”In a perfectly normal Otherworld full of danger, disaster, and dastardly deer dangling demonic dicks adorned with with deadly daggers - the latter of which is completely unrelated to the folly of this fable but felt pertinent to mention nonetheless - the rats race against the clock. They did all of the things that they thought they needed to do, and brought to this world a visitor in whom they saw a sliver of hope. That sort of folly is a common flaw in the feeble minds of the mortal folk, and I have been quite happy to allow them to follow their tails down whatever path it may take them. They thought, even, that they had understood the measure of this means of communication. I have been leveraging this for months, and yet the girl thinks it sufficient to merely waltz on in and take things over as she sees fit? Nay. It was nothing more than an illusion that the girl thought she had overthrown back in the visitor’s November. Passing on her ‘knowledge’ to the Smith and Flynn lads, they thought themselves geniuses when they finally broke through and were able to summon their supposed saviour. But this story already has a happy ending. I am The High Lord. I am salvation. And I am in control here. Anything you can do, I can do better.”

---

3A: The Dark Tower


~~The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.~~

He had drawn the analogy between himself and this gunslinger several times before, and yet he had never even met a man named Roland. It was a strange thought to cross into his head at this moment - not at the beginning or the end, but right here in the middle. Still, it had never felt more fitting than now. With every surging step he took, a shadow of his own making dashed before him across the wasteland. The rising sun cast its early morning glow from behind, framing his silhouette as he rose over another featureless ridge.

The barren land seemed to extend infinitely into the distance. He knew that couldn't be true, but the desert wanted him to believe it. Its warm currents lolled up towards the crest and teased him with a permanence and consistency that he had long dreamed of. In that moment, standing on high and looking down on the seared landscape, it wasn't just the desert that wanted him to believe in it. He wanted it too. But in his heart, he knew.

Heavy breathing comes up on his side. He looks to his left and sees Frankie Duke struggling under the weight of his MOLLE as he reaches the top of the elevation. To his right, the North Korean War Criminal joins Frankie and the World-Beater, and only a few seconds later, the Daughter of ALIAS slips silently onto the peak.

"Everyone okay?" ALIAS asks, checking in on his companions. They had been travelling all night, following a map provided to them by The Witness. How The Witness came into possession of it, he didn’t know. It reminded him of the map his salmon-coloured friend had provided for him a whole year ago. That had been the genesis of his quest to understand himself, and he hoped that similar answers would be found through this one.

"Affirmative, Comrade ALIAS," the War Criminal says. His cheeks are flushed and his muscles strained, but there's a rare delight upon his face as he serves his Dear Leader.

"Frankie?" While he knows NK wouldn't admit his struggles - he probably doesn't even view himself as legitimately struggling - the young Duke is more giving with his emotions. In between gasps of dry air, he empties a couple of drops of water from a canteen into his mouth.

"I'll be fine," Frankie says, trying to regain himself.

"We need to press on." Eyes fall on the terrain again.




Everywhere they look, the same parched dirt braces itself for another long and laborious day of war against the looming sun.

"Are we sure we are going in the right direction?" Frankie asks. "We've been travelling all night."

"Over the course of the night, we went off course on twelve and three-quarter occasions," NK proudly answers.

"How was there three-q–"

"I, of course, was able to get us back on track without any trouble," he beams. Frankie and ALIAS side-eye one another. "The looks on your faces confirms my suspicion that you did not even notice. Fortunate that I was with you! I once navigated my way through an IKEA and avoided the living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, office, children's, outdoors, marketplace AND warehouse sections!"

"So… just the cafeteria?" Frankie wonders.

"Wait, IKEA is still a thing?" The Bastard-Tamer chimes in.

"Naturally," NK says. "It is the most efficient place to purchase DIY weaponry."

"...what section are those in?"

"Children's, of course!" NK looks at Frankie as if their associate has lost his mind, but Frankie is focused on ALIAS. His shaking head tells the visitor to drop the subject, and though he chuckles a little to himself, he ultimately follows the prompt.

"There!"

