Man was most likely on watch currently.

Afro got up slowly and walked outside the tent Briefcase Man was in a complete drunken stupor; Most likely from the four flasks of vodka Afro carried with him for emergencies. he was crouched over his dead charred bird who tragically died the day before.

"Why the hell did you go through my things?" Afro asked grimly.

"ey hato si i chou my brrzii" Briefcase Man said which roughly translates to "i had to see if you had my birdie." "Ey mush ih og mmo useeee...." or in english: "i miss him so much"

Afro sighed and patted him on the back.

"its alright, im sure you'll find another one. somewhere. like in a pet store or something."

Briefcase Man looked up to Afro from the newly charcoal bird.

"Chou 'eally meean it?" (you really mean it?)

"ya, but its not like i care to much. lets go, stop waisting my time. and my alcohol."

Afro un-tented the tent and slung Kenkon, The Axe-Naginata of Egypt across his back. and then the unconscious Chair over his shoulder. he packed his now empty flask holding pockets with unburned Clock flavored Pop-Tarts.

"Right then, lets be off."

Afro started at a quick pace, more or less ignoring the path that said: Civilization, 1 mile with a sign pointing to a brick path he had not noticed in the night and Briefcase Man who was just as drunk as before the tent was taken down. Along the way Briefcase Man spent his time with a needle and some string making a backpack out of his dead bird since what else are dead birds good for. Since the skill of walking, being drunk and sewing is one not easily achieved the end result was one a three year old with a hammer and some crazy glue could have been proud of. He began putting leaves in his his new Bird-pack and Afro decided it was best to leave him to his own reasoning instead of asking what the hell he was doing.

The mighty heros continued down the "path" they were traveling on and four bandit attacks on four separate bridges later they had reached a cave on the side of a cliff filled with darkness, and rocks. Instead of going through the cave Afro decided (because there was no one to ague with him) to go over the mountain instead of through it. though he later overturned the idea because Briefcase man kept throwing his backpack off into the air yelling "FLY FREE!" and when his bird-backpack hit the ground he had to climb back down the cliffside to retrieve it.

So when they entered the dark cave (which coincidentally it was named Dark Cave) they were greeted by an old woman with wild hair, a hunch and a tattered jacket.

"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the
beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short...
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the
beast for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and
sixty six!" shouted the old nutty woman.

"good. i already knew that. leave me alone. and stop quoting Number of the Beast, i actually like that song," Afro replied.

"A dark future unfolds for you young one," She cackled which turned into a cough. "There will be a choice in your future, a choice of great consequences, great consequences indeed."

"A choice? you mean like murdering you and then getting away with it and leaving you here or murdering you anyways and not murdering you? besides whats with 'young one' im pretty freaking old at this point."

"No"

"No? what the hell do you mean, no?"

"you will learn soon" she burst into laughter again.

"Alright. thats it, your dead!" Afro shook off Chair onto Briefcase Man pulled out Kenkon and slashed through the old crazy woman. As she was slashed she turned to dust which flew away as a dark cloud into the cave. the voice of her laughter was still audible as she left.

Afro turned to to Briefcase man who had collapsed under Chair's weight.

"You know what i hate? magic people. Know why? THEY DONT GOD DAMN DIE!"

Afro stormed down into the mouth of the cave following the echoing laughter in the distance. Briefcase Man followed much quicker now that there weren't trees in the way and he wasn't sewing a backpack made from his beloved ex-bird.

Exploring the deep recesses of his mind, Ghosty Ghost came upon a building labelled "Exit Here". Not thinking about how the entrance to a building could be an exit, Ghosty Ghost strolled inside. Inside was a vacant warehouse, the kind of place a sellout pop-rock band would play a music video in. Ghosty Ghost was starting to think this wasn't an exit building (the only door was the entrance, which was now ironically the exit), but as he started to leave he heard a cackling laugh.

"hahahaha, just as planned you went to the building I labelled as the Exit! Same old Hernard." said the voice standing right in front of him.

