Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: The Note/Journey Island

Unforutnatly for the great band of heroes* this teleporter did not teleport through space, it teleported the users through time itself.

*Heros: Ghosty Ghost, Afro, The metal prophet, Orange

Six months later.

“AUGHGHGUGUHGHGUGHGHGUGHJMESHUGGAHHHHHHDJENTDJENTDJENTYYYYY!!!!” yelled the heroes as every fiber was bended through and out the forth dimension. (Which happens to be time, and not a bendy cube the Unspoken Greatfather Zach* once spoke about)

*Unspoken Greatfater Zach: this person has not been mentioned as of yet in the story, but has influenced the world surrounding the heroes. Also of note, he wants to nuke the sun, and or thinks your favorite genre of music should actually be reclassified as EMO because it has emotions in it.

Ghosty, Afro, and Orange gasped for air having almost been torn apart from sheer suck from the powers of the fourth dimention.

“GOD WE’RE FINALLY OUT!!!” Yelled Orange with his lungs, which had not be properly appreciated for the last six months.

“Wasn’t that bad,” Ghosty sniffed, “Channel 185 in the forth dimension was completely devoted to playing nothing but the original 1990s spider man series. So after watching that six months just flew by. But my legs are really sore after that.”

“You don’t have legs Ghosty” Commented Orange.

“So you know of…” Ghosty said in a bored way. It had been almost 20 seconds already and Ghosty had not seen spider man being knocked over. Secretly he regretted leaving the fourth dimension.

“Wow, I can honestly say that was the worst vacation from writing ever” said Afro

“How so?” asked Orange, “And what writing?”

“I don’t know, I just feel like… “ Afro turned around with dramatic and emotional pause, “like no one reminded me to do this really small essay the entire time in these last six months and then nothing got done, but then I heard ‘ , you gotta update Sparkplugs! We need to finish the bank robbery arc!’ so I wrote it. But I don’t remember writing anything before I entered the space-portal-thing. And who the hell is ??!?!”

“More importantly, why should I care?” Ghosty asked.

“More, more importantly, why were we here again?” Orange asked, “I’ve completely forgotten why I’m here now.”

“Well,” Ghosty started to say, but then got cut off by a comma, quote, space and his own name. “I think we were trying to rob a bank, but then Briefcase man sort of betrayed us but then we escaped and now were back in this room just six months later.”

“Sure, I’ll go with that, that sounds like something that would happen to us” Afro nodded approvingly

“Where is Briefcase man any ways?” Orange spoke up

They looked around the room. The gold tank was still in the room; it looked like the doorway had stopped it, which was almost a quarter of the size of the tank. All of the gold was gone and there was a little note in the middle of the room.

“Note equals plot, plot equals killing people” Afro said as he contemplated the existence of the note

“So are you saying that the note kills people Afro?” Orange asked

Upon realizing the magnitude of this discovery Afro ran over, picked up the piece of paper.

(Zelda chest music)

You’ve found the: [Note Paper]

Both Orange and Ghosty stared at Afro. “Just read it.” They said in unison.

“Ok the note says” Afro then breathed in epicly attempting to read this message all in one go, “DearAfro,Orange,andThatOtherGuy.OnceUponATime,IWasPartOfYourParty.ButThatChangedAfterIRealizedICouldBeRicherThenDaveGrohlByStealingAllOfYourGold.AfterStartingToWriteThis…. AHHHHHHHHHHHH OUHHHHHHHHHHH” Afro Breathed, “ButThenIRealizedThatICouldBeKingOfTheWorldByUnitingTheRestOfTheSelloutBandsIntoOneHugeSelloutBandByMakingThemSellOutToMe.SoThenIFormedTheBandWhichIAmNowSingerOf.ButICantFigureOutANameForItSoYou’llHaveToWaitForAnother AHHHHHHHHHHHHH OUHHHHHHHHHHHH” Afro Gasped, “NoteInTheFutureOrUntillWeMeetAgainOrSomethingLikeThat.WeMightEvenHaveAReuninonLaterAndRemeberTheGoodOldDaysWithChair.SpeakingOfChair,IWonderWhereSheWent?IMeanIHaveNeverSeenAnotherWomanYetOtherThenHer.SerioiuslyWhereDoWeComeFromIfThereAreNoWomen??!?!WithLove(NotReally),BriefcaseManP.S.SorryAboutNotKeepingItBrief!!!!!GetIt,IHopeYouDid.

Afro then collapsed due to lack of oxygen.

“I could have done that all in one breath,” Said Ghosty.

“You don’t have lungs,” Orange commented.

“So you know of…”

“So where are we going now? I guess we should go back to the surface although the tank is blocking the way.”

“Luckily I’m a ghost and I don’t care about you so I can leave you to die. Sucks 4 U. Bye” And Ghosty left going upwards

“DAMN IT GHOSTY” Orange yelled up at the ceiling

“Don’t yell at me I’m sensitive,” The ceiling would have said if it could talk.

Instead it just collapsed out of sheer depression. A large chunk of ceiling liver fell on Afro an woke him up.

“Damn it, Damn It. DAMN IT” Afro yelled at the ceiling who then gave up at collapsing and just stood there like a good ceiling should. Sunlight beamed in from the outside; apparently they were only about three feet below ground level. Ghosty hovered above where the ceiling/ground used to be and would have fallen to his re-death if he had not the ability to float in mid air. Nerf float is OP. hearing this cry of Nerfdom, Blizzard responded by giving Orange and Afro this one time use to perform the skill float to leave the empty vault and get on to the surface, which they happily took along with 20 gamer points for unlocking the achievement “U Suck, Re-roll 2 Un-Life”

So there they were, standing. In unison. Upon the earth. With not much information to go on. Which only meant for one thing; to find a side quest while they search for more information about Briefcase Man and his new band and empire.

As the group watched as the sun set, a man sat in the bushes, watching...waiting. All had gone according to plans, he was totally prepared to accomplish his really important goal, which made complete sense. His trap was set, the time travel paradox was sprung, the world had been plunged into golden darkness, everything was perfect. As Aizen admired his plan and his wavy brown hair, he got yper-cancer (my computer has decided the spelling of this) and died. From that day on, the -4$th of Rlothlessenb(which is the third month of the tri-calendar decade) would be yper-cancer awareness day. From then on the death rate of yper-cancer would go from 305% down to 100%, all thanks to the noble Aizen and his grand plan to help charity.

The group, completely unaware of this occurence, moved onto a local town to check if there was some sort of billboard that contained jobs, since that is the way the techno-medieval economy worked. The town didn't have anyone in it except a shopkeeper that never moved, a woman who had rats in her house, the head of the assassin death squad guild and guards. The street was riddled with corpses, that strangely had no money or items except clothing, except one man who had 14,000 bear pelts and a note saying "plz don't take, need for assassin death squad guild, weight too much, thx". Since n one in the group required bear pelts they moved onto the guildhouse, but were quickly sent away when the headmaster realized the group couldn't even pay attention to orders long enough to fill out an application, and instead killed the official guild cat.

When they finally came to the billboard, they realized that no one in their squad had the "read printed text" skill, despite Orange having the ability to read many things, just not the nutritional contents of poptarts, then a giant CAN'T READ, GLASSES REQUIRED text appeared in the air above the team. Giving up, they decided to talk to the rat lady.

The rat lady seemed to be homeless, despite having rats in her basement. Ghosty Ghost began to theorize how this was possible and began to co-write an academic essay on the subject with Dave Grohl, who was now both dead and with the team simultaneosly, since n one wanted to check the crate they put him in. When they arrived at the alleged "basement" which was allegedly "below the first floor" said the crazy woman, who did in fact have a house and stable family life along with a high paying job that didn't force her to work weekends. The woman used a key t open her basement, then said "I haven't opened this basement since the rats invaded, damn capitalists". The group nodded, fearing the creation of a dialogue tree.

The group walked down the steps cautiously (which is also how they walk down every hallway). Upon reaching the bottom the door slammed behind them and a mad cackle was heard by the team, while the ground was stood upon by them. They adjusted their eyes and realized that they were not in a basement, but a dungeon, with a bridge, and cobras having sex.

"GOD DAMMIT" Afro proclaimed thusly. "You lied to us woman, this totally represents my love life with that girl, who I think was named Boatface!"

"The rats were a metaphor for life, and the basement was a metaphor for dungeon" The woman shouted frm behind the super invincible door, which was coated by darkmatter destructoid rocks. "I didn't lie to you, you just didn't read closely!"

While the cobras were coitally distracted, the heroes snuck by, trying to escape the dungeon as swiftly as possible. Unfortunately, every path they took seemed to lead back in a loop to the same room with the same by-this-point-very-satisfied cobras. At last, after hours of transit, they heard a voice behind them yelling "YU INUITS! TAT'S NOT THE WRIGGHT WAYE!"

It was...the shopkeeper!

After his brief lapse of chaotically typoed English due to an imbalance in his immocardersian node, he addressed the group in formal, proper Vangelessian, which was an obscure pidgin of an obscure ancient seafaring language. Fortunately, the heroes had thought ahead and were proficient in Vangelessian, along with English, draconian, and yodeling.

"You've got to help me! The woman who trapped you down here is in league with Boatface and the death guild, and they're creating a conspiracy to shut down the world markets and replace it with a barter system involving only bear pelts, elevating them near-instantly to the conspicuous consumption class!"

"Godamnit!" yelled Afro. "I KNEW we should have picked up those 14000 bear pelts!"