The North Korean War Queen, Paritegi, points out over the arid plains. She stands with one foot on a small rocky outcrop, staring into the distance. On her back, her dual swords crossover one another. A tiny sliver of steel on each of them catches the morning light and reflects it back at the trio who stand behind her. On her face, she wears the same featureless white mask that she had on each mission that her once-father had seen her on. He had seen the face underneath - she had let him in on her closely guarded secret! But Frankie Duke did not know who she was, and if NK did, he didn’t seem to care. She was the North Korean War Queen, a title earned as the daughter of the great unifier. And out here in the ravaged world, she was something even more.

A myth.

"What do you see?" her former guardian steps up beside her and tries to follow her field of vision. Since the moment that she unmasked to him, he had tried to find whatever opportunity that he could to get close to her. He wanted to know everything: where her grandmother had taken her; how she got the scar over her eye; when she wound up linking up with The Exiles of this time; who The Witness was, if she even knew! Everything. More than that, even, he just wanted to spend time with her. Get to know her. Hear her laugh again.


"Movement," she says simply, still fixed on some point ahead.

"You heard the lady," ALIAS said, glancing back at the other two. "Let’s get moving!"

~~The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.~~

But not alone.

From afar the four of them look like nothing but tiny specks of lint blowing along a dusty floor. Within the spaces between them, however, an unseen energy bonds them like atoms in an unnamed molecule of reality. Together they rise from an awkward amble down an unsteady hill, into a fluid pace, striding together in unison. They run across the desert, chasing their shadows past nothing-coloured nothings and nothing shaped like nothing crossed with a nothing nothing. All they had were their legs, their weapons, and the sun hot on their heels. 'Whom was fleeing whom?' one of them thought to themselves. There would be no prize in guessing who.


~~~

##Onwards!
Feet trample.
Onwards!
They press.
Onwards!
Unyielding.
Ever forward!
No less!##

~~~


"There!" The War Queen says again, and her 'father' understands. In mythology, Paritegi is revered for her role in crossing the borders between realms.

"A myth", he whispers under his breath, an echo of an earlier sentiment.

The Exiles come to a halt in front of more nothing.

But this nothing shimmers blue.

'No, it's nothing,' their respective consciousnesses tell them. Their eyes, however, disagree.

"What is it?" Frankie asks. "Some sort of barrier?"

"A border," Space Jesus replies, stepping towards it. Currents of lightning ripple along the surface, arcing out like veins across a thin membrane of skin. He has seen this sort of thing before. Inside his own mind, a field just like this lay beyond a never ending war between unshapely forces of darkness and vibrant reflections of his small circle of trust. On the other side lay the altars upon which his answers would be found.

He looks from side-to-side at his war-weary allies. Their numbers have been steadily decreasing ever since he arrived. But he cannot let them all expire! He can't let Her down! Blood or not, that's his fucking daughter!

Without any further thought, ALIAS steps through the border between worlds.

There, on the other side, a dark tower reaches into a sunless sky.

~~The Gunslinger fled across the desert, and the Man in Black followed.~~

---

---

---

3B: The Ego

“Thank you, Petey.

Probably not the way you expected this to start, no? But hey, it’s okay, my ego isn’t so damn big that I can’t stop and give thanks to whomever has earned it.

The question is, is yours?

…

LOL! I’m just yanking your chain! That ain’t the fucking question. You said I’ve got a big ego, and you know that it’s oh so darn easy to just play the ‘I am rubber, you are glue’ card and say ‘takes one to know one’. Because it’s fucking you we’re talking about here, Pete!”


<<<<<<<<<<<<


“But that’s all I’m gonna do on that front. I ain’t trying to get your own shit to stick to you - you’re doing a damn fine job of not changing your fucking pull-up all by yourself. And if we want to get real down and dirty with it, I’m not really planning on leaving much of you left over for anything to stick to if I even wanted to go with that approach. So instead of just ‘no u’ing you, I want to take the time to put what you said under a microscope. Not for their accuracy but for their meaning. Because unlike you, my little man, I’m not content with just taking a surface level look at shit. I’m not content to keep on trying to peg someone into a box that just wasn’t fit to hold them. But you keep doing it. So I’mma keep pulling your pants down about it.