"Hey, a woman! I wasn't aware this universe had any of those!" (there have actually been no women introduced in this series technically). "Sweet, do you wanna read the screenplay I wrote called "Clocks 2: Revenge of the Roman Space Aliens and the quest for the miniaturized Big Ben?" pleaded Ghosty Ghost.

"No damnit, I still don't want to read your screenplays!" replied a lady who looked like Chair without the ninja gear or decapitations.

"Awww, no one cares about my creative genius...did you know I am the greatest artist in Harmonix City? I have been since the great art massacre of Harmonix City!" awesomed Ghosty Ghost.

"Oh my god, haven't you picked up on my cryptic hints about me knowing you in the past yet?" replied Chair lookalike woman.

"...are you aware of my various scientific achievements in the fields of physics and thermodynamics? I even co-wrote a journal with David Grohl!"

"FINE! I was once your wife before you tried to kill me because you had delusions and thought I was a secret agent even though I was, and then watched me die at the hands of Behemoth!" Replied Hernard's Wife.

"Oh, so my Chair was right all along (see flashback chapter)! But you're dead sooooo...you can't read my screenplay..." Ghosted Ghosty Ghost.

"I am a figment of your memory, and you are in your mind right now. How you failed to realize that is beyond me...but now you need to DIE!!!!!" shouted the shouting lady who was supposedly Ghosty Ghost's wife from the past.

"Wait, I'm pretty sure you can't kill a mental manifestation of me inside my own head...I can show you the paper I wrote on it if you come to the Science building in my head..." Said Dr. Ghost.

"Wait, what? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" Said the disappearing lady as she was no longer apparent.

Just then Ghosty Ghost woke up from his mental adventure and grumbled "I remember everything now...implications will follow..."

It was the worst experience Orange had ever had with face paint since the face artist at his monastery's Kultist Kiddie Karnival had painted a pink unicorn on him instead of a dragon. He quivered in terror as he and Keenan Mo'otha lay on the stone platform, surrounded by hideous, face-painted villagers. "KILL INTRUDERS, SACRIFICE SOJOURNERS!" they chanted, growing slowly louder and more aggressive as the circle closed around them. Keenan somehow was still holding his umbrellas. The shortest, fattest, and ugliest of the painted men stepped forward. He was inexplicably the leader.

"For 100,000 years, my people have been without their saviors. They left without warning or explanation, the day after a party of adventurers much like you two passed through here. Since then, we have sacrificed every traveler who has happened upon our stone city of Detroit, hoping that one day, our saviors would return. We have neared our goal of 63478383 sacrifices, one for every hair on the party of adventurers who drove our gods away and left us alone and desolate, and the two of you complete the number exactly! Now...you will see death as our tribe sees...what are you doing?! Don't you realize you're about to die?!"

Keenan was lazily twirling his twin umbrellas in the air, ignoring the longwinded speech of the tribal chief.

"We are? Well, I'm afraid I can't let that happen. You see, if I died, I would stop collecting royalty checks. And if I stopped collecting royalty checks, I wouldn't be able to buy any more cars to drive into pools or bass drums to detonate, so...BY THE POWER OF THE ROLL OF THUNDER AND THROUGH THE STRENGTH OF MY GENERATION, MY TRUE NAME IS KEITH MOON!"

In a single unbelievably fast motion, Keith leapt up, shook his umbrellas, sending the cloth coverings flying right into the chest of the leader, sending him collapsing to the ground like a goat with an extra leg made out of dancing squirrels. The other spun in a rapid circle, sending out a shockwave that sent the closest cultists spinning backwards and rippled throughout the crowd, sending the farthest ones spiraling over the mountain ledge like a cascade of lemmings.

The melee that followed was brutal, and Orange could only watch and grimace as sticks scalped citizens, Bo Diddley beats were bashed out on villagers' backs, and the 64th note roll...Orange would never speak of that. When all was said and done, Keith stood victorious over hundreds of broken, beaten, and scarred face-painted marauders, but one of the few survivors was crawling up behind Keith, holding a crude but sharp stone knife. Orange yelled out a warning, but Keith spun a second too late and...