"You must help me stop them!" beseeched the shopkeeper. "I know the way out of these tunnels, but we must hurry." Shortly after concluding the sentence, his mouth exploded in flames, as did the rest of his head. The group whirled around and saw a tall man, with hands shaped like fireballs and a body writhing in flame. They knew instantly it must be...Fire Man (played by Mick Jagger in movie adaptation of Why is it Always Sparkplugs).

"NEED ALIGHT?" asked Fire Man, hurling a wave of fiery arrows at the protagonists.

Orange ducked the volley, while Afro crushed the flames with his fist and Ghosty Ghost simply unexisted, then reexisted, in a momentary blink that spared him the arrow assault.

"LOOKS LIKE I BETTER TURN UP THE HEAT" bellowed Fire Man, and a ring of flames burst out in all directions (which incidentally killed the innocent cobras, when all they wanted to do was have sex, though as Fire Man would say, at least they had a hot date). Orange realized he was immune to flames because all the poptarts had given his body a convenient external asbestos layer, Afro leaped over the flames one by one using skills honed in medieval video games, like Fuzione Frenzye, and Ghosty Ghost engaged in a philosophical argument with the fire to prove it didn't exist.

From that point, the battle was simple, and the hardest part was enduring Fire Man's horrendous banter (all 3 afterwards agreed that the low point was the line "Do you like plants? Because here comes an IN-FERN-O!" ) "I don't like the Daaaaaark!" mourned Fire Man as the trio destroyed him and cast him under the bridge into the shadows.

"He must have been in league with the guild/rat lady conspiracy" mused Orange. "Maybe we should try to escape here and do something about that." Ghosty Ghost was in strong agreement, provided 'do something' meant stock up on bear pelts and bear pelt futures. Fortunately, the shopkeeper had been right - they were going the wrong way(e). As soon as they turned around and started walking in the reverse order that they had started in, the exit back in to rat-lady's house became clear. They continued through the dungeon until they reached the final room.

All of a sudden, an ominous music burst out of the surrounding walls. None of them recognized the style, but they could hear one word clearly....WARRRRRRRR

But due to the lack of school in this world as children all three of the heros played lots of video games. So when they heard "WARRRRRRRR" they instantly knew what to do.

"DUCK AND RUN!" Afro yelled into Orange's ear so he would make sure to hear it and then threw him across the room behind a table for safety purposes just in case his legs weren't working.

Then suddenly Afro and Ghosty were surrounded by skeletal horses, rhino/bull things and people who had equipped bombs to their hand (which was secretly a new style that was trending)
but sadly due to the fact that Afro Ghosty and Orange had never used any of their Cannon ammo yet they dispatched the foes without much trouble but sadly the dead ghoasts of the dead enemies complained on the forums that Cannons were broken so Blizzard nerfed them by removing them from the universe. Also in patch 8.2467 they added carnivore bunnies that could fly and could shoot doughnuts from their eyes, and Mutalisks' speed could now be upgraded for 25 gas in the spawning pool upgrade.

in the room which had not been properly observed was large statues dedicated to a mediocre 80s guitarist named The Great Kat who was most notably known for writing a song called Metal Messiah and for going to the Kerry King College of No-Note Guitar Solos. A black rug adorned the stone floor of the dungeon hall and a large throne made of bad 80s CDs and on that throne was the Rat-lady. There was also the table that was Orange was now behind, but no one was paying attention to him.

"So you have gotten past the snakes, and McJagger and Croteam's developers but little did you know this was all according to plans. For i am THE GREAT KAT!!!!"

"Oh god another bad 80s artist, what ever will we do" Ghosty sarcasm-ed "Its not like time ended the 80s its more like we ended the 80s at this point, like really is everyone we fight from the 80s REALLY COULDN'T YOU WRITE ANYTHING GOOD!!!!"

"HOW DARE YOU!!!" She yelled as dramatic lightning bolts from no where struck her full scale statues. "I AM THE REINCARNATION OF BEETHOVEN YOU SHALL WORSHIP ME AS YOUR GOD!!!!"

"Why? Beethoven sucked, he didn't even write lyrics." Ghosty

"Why would you scorn my name and then my other name from the past? YOU VILLAN! WORSHIP ME OR DIE!"

"im already dead." Ghosty pointed out.

Meanwhile...

Orange who was not really in a discombobulated state because at this point he has gotten used to Afro's version of "Saving" someone. so after checking to see if he had all of his limbs still attached he got up. That woman on the throne was yelling almost to the point of hysterics, so at this point he assumed that Ghosty was winning and then Afro would charge in, there would be some battle and then he would win or something. So he decided it was best to just find the way out while "Kat" got skinned alive (get it). but instead he found something way more important under a loose floor board, it was...

Meanwhile...

Afro was currently attempting to pull Kenkon, the axe-naginata of Egypt out of Kat's body without ruining the pelt. smiling to himself with some sadistic glee, he began to skin away.

"thats really disgusting" Ghosty said "can you even immagine how many STDs that woman had?"

"meh, i dont care, as long as this coat gives me some bonus its completely worth it. i was hoping for +5 Intellect so i can put some points into that "English Language" talent no one seems to have in fact, why do people even write if the majority of people cant even read..."

"GUYS GUYS LOOK OVER HERE!!!" Orange yelled.

"What is it Orange? I'm busy." Afro yelled back to him "Ghosty go see what he's got over there"

Ghosty shrugged and then floated over to Orange who was holding a very long piece of parchment that had extremely dense writing on it.

"look you know i cant/dont care enough to read that what is it?" Ghosty said

"On the top of the note from what i can make out," Orange paused a moment, he was struggling with the text "the title of this paper is 'Aizen's Plan'!"

Since no one in the party could read, the plan might as well have been random lines on a pice of paper, which Afro suspected. After a brainstorming session, in which the group decided to label their team "Ultra Xtreme" (but then the name ceased to exist for being two adjectives), found out that Dave Grohl was indeed dead inside the box and finally that the only person that they knew who could read was Chair, who wasn't with them because...time contrabulations said so.

After their brainstorming session they realized they were in the dungeon, so they looted the Rat Lady's (a very misleading name considering there were in fact no rats) body and found a locked box and a key. They used the key to open the box and found...a key. Everyone on the team lost 11 pragmatism points for seeing the the keybox.

Heading back to the basement door, each team member contemplated their life so far. Afro concluded that he had a positive Mp/L ratio (Metal Point to Life ratio) and was content. Orange couldn't remember his motivation for going with the team from Chapter one but felt better when he found a scarf of choking, them felt worse when it choked him. Ghosty Ghost was still trying to torment Afro and Orange for killing him, but wasn't doing a good enough job, so he resolved to do better this year. At that moment it became a new year in the world.

Reaching the door, Afro opened it with his door opening arm and they went back up to the real non-dungeon world. Suddenly they realized Chair was following them.
"oh, hi Chair, where have you been?" Afro asked in a strangely polite way.
"I'VE BEEN BEHIND YOU GUYS THIS ENTIRE TIME TALKING" Chair whispered loudly.
"I guess we were too busy to engage in conversation, but since you are here, we need your literacy skills, which comes with every ninja's training along with wearing bright colors, shouting everything you do and reviving dead characters" Orange winded.
"Fiiiiiiine, but you guys have to promise to not kill me or come up with plans to kill me while I read it"
"DAMMIT!!!!" Ghosty Ghost shouted on the astral plane, the fastest of the dimensions.
"It Says: Hi, I am Aizen, and if you are reading this you are either me or I have died, which is part 8CIII*7-409 of my plan (See: index). The following message is my plan, which I have written onto a convenient note in size -144 font. Part 1aI!-1: Find random people and woods and follow them around. Part 1aI!-2: Say just as planned every time they do something. Part 1aI!-3: Crash global economy once they rob the mega bank and one of their party members betrays them to build a tank and then build a global empire. Part 1aI!-4: Send them through a time warp and have the team find a small town, get trapped in a dungeon and find this plan, then find one of their party members to read it (hi!). Part1aI!-5: Tell them through this note to go to Emerald City and find Accountant Debby, who will ahve a small household problem that they will solve in an attempt to make money towards no ultimate goal. Part1aI!-6: Make note self destruct so they can't see my plan after aformentioned quest."

The Note them disintegrated into a fine powder. "I guess we headed to Emerald City because I have a strange urge, related to nothing I just heard, to go there and find a job" Afro said in a haze like state.

Sadly, Emerald City lay across the ocean from their present location (which no one in the party actually knew). They collected the bear pelts off the corpse, which was in equally good condition as the last time they had passed it, several days ago, sold them to the death guild (who at this point had instituted their ursafication financial policy and were rich enough to each own a few galaxies), and collected enough to sponsor a luxury yacht to the other continent (always travel in style, was Orange's dad's motto. it was probably a contributing factor to why he got kicked out of the monastery, as the abbot's motto was "monks don't ride in zeppelins")

The only captain they could find because of the town's stunted economy (Orange and Ghosty Ghost instantly rejected Afro's claim that he had gone to boating school) was a creepy-looking woman with a toxic web of unraveled hair and a birthmark shaped like a sailboat on her chin. She looked oddly familiar to Afro, but he had no idea why...

So they set out for Emerald City, taking along a dozen passengers in return for more bear pelts in case they ever returned to...wherever they had just been. They also took on a crew of unemployed pirates (never turn down a pirate, was Ghosty's dad's motto. his death from scurvy was directly attributable to following it rigorously.)

As they set out to sea, Afro remembered. "Wait a second! You're Boatface, the women who broke my heart then tried to stab me!”
“I didn’t try to STAB you. I tried to lacerate you.” Boatface clarified, before unleashing a sudden flurry of punches and kicks on Afro, sending him stumbling back towards the edge of the boat. “Now you will drown, and my life’s purpose of vengeance will be complete!”

“I thought you were part of the massive financial conspiracy back there…” pondered Orange, oblivious to Afro’s increasingly precarious footing near the edge of the deck as he and Boatface sparred. “Wasn’t that part of your life’s purpose?”

“That was just to keep me occupied and fund my armada of spyblimps!” laughed Boatface. “Speaking of which…” All around them, wave after wave of miniscule dirigibles were falling from the sky by dozens, their purpose completed now that Boatface had found Afro and their medieval batteries shortcircuiting.

Ghosty Ghost was below deck giving a rigorous Public Service Announcement about the dangers of scurvy to the pirates, so he missed the intense battle going on above. As the yacht drifted listlessly towards a nearby desert island with no one at the helm, Boatface and Afro battled for their lives.

Then Boatface pulled a knife from her vest and tried to strike the final blow aiming high, right for the head. Backed against the railing, Afro had nowhere to go, and he hated water so jumping off was out of the question. He knew he couldn't survive a blow from his Ex to the head, thats something like a -96 on the MMS scale and past everything past -90 was lethal! Just as he prepared to hear the words "K.O" in loud announcer voice. His life began to flash before his eyes, all 106 pages and 40849 words of it.

Oh god why did this have to end so soon, I haven’t even ended the band Journey yet… Afro thought to himself

Then everything froze and the color from the world until everything was black and white. Time itself seemed to end and out of the haze that was forming walked a man Afro never would have dreamed he ever would have met.

"Dave... Mustaine..." the words fell from Afro’s mouth as if they were each as heavy as the metal he played.

Afro shimmied away from the knife that was millimeters from his face and approached his lord and master and bowed deeply and respectfully.

"WHADDA YOU MEAN ‘Dave Mustaine’ OF COURSE THAT’S WHO I AM” Dave’s voice said from Dave Mustain's Body "GET UP AFRO, As if I would let you die such a worthless un-metal way. Do you even know how difficult it is to find a competant Metal prophet anymore? I mean really everyone does Crab-core and sellout-core now a days. Besides I need you to do something for me.”

"Like a quest? I think my friends and me are already on one, were going to Emerald City or something to, umm…. I actually don’t know what were going there for other then there was some note I think I had to find some ‘Debby’ woman too. But whatever you say is vastly more important then finding a ‘Debby’”

“Well in that case, there’s a small shop in the dark bowls Emerald City known for its seedy nature and its incompetent employees; it’s known as Game Stop. Once you go there, find a man named Nezia, and escort— I MEAN chaperon him to the nearby hospital. Tell him the password ‘Moto-psycho’ and he will know exactly who you are.”

“That completely sounds like a escort quest” Afro moaned. “Why is this so important anyways?”

“Nezia is one of my greatest followers, in fact he is the leader of the 5th division of my Metal 13 he’s been working undercover there learning secrets for me. He recently discovered that the governor Emerald City is having the entire band of Gunz & Rosez resurrected and it’s your job to stop them before they can.”

“That’s impossible, how could anyone even want to resurrect such a horribly misfit and mediocre band!”

“I don’t know, but I know it must be stopped. Afro you must succeed in this quest, the world’s musical fate is in your hands and such.” He said with a sarcastic twang

“I am honored by you words my lord”

“And one last thing, whatever you do, don’t go to see Debby she’s working for the Council of Six. Her real name is Gene Simmons!”

“Who are the Council of Six and Gene Simmons?”

“They were introduced somewhere in chapter four, I think. It was composed of AC/DC, Papa Roach, Limp Bizkit, Green Day, KISS and Coldplay. But you destroyed Coldplay already so the other 5 still want to kill you. And Gene Simmons is the lead singer of KISS. Anyways I’ve gotta’ go play poker with James Hetfeild Scott Ian and Kerry King so see ya. PS: You’re promoted to leader of the 11^th division of the Metal 13.”

The whole world seemed to shudder for a second as Mustain faded out from existence. The color began to come back slowly at first, then faster and faster until time was back to normal.

Boatface’s knife collided with the edge of the boat where Afro was before. She looked completely confused that there was no brain all over her knife. She and Orange were shocked when they spun around to see Afro standing on the opposite side of the boat completely unharmed.

“YOU TELEPORTING BASTARD!” Boatface cried as she charged again

This time when Boatface closed in on Afro he was prepared. He had forgotten that he was now the master and Boatface was just a Metal Prophet dropout student.

“Hey Anna” Afro spoke up as he was being charged at.

“THAT ISN’T MY NAME ANYMORE!” She shrieked just as she was almost within striking range

“See ya later” Afro quickly ducked down and slide tackled her legs from under her. With all the momentum she had built up from running at full speed she flew off the side of the boat and landed head first into the water. Resurfacing she cried “WHY! Why wont you just die for me!!!!”

“You First.” Afro called back and stared at her as she floated away.

Orange walked over and looked at Boatface as the current was pushing her away.

“You know, if you treat women like that you’ll never get another girlfriend.” Orange noted.

Afro gave Orange a blank stare. “Orange… skrew you.”

As boatface approached the receding horizon, the group remembered that they were still waiting on a ship and instantly became really bored. After sinking the ship after a disagreement over who could jump the highest (Chair won for not being intoxicated at the time), they completed their Journey to a small island off the coast of another small island. "Yo, why we stoppin' at dis small island yo?" Orange said after the Rap monster soul defeated the folk singer soul in his heart and took over (their battle is why he stopped talking like a folk singer for the past few months).
Captain said “Arr, I never said I knew where Emerald city was, so I just sailed to the first island I saw, arrr”. Everyone become really annoyed at Captain and made him walk the plank and get eaten by mega sharks. As usual, they had executioner’s remorse once they realized that he was the only person who knew how to pilot a ship, and none of them even knew what Emerald City was. After careful deliberation and a 3 day brawl on the boat, they decided to go to the island, since they were out of food. That way they could find food, a navigator and supplies to make a more metal boat.
The amazing sailors that they were, they crashed the boat into the shore, since none of them knew how to swim, and if any of them touched the water they would die instantly (especially Chair, since she was an assassin). The island was populated mostly by trees, “sinister trees” Ghosty ghost thought. Every tree had a >:( on it.
“Hey, lets all go investigate the woods over there next to those trees!” Orange proclaimed then shouted “ORANGE” as he ran into the trees. The trees used their savage objectivist fury to stand still and force Orange to run into them and get hurt.
“Goddammit Orange, okay everyone, stick to the plan that we didn’t actually figure out yet!” The entire team attacked the trees, targeting the tall trees first, for being bourgeoisie scum. After a fierce battle of the trees not moving, but STARING with their evil STARE the heroes defeated the leaders of the trees, but all got the status modifier of post traumatic stress disorder and would suffer flashbacks of those frowny faces on the trees for the rest of their lives.
Having defeated their leaders, Afro proclaimed “Surrender and die!”, which he quickly realized didn’t make sense so he instead said “surrender or die” and then could never say that phrase again due to the strange feeling he would get struck by lightning and die.
The smaller trees frowned and said “thank you for cutting down the taller trees, they took all of our sun, now we can live in a utopian society where everyone gets an equal amount of sun and lives in happiness” They all said in unison.
“WE. DON’T. CARE.” The heroes said in even more unison. “Just tell us where a navigator is and we’ll be on our way and never talk to you again because we hate you”
“sad faces appeared on the trees, and they said in a sorrowful tone “fine, there is a man in the grand temple who is a navigator, a pilot and our favorite friend, he is also an engineer. Just go North to find the temple, but be warned, he has been in held captive by Journey for decades to construct a giant robot army, all to further their sinister plans.” And with that the team was off.

After bidding the trees an unfond farewell, the intrepid explorers traveled north along the coastal road. As they Journeyed closer and closer to a break in the treeline, they could sense an evil presence growing closer.

"Journey must be nearby" omened Afro. "I can smell keyboards...and fear."

"Why aren't they part of the Council of Six?" asked Orange.

"Their evil goes far beyond the mere depredations of the Council," explained Afro. "They are in a league of their own, a splinter cell working alone to take down both the entire world and those pop artists not extreme enough for them. They call themselves the PMO - Pop Music Organization, though they're the only member."

Orange was impressed by Afro's widespread knowledge, until he realized...the only person who could know that much about the enemy was...the ENEMY! He attacked Afro with his magical zither of destruction, and Afro collapsed, revealing his true identity: a parasite of Journey!
“You’ve killed me, but we have your puffyhaired psychopath hostage,” laughed the minion. “You’ll never find the secret prison camp, if you try for seven thousand years!”
“Where is it?” asked Ghosty Ghost in a bored fashion, as if the dying minion were a movie that he was about to flip away from unless some explosions happened posthaste.
“To the east, in our secret death cave-DAMNIT!” interjected the minion. Then he died of zither cancer.
“Secret death cave? That sounds dangerous!” was Chair’s token comment for the chapter.
“If we want to stop Journey and their robot army from conquering first this island, then the world, we’ll need Afro. We’d better move quickly, before more of their minions infiltrate us.”
“Need some mole?”
Orange and Ghosty whirled around to see…a pernicious gang of moles.
“We’re the secret indie underground group Moleswarm!” they exclaimed. “We realized that being moles would make us completely unique from any other existing group, so we transformed our DNA through a long, painful process. Now we can be eaten by hawks, snakes, and numerous other small predators, but we’re the coolest prey around. We’re trying to bring down Journey on 5, 678 million charges of selling out, plus a minor misdemeanor for building a robot army. Robot armies are SO last year.”
Orange and Ghosty looked at the moles with dismay. They had to use their help for now to stop Journey, but never had Orange wished so strongly that he was a ferret.