-the knife sliced rapidly through his chest, knocking him back down onto the stone platform
-a thunderbolt shattered the night sky, sending echoes louder than a supernova across the mountainside
-in a cave somewhere in the undecimated section of Detroit, Smithman Quenticoat, lone archeologist, exclaimed "Well, screw me with a sasquatch! I guess it was 63478382 all along!"
-the clouds parted and KISS emerged, returning at last to the people they had scorned for 100,000 years
-those people were 99.6% dead. sucks to be them.

in a different dimension in a dumb stupid cave stood Afro contemplating which way he should procede.

"alright, Briefcase Man. Im thinking of a number between one and two" Afro supposed

"One?" Briefcase Man guessed.

"Alright, left it is."

"We've been been taking every left for the past mile or so, and i think i've seen that 'Go Right' sign about ten times now."

"Its a good thing your not leader then, if you were leader we would really be lost. i know exactly where i am, im just giving our opponent the hint that we are lost by asking you questions and then doing what i feel like anyways. Hey look! another fork! Im thinking of red or yellow now, Chair what do you think?"

"mhmmm.... uhhhhh....." Chair groaned, she was barely half conscious and still being carried by Briefcase Man.

"Hmmm, yellow? Right then! Left it is,"

This time the passage opened up into a large hallway about twenty meters high and ten meters across. in the middle of the room there was a massive game bord looking thing. the evil woman was on the other side of the game bord on a tower overlooking the game board with ten spaces on each side.

"See, told you we got them." Afro boasted confidently

"by trusting your instincts you were met with success but in this game you will be bombarded with stress."

"what? think i cant beat you? whats your challenge old woman!"

"i am challenging you to a shadow game!!!! get on to the tower and then i will explain the rules."

Afro did so and there was a deck waiting on a tiled board that matched the games playing field.

"Alright what are the rules?"

"Huh? there are rules to this game?" the old woman put down a card onto the board. "I summon Extremely Disgruntled Celtic Guardian!!"

A very disgruntled Celt appeared on the field.

"oh i see a card game..." Afro thought out loud. he drew his hand and overlooked it. What do you do with these purply cards?" Afro asked the old woman.

"Play them face down under the creatures!" she yelled back.

"hmm ok then, XYZ Dragon goes under traps.... umm ok, ill play this then! I SUMMON MY MOTO-PSYCHO!! and his activated ability lets him run over any Celt's legs on the field, so i will target your Extremely Disgruntled Celtic Guardian!!!!"

The Moto-Psycho proceded to do that and the Extremely Disgruntled Celtic Guardian became more disgruntled if possible.

"And then i end my turn" Afro finished.

"Good you have learned well, but i am the master i have never lost!" the woman uncloaked herself. "I AM THE GREAT TEYA OF YUGI MOTO!!!! PREPARE TO DIE BY FRIENDSHIP!!!!!!!" She yelled in a horribly shrill manner. "I play: The Power of Friendship! its activated ability brings you down to one life point and if you play any creatures for the rest of the game you die!"

"What the hell thats broken, who the hell invented this game?"

"Well you see, they had to out power the first two sets by making cards better and better if they wanted to sell them. now its your turn, oh and also by saying 'Now its your turn' get to remove any creature from the game, so im picking Moto-Psycho."

"Fine well then i draw..." Afro observed his hand it was absolute crap, "and now i draw a few more as said by my decks activated ability when i have no good cards in my hand!" he looked over his new hand. "good, exactly what i need to win. I play Super Polymerization! i discard my entire hand to summon... MYSELF TO THE BOARD!!!!!!!!!!"

"AHAHAHHA, you loose in response to that because you play a creature you fool!"

"HA Stupid friendship lady, you're forgetting that i am now a creature and cannot lose the game because im no longer a player!!!!!! SO I USE MY OWN SPECIAL ATTACK TO ATTACK YOU DIRECTLY AND BECAUSE IM PLAYING BY THE RULES I HAVE 10,000 ATTACK POINTS THIS TURN!!!!!!!!!!"