They sent Moleswarm on a mission into the secret death cave to rescue Afro (telling them that it was their chance to visit the cave before it became popular) while they went ahead to scout out the robot army. Looking down from a convenient ridge, Orange and Ghosty gazed out upon an intimidating sight: thousands of tall, glistening chrome robots, blaring synthesizers and cheesy guitar soloes, each more deafening than the last, forming into ranks and preparing to storm across the plain below into the coastal cities (which were currently run by crabcore moguls).

"Maybe we can convince the moles to start a hip new trend of sabotaging robots?" hoped Orange.

Meanwhile in Secret Death Cave...

Augh, how did i get here... Thought the real Afro's head.

He was strapped down to a table in a lab filled with fashion and mad scientist equipment. All of his gear was gone only leaving him with his basic black AJFA METALLICA shirt and a pair of black jeans. The walls were lined with fur jackets and strange outfits. there was one egg shaped pod in a corner of the room and no easily visible exit. Two women in white jackets held evil doctor stuff and did evil doctor things in a corner of the triangular room. As his head cleared Afro was able to think back to just exactly how he got here. while he was walking behind Orange and Ghosty he remembered seeing a sign that said 'free drugs' and as any metalhead knew you could never pass up free drugs.

The two woman noticed that Afro had regained consciousness.

"Good your awake, we've been waiting a long time for you Afro" one of them said. She was easily recognizable as that eccentric Pop singer Lady Gaga. "You see Afro, after you fought with Behemoth we got a sample of your luscious gorgeous puffy afro hair and we found out that your hair is actually a one of a kind fur made of 100% pure negative love. And when i decided that i needed a new outfit made from human hair there was no way to go around the fact that i needed your hair! USING YOUR HAIR I COULD RULE BOTH THE METAL AND POP WORLDS!!!" She whisper-yelled into his ear.

The other woman seemed to stand around nervously not wanting to directly look at Afro. He thought he recognized her but she was wearing a bandana. She quickly faded back to where she was standing earlier. although she waved awkwardly to him.

"WOMAN!" Lady Gaga shrieked "GET ME MY SHAVING Chris-Martin Brand™ SHAVER!"

Afro needed to lay all his cards on the table to survive this time. If his hair was cut off it would completely cut off his metal powers, because metal energy is absorbed through the metal worshipers hair just like how the leaves of a tree make energy with sunlight.

Lady Gaga was just staring at Afro while the other woman now with the electric shaver came up behind her. she passed the shaver reluctantly and Lady Gaga basked in the moment before the kill.

And just as she bent over to kill his hair which would in turn kill him the other woman yelled "NO I WONT LET YOU HURT HIM!!!!"

The woman behind Gaga then pulled out Kenkon, the Axe-Naginata of Egypt and cleaved through the eccentric nutball that was Gaga's existence. The blade(s) cut through her as a counter strike player would kill their opposition in a knife duel. A torent of souls was released as if every animal and person that had ever killed for one of her clothes decided now would be the best time to escape. Then all the souls ate both halfs of Gaga and the fur clothing on the walls and left.

"i guess thats what happens when you've lost your Sole" Afro said.

The woman face palmed at the sheer stupidity of the pun.

"Alright, thanks for the help but who are you? and why can you wield Kenkon, the Axe-Naginata of Egypt? Only experienced metal prophets can use such a brutal weapon." Afro asked as he was still strapped to the table.

"You dont recognize me? I mean Metal Prophet School wasn't that long ago was it?" she mused as she sliced off the bonds holding Afro to the table with a blade none other then Kenkon, The Axe-Naginata of Egypt. She Pulled off her bandana revealing the Boat shaped scar on her chin.

"BOATFACE!" Afro panicked and dived behind the medical counter. Now that he was in Orange's favorite position (behind a table) he felt like it was safe enough to continue the dialoge. "Why aren't you trying to kill me? i dont remember buying a change of heart card when i bought that polymerization... or do i?!!?" Afro though out loud.

"No, im sorry i put you through all this, but during Metal Prophet school, Grandmaster Hetfeild realized my potential and decided to have me train directly under him. To not raise suspicion he put a clone of me in the school that just happened to be evil. For some reason she liked the name Boatface too, I prefer my real name though" Anna said.

"Like really? because you didn't tell me i was almost killed something like four times. do you even know what its like having no hands for a week while you wait for them to regenerate because your girlfriend's evil clone decided they would taste good with pop-tarts one morning?"

"she really did that?"

"ya"

"i would be sorry, but i bet they were FINGER LICKING GOOD!!"

"Right, now i completely remember why i loved you. More importantly, How are we getting out of here?"

"WERE HERE TO RESCUE YOU!!" said a wall which proceeded to collapse revealing indie hipster-looking moles.

"Ahhahhaahaaa" Afro and Anna Laughed almost to the point of tears at the sight of the moles. The now happy couple then proceeded to maim and murder every single indie mole on the way back out to the surface...

Ghosty Ghost, Orange, Chair and the box that contained the dead body of Dave Grohl waited outside the Secret Death Cave (or SDC as the hardcore fans called it) for something to happen. This is what Orange called the strategy of “waiting for the plot to happen”, which was a secret technique passed down through the ages, and had brought about the destruction of entire empires, mostly due to their enemies getting bored and killing themselves.
So they waited, waited, contemplated, waited, played a new game Ghosty invented called “whoever gets the highest card in the deck wins”, and then waited some more. They heard some rumbling in the distance in what they could only assume was Afro breaking something priceless. They continued to stare at the cave entrance; it was a really dark entrance Chair noted, because she felt compelled to say something before more important dialogue took over.
Suddenly a glimmer of light shot through Ghosty Ghost’s eyes (which weren’t actually used for seeing, a common misconception about ghosts, but were instead used for manipulating dark plant matter). A dynamic screen of flashing colors surrounding Ghosty Ghost as he shouted “It is time for THAT technique, performance engage! Ultimate battery dragon technique quatrain! Shoot into the fiery mists ultimate sword of undying revenge, dekamatricon!” The entire team including the box looked bemused at Ghosty Ghost as he pulled out a small wooden phone (See: Chapter 2) and typed a sequence into it and shouted “123456789, ultimate secret code engage!” Everyone continued to look at Ghosty Ghost as nothing seemed to happen.
“What the hell are you talking about…?” Chair asked quizzically.
“Haha Chair, you forgot about my phones ancient Egyptian text! Initiate turtle catapult!” Just then a turtle fell out of the sky (see: chapter 4) and hit chair on the head. She slowly fell back dazed onto a conveniently placed chair nearby (See: Chapter 2 (dear god that chapter went on for like half of the story)). “Take that, you have fallen into the inquisitor’s chair! It knows your every thought and knows all of your secret intentions! It is also strapped with explosives!”
“This chair must be insane!” Chair shouted.
“Now you will die just like your parents (see: chapter 1), in an overly elaborate death trap! And the worst part is, the chair isn’t even comfortable!”
“Oh NOOOOOOOOOOO!” Chaired politely intoned
“Yes, now feel my ultimate punishment, since this contrary to popular belief, not revenge.” He hit another code on his wooden cell phone. The chair exploded Chair into oblivion.
“That death is quite ironic” Orange said for absolutely no reason.
“But don’t think I forgot, people turn into Ghosts sometimes for no reason” Ghosty Ghost said, because he was, in fact, a ghost. Plan Z ultimate time catapult, mark her into oblivion, where time and space are but myths!” And like that a giant catapult with the words “time catapult” written on it came out of nowhere and launched Chairs remains 19 trillion years into the future, where staplers rule the planet and eat ghosts. Chair was defeated, her evil ruse undone, and the Freemason NWO Illuminati Coalition World Government lost one of their best undercover agents forever. Chair was so defeated in fact, she remembered that she was a guy all along, and had no idea why everyone randomly started calling her a woman halfway through the journey.

All of Chair’s friends and allies in the FNICWG had known her well, and they mourned the loss of one of their beloved compatriots. However, their plan to avenge him and their other secret operative, Jerome the raven, would take years to achieve – unless they used their Clockification ray to make everyone else travel slower in time so they would reach the future first! Sadly, their Clockification cannon was stored deep in the vast underground hangar beneath Journey’s island fortress. A crack team, led by the notorious mercenary Blood Jackal, set out shortly before dawn in a medieval helicopter to begin Operation Journey of Discovery. It was ironic because they were going to an island.
Meanwhile, Afro and Anna emerged from the Secret Death Cave, bits of mole intestine dripping from the Naginata of Kenkon and a few last terrified indie moles scurrying ahead out of the cave. “What took you so long?” impatiented Ghosty Ghost.
“We just killed an evil pop star and escaped from a Secret Cave of Death,” explained Anna.
“Meh.”
The fortress of Journey lay ahead, a shimmering tower of steel on a vast island floodplain. All across the plain, robots mobilized and began preparing for war against some unknown enemy, with hundreds of antennae buzzing in the humid air and hundreds of laser guns being simultaneously polished, loaded, and test-fired in random upwards directions, creating a violent rainbow that spread across the sky and occasionally made all the human members of the party duck when a stray shot neared the cliff they were behind (Dave Grohl’s box lacked this self-preservation instinct and was thus given many stylish laser scars)
“OK, what’s the plan guys?” asked Orange.
“Step 1: you die. Step 2: we defeat the robot army,” explained Ghosty simply.
“I’m not too strongly in favor of that plan.”
“Well, I’m not too strongly in favor of the bourgeoisie controlling the means of production, but you don’t see me complaining, DO YA?”
“You spent 5 hours complaining about that last night while I was trying to sleep.”
“That wasn’t complaining, that was punishment.”
“ENOUGH!” burst in Afro. “I’ll take them all on head on with my Naginata of Kenkon!” He jumped off the cliff, falling about 100 stories but activating his Don’t Break Leg trap card to come to a clean halt at the foot of the cliff. As this scene was going to be used in the trailer for “Sparkplugs: the Movie, the Magic” ™, Headstrong immediately began playing as he drew his still molestained blade and the robots began to turn around to face him in an ultimate battle showdown to the death with nothing to lose.
Meanwhile again, the medieval helicopter piloted by Blood Jackal and his FNICWG comrades approached the Journey monolith. “Eweryone clea on the ‘lan?” growled Blood Jackal, his low mercenary growl weakened in intensity by the fact that he was vocally unable to pronounce hard consonants (BLOOD JACKAL TRIVIA FUN FACT: this is what kept Blood Jackal out of his boyhood dream of being an opera star and drove him into the hardburn life of a merc).
“Yeah,” replied his second in command, a stereotypical black sergeant. “We go in, kick Journey’s ass, and grab the Clockification Ray. The only question is, what size boot to use?”
As the medieval helicopter descended onto the medieval landing pod of the roof of the tower, a robot battle began to rage below.

Back on the ground everything was going fairly well for the Heroes. Afro who had just jumped down was doing all the work, killing robots left and right and up and down and sideways. There was seemingly no end of robots to destroy. but then again because killing robots was both figuratively and literally Metal, so there was no end of Afro either.

Back on the high ground, Anna was introducing herself on the cliff to Ghosty and Orange and sharing stupid stories.

"Wait, Afro actually did that?" Orange quizzicaled incredulously

"ya and after that he murdered him too." Anna giggled.

"Wow i feel sorry for him, he had a kid didn't he" Ghosty

"W/e" Anna said

"Heres a another one, How many lead guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

Both Orange and Ghosty just stared blankly at her.

"5! one to screw it in and then five to say they could have done it better! ok, ok heres another one, What do you call a drummer who doesn't have a girlfriend"

Both Orange and Ghosty just stared blankly at her again.

"Homeless!" She burst out laughing and rolled around. Ghosty tried to hold back a smile but he couldn't and Orange looked particularly offended by the joke.

"Here's a better joke" Orange spoke up "Whats black in blue and laying in a ditch"

"Your mom?" She guessed

"The correct answer is a guitarist who told too many drummer jokes"

"Good to know, but then again i'm not a guitarist" She said "then again you guys dont know much so i'll tell you a bit about myself"

"Knock yourself out" Ghosty said bluntly in a obvious and literal tone.

Not picking up that ghosty had meant that literally she started to speak. "Well, im actually a Bassist, and just as Afro was the best Guitarist from Metal Prophet School i was the best Bassist. i guess we were a match made in hell in that sense." She said with a loving sigh.

"Stick to the statistics. everything else is not important." Ghosty ghosted

"Umm.. ok I'm 5'10" and my hair is blonde and it goes down to... about my forearms. I am currently wearing a black Slayer dress and a Ride the lightning jacket. My full name is Anna Ariel Gordon and i think you're boring."

"And I think you're too emotional."

She rolled her eyes and looked over to Orange who was now looking over the cliff watching Afro murder robots. but then again can you murder a robot. Does it have any rights? who cares.

"How much longer is this going to take cant we just get to that castle and kill Journey so we can go to that city so we can do something else then find someone" Anna spoke up above the clatter of Kenkon vs metal armor.

"well, he just got a Killamanjaro, and it must be over thirty because he also just got an Invincible. wish they could just put kill count on 'Tab' or something."

Anna decided it was better not to ask what "tab" was and instead decided it was better for her just to join in and fight as well. its not like she could die fighting to robots, after all she was also a metal prophet. keeping her back would just be sexist. besides she hated kitchens. and sandwiches. She jumped down the cliff but instead of using a magic-y card that she didn't know how to use she had to rely on talent. so she just jumped onto a robot's head backflipped off it pulled out her favorite B.C. Rich Mockingbird Bass and went to work.Within minutes all the enemies were dispatched, but the question remained, why were they even there in the first place. ignoring this question and that a helicopter had just landed, they all started journeying towards the nearby Castle of Journey.

The castle itself was marked with bright lights, dark spires and an overall atmosphere of a band that didn't know what tone they wanted. What was for certain was that the Dave Grohl box was very heavy, and just when they decided to leave the box at the side of the road, Dave Grohl jumped out and shouted “I’m baaaaaaaack, success! (The Microsoft gods instantly changed what he said from suckas, due to a copyright from Rage Against the Machine from anyone using that word unless referring to inherent capitalist oppression along the southwest border of the United States due to free trade agreements approved of by business interests in Washington) referring to when he was in a punk band once.

“GOD DAMMIT DAVE GROHL STAY DEAD!” Anna said even though she just joined the group and had no idea who Dave Grohl was (which made Dave Grohl sad)

“Sorry, you have to tell me to stay dead three times to have it work!”

“DAVE GROHL STAY DEAD, DAVE GROHL STAY DEAD, DAVE GROHL STAY DEAD” The entire life-force of the planet said in unison.

“Hey, remember that time I said I’d die if you told me to stay dead three times…I lied. The only thing that can kill me is to be in a financially unsuccessful band, which is impossible. Plus, you’ll need me to fight those profit obsessed Journey, you know what they say—“

“FIGHT FIYAH WITH WATAAAAH” Orange screamed

“yeah, that one” Dave Grohl said “so what do you say, we’re friends, rrrrrrrright” Dave Grohl referenced that time he was every member of Megadeth.

“You’ve already wasted enough of our time, and in the time we’ve been talking we’ve made no progress, so whatever…” Ghosty Ghost ghosted.

“Wait guys, shouldn’t we not include a guy that just compared himself to Journey” Anna

said in a tone that sounded like Chair, who was still extremely dead and not there any more ever.

“You know what they say Anna—“ Afro began

“Know your Friends! Nah nah nah nah, dun nuh nah naaah!” Orange shouted again, batting 1000 in missed references, a career high, and close to the league record.

“Close enough” Afro stated, thereby cementing Dave Grohl in their team again, though he kept his box as a home, since he said it was comfortable when his corpse was stuffed in there by…someone…at some point.

Blood Jackal, the stereotypical black sergeant, and countless expendable troops who probably died or something in the ensuing battle landed on the rooftop of the Journey castle, in hunt of the Clockification cannon. Blood Jackal took out his sniper rifle to survey the surrounding landscape. Spotting countless obliterated robots and countless detached robotic antennae standing up straight like adorable robot tombstones, Blood Jackal scanned his scope for who could possibly be powerful enough to unleash such devastation. His scope homed in on Dave Grohl, as he was lagging behind the others who had already entered Journey Castle. He took a moment to bask in the potential power of one man who could destroy an entire army of robots, and then he fired. Dave Grohl collapsed behind the heroes, last wording “Remember me…as profitable!”, and died, his box disintegrating into tiny particles and blowing away.

“Damn,” mourned Orange, “he didn’t even have a chance to produce my new chart-topping album, The Battle of South Escortopolis, like he promised to…”
“More like Battle of South Go Kill Yourself…”

Afro and Anna were too busy discussing what decapitating somebody and using their head as a volleyball would rate on the MMS scale, and how much that would change if it were soccer instead, to notice Dave Grohl’s demise, and Ghosty treated death as an improvement, as it made you able to instantly teleport away whenever someone started boring you, so the mourning session of Dave Grohl was short lived and the heroes continued on into the castle. Simultaneously, Blood Jackal and the sergeant began their descent from the rooftop, disabling the automated guitar solo defense drones Journey had set up along the way. The heroes eventually reached an atrium with no apparent exits. After a half hour of searching for secret candlesticks that could be rotated or trapdoors hidden under carpets, they quickly became bored.

“Do you guys want to hear a joke?” asked Orange.

“Do you want me to stab your eyes out with a soldering iron?” asked Ghosty.

“Did you hear about the tropical hotel chain that had to close all their businesses but one and hope that one would succeed? It was their last resort!”

As if on cue by some infernal god of pun-ishment, Papa Roach chose that moment to teleport in through a wormhole of suck. They appeared as a band of short, spiky, insectoid creatures, somehow able to play instruments, steal riffs from better bands, and spray acid at the same time (GEDIT?).

“WE ARE PAPA ROACH, MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF SIX…ER, FIVE, GUARDIANS OF JOURNEY AND DEDICATED TO DESTROYING MUSIC! WE SHALL CUT YOUR LIFE INTO PIECES!”

“You don’t even have anything sharp on you aside from those pathetic spikes. How do you plan to do that? And can you even cut a life?” asked the team in very prolonged unison.