Afro slashed through the game tower on the opposite side destroying the entire arena but it also slashed a hole through the universe itself. the void grew quickly and sucked the world around it including everything. Afro opened his eyes he was in a cell room. Briefcase Man and Chair were with him. and nearby Ghosty was awake in the cell. "what the hell took you so long. well at least your not as slow as Orange, jeeze, why am i so good at defeating mind universes."

Ghosty Ghost was planning. Not just any type of planning, secret planning. The kind of planning that would allow him to say just as planned whenever something happened. But he couldn't let onto the others that he was thinking, as that would reveal part Q of sub-section III of his plan.

As Ghosty Ghost thought about how he could think secretly, the group had already left the vacant void, making it even more vacant and lonely. Deciding they had to find Orange, they kept walking through the forest, though not really knowing where they were, until they came upon a sign. The sign read "You are in the forest of death, you will die, and ninjas will most likely attack you..." The group then had to look at the next sign right near it to finish the message "...RIGHT NOW!"

Just then, a sinister shadow lept from the bushes. It was a goat with a mask on, and on his belly in paint it read "Shadow Ninja Goat, 2300 ATK, 100 DEF"

"OH NO, what could those words on his side mean!?!?!?" Yelled Chair

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know!" Replied Ghosty Ghost who started attacking Chair (Codename Raven bushel, part A of sub-section 1A of his plan).

"YEAH MOSH PIT!" Afro said as he jumped on Suitcase Man.

Shadow Ninja Goat continued to stare at the enemy, and use his special ability: CHEW GRASS!.

After a long and drawn out skirmish, everyone was tired except Shadw Ninja Goat, who was quite well rested. Suitcase man had lost a leg and had to replace it with a sword...that was on fire. Chair was missing part of her soul, after Ghosty Ghost used his patented SOUL SQUANDER technique.

At this point, Shadow Ninja Goat disappeared into...the shadows, having accomplished his secret goal of eating some tasty grass.

( (note: 22 days after last chapter))

As the clouds broke apart like cookies, crumbling into dozens of delicious fragments, KISS emerged, with demonic laughs that rang with cash, horrid smiles, and thickly coated layers of face paint that made the decorations of the villagers seem only mildly vulgar by comparison.

"You shall perish beneath the weight of our pseudo-hard rock!"

Orange sighed. "Come on, I just fought one rich, egotistical sellout band...do i really need to face another? It won't even be any fun without the tank..."

"You can avoid battle with us only under one condition - you pay us our royalites!"

"What are those?"

"You make us royalty! Obviously."

"Actually, I was a music priest in a past life...what if I crown you the immortal kings of all rock past and future? Will you leave me alone and teleport me back to my own dimension?"

"Sure thing!"

"Okay, I can't see any possible repercussions to doing that...Now you are kings!"

And KISS returned into the nameless void from whence they had arrived, newly triumphant in their status as champions of the musical universe. Orange woke up on the forest floor, with Ghosty, Briefcase Man of the Flaming Sword Leg (as he had been crowned by a handy traveling monarch), Afro and Chair all standing over him impatiently.

"Took you long enough."
"Hey, defeating that universe was tricky, it was full of demons. In fact, you could call it a demon-sion..."

After they had finished punching Orange, the conglomerate of heroes gathered to decide where they would go next.

"The sellout armada is still somewhere out there," marked Orange. "We should probably do something about that."

"Nah," said Afro. "I feel like looting. We haven't gotten any sweet items since that flaming sword, and we only got that by robbing an orphanage."

"Hey guys," Chair volunteered, "I hear Gold Mine City is a few miles to the southwest. That sounds like it could have some valuables."

"Wait, how did you hear that?" pondered Ghosty Ghost. "All I heard was Afro talking and my soul dying a slow, painful death."

"I mean...I knew it...from my past sojourns in this region"

"Didn't we just get transported here?"

"WHATEVER" interluded Afro. "Debating logic is a 0 on the MMS. Let's go destroy some infrastructure!"

"But guys, the sellout armada is still somewhere out there," remarked Orange. He was met with vacant stares conveying the apathy of a thousand toucans being taught how to type. "Alright, nevermind...it's looting time. Time to take what's theirs...and make it mine. GOLD MINE."