“CHANCES ARE – DYNAMITE!” (the chances were in fact only .000000001 of dynamite, given that no explosives were anywhere to be found on the island because Journey feared and loathed anything that might sound better than their music.)

Afro and Anna smiled. It was their first boss battle as a couple. Orange readied himself for the coming fight by consuming an insecticide-flavored Poptart (banned in 567/582 of the official Illuminati provinces). Ghosty Ghost decided that since he was incorporeal anyway, he didn’t have much to worry about, and floated over to taunt Papa Roach. But they all knew that Papa Roach was only the opening band in the concert of doom…Journey still lay beyond.

Suddenly, due to the familiar moment with Anna by Afro's side and the boss battle ahead of them, Afro was reminded of his past back at Metal Prophet High. Afro was suddenly attacked by a flashback.

"BANDIT ATTACK" A resounding voice cried.

Afro, Anna and were standing a bridge of course. This was a training area built in the backyard of the High School they both went to. And the finest Bandits were imported from bridges all around the world. Professor Hammett was standing on a balcony observing, he wouldn't interfere in the battle to come. Though due to the Bandit's Jet Lag from a nearby creek from South Escortopia to Metal Prophet High (aka MPHS), which was a floating high school on the other side of the planet dedicated to the future of Metal Prophets and so less good metal followers would become fans of talentless hacks like the singer from AC/DC. Any ways the bandits were quickly dispatched with Afro's and Anna's guitars, which were both modified Fender Squires high-gain pickups. They both had modified each others as many lovers did at MPH.

After cleaning up the messy gore splattered bridge, they headed back to their favorites spot. Sitting on the bench next to the only tree on the campus, a quaint white birch. At one point the rumors said that some king jumped off the tree while on fire after he attempted murder on his son who he though was dead. There was another rumor that the king from that rumor was actually Kerry King. At least thats the legend why he has a separate school for some reason.

"Please don't ever replace yourself with a evil clone who went by the name Boatface. And also remind me never to befriend some guy name Orange and a random Ghost" Afro said tilting his head towards her before he sat down on the bench.

Anna Giggled for a moment "what makes you say that?" she asked in a fake-serious way.

"I don't know. Horrible dream last night. and There this guy named Aizen who was controlling everything, but he wasn't and there... there was pop-tarts ever where." Afro gazed into the distance with a twisted grimace beset on his jaw.

"Fine, how about this, i promise that i'll remind you and theres no way i would ever get cloned. And don't worry, you're going to be a great metal prophet and we'll be together forever." She said with plenty of reassuring vigor. She kissed him lightly and then stood up off the bench. "Common let's go do something!"

"What are we doing?"

"I dont know theres bound to be something. We should also hang out that kid Inferno too, he seems pretty cool. he just transfered from Kerry Kings' School of No-Note Solos"

"Really? i heard he was a drummer"

"Dont you know, all drums are no-note soloists" She laughed.

Afro laughed along and then smiled. What a great day. The sky was blackened with soot from the flaming metal spikes that held the High School. And the mildly burnt ground was crisp to the touch. The grass was dead and the ritualistically-used KISS poster was still smoldering. But something was bothering him.

"Hey what do you think that is?" Anna asked in a softer tone then her usual happy-go-lucky tone. She pointed behind him with both eyes fixed on something in the distance.

Afro looked behind him. A large pyramid shaped object was heading directly towards MPHS. It looks like that that Illuminati pyramid on the back of the One Metal Ton (equivalent to about 1.34859 United States Dollar in transaction based on theoretical and mathematical calculations shown in full detail on part C8-IV.4345A Mark 3 of Aizen's plan's twelfth index Part 79 book 9.)

The giant egyptian pyramid swooped under the High School fired several anti-matter conspiracy theories at the it's reactors. In sequence they melted down and exploded. MPHS slanted slightly to the right and it began descending towards the ground at a faster and faster rate. Alarm sirens blared and Afro watched as above him Metallica and Megadeth assembled because Anthrax and Slayer were on tour currently somewhere in present day Harmonix City.

"OH GOD WHAT COULD HAVE DOWN THIS" Afro yelled to no one in particular. Anna looking bewildered by the comment just decided Afro was having a moment and took him by the arm and pulled him down a flight of nearby stairs to the escape pod station. Since each escape pod had only enough space for one person Anna pushed him in buckled the seatbelt (safety first) and then said "Love ya, Bye! See you on the ground!" Afro remembered that moment so clearly. it was the last time he saw her for years and years. years of wandering across the barren musical continents. alone. That reminded him when his pod finally hit the ground, and the second memory that he would never be able to forget. His chat with Aizen. who said he had planned everything so far, His entier life. His love with Anna and the attack from a mysterious force called the Freemason NWO Illuminati Coalition World Government. On that day Aizen also did something else. He gave Afro two things. One of the divine weapons, The Naginata of Kenkon. and something else.

Slipping from his Bandit attack-style Flashback he patted his breast pocket of his trench coat. he felt a used beer bottle and something else. a small box. the Sound of Aizen's voice swam through his head "When you'll need it, you will know. Forget and fight. Forget and fight!" As if snapping out of a trance Afro shivered. Orange and Ghosty were behind him, Anna was beside him. And nothing else mattered then the fight with some stupid thing that was in his way that was preventing him from eating the livers of every member of Journey.
"I'LL NEVER LOVE YOU ROACH-MAN!!!! NOW WE MUST FIGHT!!!!!" Afro yelled as he charged into battle and Anna followed.

The battle with Papa Roach would not be an easy one. Not only were Anna and Afro still tired from mechanically raping robots (but is it really rape if they are robots? (See: Aizen’s Ethical Index in the back of his plans for more details!)). Ghosty Ghost was also tired from being so disinterested with the current battle. Orange on the other hand hit a sugar high and filled up his pop-tart bar to 100%. Afro shouted “Use pop-tart power, it is our only hope!” David Grohl was still dead and did not comment on the current state of Oranges power, but he was still making money, royalty checkz bitchez!

Orange simply nodded and took off his shoe, which let out a burst of purple energy (with a chocolate filling) and threw the shoe at the Papa Roach guitarist (Jerry Horton). He tried blocking with his guitar, but realized he never actually learned how to fight, and just stole techniques from other fighter, so the shoe hit him right in the face, exploding in sugary goodness and instantly killed him with diabetes. Jacoby Shaddix (the surprisingly real name of their vocalist) shouted “NOOOOOOO, he was somehow the most talented person in our baaaaaaand! You shall pay for that my short shorted friend!”

Afro realized that this was his moment, the time he had been waiting for his entire life, his heart told him it was time to use the box. Afro stated in a matter of fact tone “It is you who will pay, feel the wrath of my mysterious box card!” Afro opened the box and looked inside. Inside the box was a crude drawing of a house, with a family next to it, with an apple tree giving the family shade on a hot summer day (as seen by the giant sun on the corner of a page, since suns are easy to draw). Afro shed a small tear at the family he would never have, then the box started talking:

“What up yo, this is Aizen’s secretary come to inform you that Aizen was too busy plotting today to put anything important in your box. I hope you like the drawing my son gave me, one day I hope he grows up to be a serial murderer like his father. Anyways, this box is strapped with explosives.”

“THOSE SECRETARIES MUST BE INSANE!” Afro shouted before it blew up in his face, knocking him out for the remainder of the battle.

“Afro, NOOOOOO, you’ll pay for that Papa Roach” Anna cried.

“ummmm, we didn’t actually do anything, but that was a cool box, we’ll probably steal it for our next show” The remaining Papa Roach band mates said in unison.

“Semantics!” Anna said as she cleaved her guitar through Tony Polermo, who had just learned to play the drums yesterday.

“I guess you could say, she loved you not” Orange said, already running low on puns based on their hits.

“I guess it’s time we revealed our true form then! Jacoby Shaddix form of: A head, Tobin Esperance, form of: everything else on the body!” A giant roach then morphed in front of the team, and it was scary to everyone but Dave Grohl, who was still dead.

“It’s ironic that Papa Roach turned into a roach” Orange said, and then the universe tried really hard not to kill itself.

Papa Roach (where Mama Roach was was unclear and of dubious existence, as it was hard to believe anyone would love a giant, clinically depressed insect) was about to devour the plucky team of fighters, sending out of a wave of acid to weaken them and prepare them for consumption. It reminded Orange of himself about to eat a delicious Orange Crème Poptart, which took him back to his childhood before the monastery of Heretic Bards…

Orange remembered a winter day sitting in the basement of the fortress he had grown up in. His parents had both been Illuminati mind control specialists (as you can imagine, child discipline was not difficult in the Orange household) working at their northeastern base to subdue the various tribes vying for control of the wartorn region post-Disturbance and bring it under the Illuminati control.

On that day, he was visited by a spirit. A spirit with a shotgun. It interrupted him about to bite into a tasty Orange Crème Poptart (a part of any balanced diet, assuming the other components consist of whole wheat corn and water) and told him that he must leave.

“But I’m supposed to grow up and be a mind control scientist like my parents!”
“That wouldn’t be growing up….that would be growing dead. Trust me, you must come with me.”
“Why?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll shoot you. It’s my destiny.”
“Aren’t you a ghost?”
“Do you really want to test your luck?”

And so Orange was literally spirited away at the age of 12, taking only the clothes on his back and his dad’s old lucky so-called ‘magical’ harmonica, leaving behind only the calling card of the specter, a simple black index card with GG scrawled on it in black. He was taken to the Heretical Bard Monastery further north by the coast in the New England Republic, the frozen northern edge of the Illuminati dominion, who were happy to accept another recruit into their drum program – they needed all the warriors they could get to fight the quickly expanding mechanical Order of the Drum Machine, whose synthesized beats had already claimed South Detroit and countless other cities along the central and eastern corridors of the continent.

Meanwhile in the present day, Blood Jackal and stereotypical black sergeant had almost reached the main atrium through the northern tunnel. They burst open the door, and stereotypical black sergeant was killed by a landmine, dying on the last words “No big deal, just a little shrapnel…” Blood Jackal stealth entered the room, checking for traps before every step, and saw the Papa Roach lurking below in the atrium. He readied his sniper, and fired at the roach, but its shell reflected the shot and nearly decapitated. From below, Orange saw the mercenary appear on a high alcove and fire.

“Looks like we’ve got company,” he clichéd.
“I’m pretty sure we already had company – just referring to, you know, the giant roach we’re fighting?” Ghosty Ghost pointed out.
“It’s a turn of phrase.”
“You’re a turn of suck.”

Anna didn't seem to understand the transgressing conversation and though it a better use of her time to just keep attacking the roach. Charging in (as Afro would have done had he not opened a box which knocked him out mid-charge) Anna slashed at the beast severing one of its six arms.

"WE DONT GIVE A FUCK IF YOU CUT OUR ARM BLEEDING!!!" The giant roach cried. "NOW FEEL THE STRENGH OF OUR ULTIMATE ATTACK! AND WE TOTALY DIDNT STEAL THIS FROM STAR CRAFT 2!!! Lv. 3 UPGRADED CORROSIVE SALIVA ATTACK!!!"

The green deluge of saliva headed strait towards both the memory of Dave Grohl, which died, and Ghosty, who re-died making him alive again. On the other side of the room Blood Jackel decided this was the best moment to re-hide so he could do things later. In fact right now he wasn't sure what side he was on. so he thought it was best to let the battle transverse and then befriend the winners by saying he had their backs the entire time.

"What the haxx?!??!" Ghosty spoke with his vocal chords which he now had, "I have organs?" Ghosty also was wearing all the clothes he was wearing while he was dead before the unfortunate accident that ended his life.

"didn't see that one coming!" anyone of the two characters who were not Afro, who was knocked out, could have said but didn't because they didn't care.

"Looks like were getting away with UN-murder!" The giant roach bellowed at Ghosty.

Ghosty realized something, before he died he was a cop. with nothing to lose. So he pulled out his shotgun which he carried with him at all times and said "No, your not." Ghosty then poured all ten rounds into the Roach who was immune to radiation, but not lead

"RAWR" The untalented sellout roach yelled. "I'm addicted to your punishment, But i am the master!" The giant roach moved quickly scampering on all six legs. which gave Orange an attack of opportunity. "BASE BEATING 4/4, 250 BPM!" Orange yelled as he stabbed the Roach with some drumsticks then kicked the stick into the it and cracked the shell of the giant roach.

"FOOL!" the split roach yelled. "Now i can move into my true form!" A blast of white light blinded the heroes, and when they could look they saw a ring of dust around where the roach had been. "Thats the deal, you get no respect, you're gonna get yours. SO WATCH YOUR FUCKING NECK!!!!" Yelled something from inside the dust. the dust then cleared to reveal Super Sayian Roach 4.0 mecha zord. Then suddenly the roof of the space was ripped off revealing one giant lawyer. "WHO DARES DEFY DRAGON BALL, DRAGON BALL Z AND DRAGON BALL GT'S COPYRIGHTS!!!" looking at the roach which now had spiked blonde hair he immediately knew the offender was none other then Papa Roach. So he took the roach and brought it to copyright infringement hell.

"Good job us!" Anna, Ghosty and Orange said.

“Well then, I guess it was irrelevant what we did in that battle…sweet” Ghosty Ghost said in his human form, but decided not to be called Humany Human because that name was for preps. “Luckily my shotgun worked on the roach, unlike the sniper rifle…and luckily I was a cop and just remembered at the right time”

“So you are saying it was complete luck that we won?” Anna bemused.
“Everything we do is decided by random, predetermined chance, and all the food you eat has billions of bacteria that want to kill you on it. Oh, and your parents never loved you.” Ghosty ghost listed.

“Speaking of killing myself, who is that guy over there!” Anna said in an upbeat tone. In the bushes (that he grew during the battle) sat Blood Jackal, ace mercenary/door to door door salesman. Blood Jackal waited until he was certain that they were talking to him, which is the first rule of being a spy.

“Oh, hi, I was just passin’ through these parts when I saw a giant roach attacking helpless travelers, so I decided to help. My trusty rifle here Scrubula was providin’ you guys covah fire.” Blood Jackal said really really fast.

“That sounds completely reasonable and totally is what happened in that battle” Afro said as he woke up (He would never trust boxes/strangers again…especially boxes). “Anyways, we better be going, we have to go kill journey and parade their corpses around a village square somewhere (77 on MMS), so thanks for the help, but accepting any more help would be unmetal.”

“Aww, but I wanted to join your raspy band o’heroes in yer fight against bad music!” Blood Jackal lied with the lying-est face ever.

“Okay sure” The team except for Dave Grohl said in unison.

“All according to plans…” Blood Jackal whispered under his breath until he realized he didn’t actually have a plan. Then he remembered the entire point of him being there was to get revenge for Chair. Using his scouting powers he saw back in time and realized it was Ghosty Ghost that killed Chair without any provocation. When they started walking away Blood Jackal shot Ghosty Ghost in the back of the head with a 666 caliber pistol. Ghosty Ghost’s brains exploded everywhere, then the exploded parts exploded everywhere.

“Why you got to be all like that yo!” Orange said when the rap spirit possessed him for a sentence.

“Whoops, I accidentally aimed my gun at your friend’s head then accidentally pulled the trigger then smiled with glee then lied to you all what happened. I’ll try not to let it happen again friends!”

“Fair enough” everyone said including Ghosty Ghost who was now a ghost again, which he thought was very convenient for people who already knew his name and didn’t want to be confused on his state of living.

“DAMMIT” Blood Jackal shouted “…I mean…I love you guys”. It was on this note the group of heroes began their Journey to the inner sanctum of the midnight castle train, which was now moving. Blood Jackal, the greatest liar to ever live followed, and no one suspected him except for dave Grohl, who was dead.

The midnight castle train at first took the heroes deeper and deeper into the castle, but as time went on, it didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

“Yo, dis train gotta be a trap! What up wit dat sucka!” exclaimed Orange, who had become completely possessed by the rap spirit when the spirit got bored of waiting on the train.

Just then, the train began to speed up, crashing through the rest of the castle with its indestructibleonium plated front smashing through walls and protecting it from damage.

“Fuck tha train!” yelled Orange as it accelerated more and more, starting to send out shockwaves that didn’t need anyone and that destroyed massive swathes of the surrounding countryside, taking…lives in the process. Finally, it came to an instantaneous stop somewhere deep underground.

“Where are we? What happened?” asked Anna.

“We are on a planet populated by countless useless creatures pretending they’re doing something important. An infinite number of things have happened, and continue to happen every second.”

“Thanks, Ghosty Ghost…I can see why people keep killing you now.”

“We didn’t actually stop,” explained Blood Jackal. “In fact, we’re traveling at so high a speed that we’ve seemed to come to a full stop, when in actuality, we’re approaching the barrier of the speed of light.”

The entire group believed him for a minute until they looked out the windows of the train and realized that they were parked in an underground cave, next to a lake.

“Yo, why all dis shit gotta be underground? Why can’t we ever be chillin’ in like, a forest or sometin’?” moaned Orange.

“Why are you underground? Because I shot you with a 45 Gat.” elucidated Afro.

Journey picked that moment to rise out of the lake. It turned out, the entire time, they had been a giant sea kraken with 6 heads and an enormous web of tentacles. Blood Jackal saw his opportunity.
“HEY…sea monster. I brought you some friends! Just eat them while I sneak over here, okay?”

There’s an old seafarer’s adage: never turn your back on a pop rock band. Blood Jackal ignored this as he tried to run past the monster to reach the caves beyond it that were sure to hold the Clockification Ray, and he was snared by a tentacle, tossed like a shrimp into Journey’s gaping maw, and devoured.

“I guess you could say his journey is at an end,” opined Anna.
“As soon as I kill Orange, you’re next…” muttered Ghosty Ghost.

After digesting its latest meal, the sea monster turned its attention to the band of plucky wayfarers who were trying to stealth their way by him. “KRRAAAAWGAGAWWWWWG! NOTHING CAN PASS THE JOURNEY KRAKEN!” bellowed the monstrous fiend.

“I see your kraken roar, and raise you…THE METAL YELL! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” Afro unleashed an explosion of sound that made Ghosty thankful he heard through telepathy and Orange glad he had gone almost deaf during the battle with Inferno. At the same time, he leapt onto one of the tentacles of the monster, using it to rappel onto its body and begin to slice at it with the Naginata of Kenkon.

“KOORRORGGROROGG! THE JOURNEY KRAKEN IS IMMUNE TO NON-MAGICAL WEAPONS! TRY HARDER!”

“I don’t think so, kraken! You’ve forgotten the Naginata’s special ability – it IS magical!”

“NROOOOOOOOOOWWWW!”

As Afro impaled the monster, it sunk beneath the waves, leaving a partially digested Blood Jackal not much worse for wear floating in the surface. “Hey guys, sorry about that whole thing. I wasn’t actually betraying you to the sea monster, I was just having a laidback conversation with it when it randomly decided to try to kill us all. We cool, right?”

Before they could answer, a rumbling came from the depths of the pool. Journey had transformed, and they were back…

A eruption from the underground lake resounded in the open cave. a tornado of water emerged from the center where the Journey kraken had been. A shadow like figure leaped through the eye of the storm and landed on the dry land on the opposing perimeter of the lake. The tornado waned, seeing that it had done its job at impressing people creating mist over the entire lake

"What is dat guy do-in dis howze DAWG?" Orange cried. in wich Afro beat the rap out of him killing the ghost and all other rap ghosts in the universe subsequently.

"My god, the've all combined into a condensed version of themselves." Afro responded. "just think, the power of five mediocre players in one person."

The mist began to clear revealing the new awakened form of Journey. The combined form dual wielded a guitar and a bass. his head was crowned with bent drumsticks and he he had armor made from the keys of a keyboard. Suddenly he vanished from sight leaving nothing behind but an after image.

"DODGE NOW!" Afro cried. Orange watched as Afro pulled Kenkon, the axe Naginata of Egypt out at a blazing speed. He attempted to block the full force of what was presumably Journey. Although it looked like Afro couldn't handle the speed or power, he was being pushed back. The blows were just too fast, almost as if... "Afro! All five individual members of Journey are attacking you at once from one body!" Orange realized.

"Well if its five on one, i should probably help out then" Anna said mid jump. She had flanked the Journey Beast, she was mid strike with her B.C. Rich Mockingbird Bass. Then the whole battle paused. Afro was blocking four arms each with a different band weapon and the Journey beast had two arms straining to block Anna's attack.

"What The hell?" they all quizzicaled, even Blood Jackel who had made popcorn and was watching from the train.

"Dont stop beleving. That your going to die!" The beast said, He threw off Anna's attack with a burst of strength and then focused on Afro. Attacking with all ten arms he was sent flying.

"Ok that's totally not fair, they didn't fuse they just stacked inside of each other" Orange noted.

"Somewhere a physics major just had a heart attack and died due to this." Ghosty also noted.

Afro's arms were still shaking from the impact of all ten arms. He knew this wasn't working and at this rate he would end up dead. dead, dead, dead. and then he would have to suffer through life like Ghosty. He looked at Ghosty, who was now taunting the Journey beast and laughing. "yeah, no" Afro said to himself. He would never want to have the horrible life of a ghost. He looked around for something, anything that could help him defeat the beast. There was always That Technique. but no he couldn't, it was too powerful.

"Afro, we have to use That Technique!" Anna said, she had snuck up on him while Afro was concentrating on the horrible life of being a Ghost. Meanwhile Ghosty was calling Journey Beast five no-talent hacks in one convenient body, just like one of those TV product commercials...

"No, we can't use That Technique, Anna. Its too powerful!" Afro said back

"But if we dont use That Technique we will surely die!"

"Ok really? just tell us what 'That Technique' is i mean no one but us can hear us right now. Journey Beast is currently occupied with Ghosty too." Orange said, who also had snuck up on them while they were dialoging.

"Ya really tell me, i want to know too. For educational reasons of course." Said Blood Jackel with his fingers crossed behind his back. He had snuck up on them while Orange was talking.

"Ok ok, That Technique is a secret technique handed to only the most adept Metal Prophets. its one of the three ultimate techniques and its real name is actually 'That Technique' but in legends its called Combination where two people become one and their power levels are multiplied by eachoters." Afro explained

"Then why dont you just use it?" Orange asked

"Orange, this isn't some game or story. This is real life. Theres always a consequence. you see if we do the That Technique dance incorrectly we will die and since me and Anna are so powerful already our combined form could have too much power and die."

"In that case, im all for it! Good luck!" Blood Jackel said in the most pseudo-genuine voice of all time. "You're gonna die any ways, better do it, yup-e-do!"

"Ya, it's Sad but true." Anna responded. "We cant win if we dont use That Technique, so we might as well try Afro."

"Alright then, LETS DO THIS!" Afro roared. who struck a funky pose. Anna joined him striking the same pose but opposite.

"That-Tech-Nique-Ha!" they both yelled in unison. A huge burst of solos flew out from the points in which their fingers touched. The Journey Beast was spun around and looked into the transformation. Everyone was battered by the intensity and light given off by the guitar screams. they all had to shield their eyes or cover their ears. and just as quickly as it started it ended. leaving nothing but a single figure where Afro and Anna had stood.

"I am neither Afro or Anna, I am Anro! It's over evil Journey, now you must die."

Anro was an extremely ugly monster due to the inherent flaws of fusion in that it just randomly combined features of the two fusioneers. So Anro was some sort of franken-metal monster, almost as ugly as Journey’s music. But what it lacked in beauty it made up for in raw POWER! “Ultimate Anro beam” Anro shouted, who had added Anro to all of its regular moves to signify that they were indeed different and not just the same thing but with a different color.

“That’s impossible, only the Journey symbiote can achieve fusion!” Journey said in unison, which was pretty easy since they were a hive mind. Anro only laughed, then cried, then got distracted by a pretty underground lake butterfly, since fusion also amplified all of the emotional traits of the users (fun fact: Two fused Ghosty Ghosts cease to exist due to the combined nihilism).

“Now we will destroy you with our Anro destroy Ray!” Then they shot out a lazar beam which zig zagged around randomly until it hit Journey squarely in the kneecaps.

“Ow, that really hurt, and yet the Journey symbiote is even more hurt that you lied and told us it was a destroy ray, when in fact it did not destroy our 10 kneecaps, but merely disintegrated them”. Journey eloked.

“Now to finish the fight, and now add a lame sequel to an already perfect battle” Anro said. In a fraction of a deci-instant, Anro teleported behind the Journey symbiote and exploded their lungs with Anro’s mega Anro fist technique.

Journey fell apart into five separate people, each more suck than the last. Int heir dying breath they stated “you may have stopped us but…we…won’t stop…beleivin…OGLDJEFGPJSG(sound of their death)” After looting their corpses everyone except Dave Grohl (who was dead) realized that they didn’t know where their best friend Blood Jackal was.
“Hey, where is Blood Jackal” Anna, now in normal form, asked because someone had to”

Entering from a door off to the side of the lake Blood Jackal jackalled “Oh, hey guys, I was just in that room over there…looking for a Journey self destruct button…but I didn’t find that or a clockification ray that is totally not in my back pocket right now. Oh, and you guys are awesome.” The stunning linguist persuaded the whole group with his cunning abilities.

“No, that totally makes sense, thank you for helping so much, here is all my money” Ghosty Ghost said, but didn’t actually have any money, since ghosts couldn’t technically possess anything (Except people, OH SNAP!).

Just then, the guards from a nearby island broke through the underground wall because they were getting noise complaints about a giant kraken and OGLDJEFGPJSG sounds.

“What’s this that there then?!?!?! Bloody krakens? Who? When am I? Etc?

The group decided it would be best to let Blood Jackal do the talking.

“No big deal, officers. We just decided to go for a light-hearted underground stroll near the lake and definitely didn’t fight a nightmarish kraken and a horrendous band who exploited unit stacking.”

“All right then, carry on. Cheerio, dupe-di-do!”

The group, including their new, totally trustworthy member Blood Jackal, decided to hold a meeting to decide where to go next and whether cyborgs who die are considered corpses or not.

“We need to take down the rest of the Council of Six. Who’s left?” asked Orange.

“Let’s see…” thought Afro. “Coldplay is dead, and Papa Roach has no breathing. That leaves Limp Bizkit, Green Day, AC/DC, and KISS.”

“Let’s handle them in that convenient order!”

“But how do we find them?” asked Blood Jackal, whose Illuminati knew the exact location of each member of the Council of Six and were at the moment scrambling to choose replacements for Coldplay and Papa Roach on the council (the top contenders at the moment were Hollywood Undead and Simple Plan, though Whitesnake was gathering momentum as a dark horse candidate). Just then, another cheerful guard popped his head back in.

“Howdy, my friendly friends! Did you hear what’s going on in Emerald City? They’ve been caught in the middle of the vicious civil war between Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. I hear Limp Bizkit is gaining the edge though, thanks to some crazy new tank commander they hired who goes around with a vulture…well, gotta skedaddle! Hopty-doop!”

“Emerald City…that’s where we were originally planning to go after finding that note! And it sounds like we can find Limp Bizkit there too!” Glacier plot expositioned. While he talked, Blood Jackal snuck off to a corner and activated the clockification ray, preparing for the ultimate power it would give him as the rest of the world’s time decelerated to a halt. Sadly, it actually only slowed time by 0.001%. It was enough to ruin every scientific calculation that had been made in the world up to that point, and enough to give Blood Jackal a minor hearing impediment as people’s words moved just a bit too slow for his non-time-decelerated ears, but it was nowhere close to enough of an effect to conquer anything. Wallowing in failure, Blood Jackal decided he might as well join the heroes – if he couldn’t manipulate time, he could at least manipulate them…

Journey Island had been ruined. The robotics plant that employed 50% of the population now had no use, and the infrastructure had been crippled by laser battles. Congratulating themselves on a job well done, the band of heroes stepped on to a conveniently located dinghy and set sail on the long journey to Emerald City.