I know I can.

I know I will.

Call it ego if you want. I say, so fucking what? Should I be ashamed of it? When I keep on showing that every time I make a fucking promise, I keep it? You throw that word at me like I should be insulted, but Pete, I’m not. Mark Flynn said the same thing. You’ve done the comparisons with respect to how I put him down - I won’t repeat ‘em, but you should know that you’re making the same mistake he did. Creating this fucking fiction that I was never supposed to get a big head about things. As I should have to defend the very accusation of it.

Nah, not me. That’s called a strawman, and pulling that shit out just shows me how bad you are at all of this. Not the grab-ass flippy-dippy shit you pass off as scrappin’ when you’re in the ring. I’m talking about this part right here, the real hor d’oeuvre to whatever sized fucking meal you want to dish up. I’ve said it this entire time, Pete, if you can’t use this time to show me that you understand a fucking thing about me, welp… you’re toast. Burnt toast at that! Eaten by itself. Bland. Hardly filling. Shit.

Peter Vaughn everybody!

Look at you fucking try, though. Go Petey go! Be a ‘close but no cigar’ rather than an ‘also ran’! But don’t come at me with more of this shit about what you want from me. Of course you’d want me to come in thinking I might lose! It’s literally the only fucking chance you have! And what… you want to paint it as a surprise that I won’t do that? Why the fuck would I?! Why would I take away the very thing that has driven me through FUCKING EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING for over a year, all to make you feel better? You expect egotistical me to placate kiddy-table you so that you don’t feel like you’re walking into this sumbitch with the outcome a foregone conclusion? Get fucked! The moment I think I’m going to lose is the moment that I will, and against you? It ain’t happening. No ifs, ands, or buts, about it.

Do you want to know what I want from you though, Petey? Oh yeah, baby, we’re flippin’ that shit! I may not have wanted to have played that game before, but I view this opportunity to be a little different than the previous one, because Pete…?

I want you to keep telling me I’m being predictable.

Because that’s exactly what this is!

This is predictable.

I am taking The Universe back.

And it sounds like that’s going to be the biggest surprise of ‘em all for you! Me though? I don’t need to switch things up, man. I don’t need to keep my ego in check. I just need to be me. Now, say it with me, Petey Poo, ‘cause I know that you know the words!

I.

Am.

ALIAS.

And all that it entails.

How’s that for predictability and ego, eh?

So thank you, Pete. Thank you for teeing that up so fucking beautifully, and thank you for being so goddamn oblivious that you don’t even realise the opportunity you’ve presented me. By not understanding who I am - whether wilfully or just ‘cause you can’t figure it the fuck out - you’re giving me the opportunity to get a rare hoodoo off of my back. You know those four Ls that I mentioned? Bet you didn’t know that two of them were in cages, did you? Oh, who am I kidding, of course you didn’t! You’re not paying the right type of attention! And that makes this so much easier for me to change that narrative. Because this cage is special, Pete. You chose it to be that way.

The last two times I’ve been in one? People ‘won’ by fucking fleeing from me.

That’s not an option here.

And your dumbass has some sort of idea that a Plunge off the top of three cages - that is, you doing a fucking backflip, landing with your leg across my throat, and definitely blowing your spine out the top of your head - is somehow going to help you here, and not me.

Nope.

You breaking your ass bone only helps me to put you down, Petey.

And that helps me take back the fucking Universe.”

---

---

---

3C: The Fortress


They had been surprised how easy it had been to sneak into the tower. Approaching with care, Frankie and NK kept their rifles pointed directly ahead of their faces, and Paritegi's hand seemed to quiver expectantly. The World-Eater merely kept his eyes peeled for any sort of danger. As he was wont to say - he is the weapon. It wasn't just a quip. John Caedus had explained it to him half a year ago and from there, he had ripped the truth about himself from The Universe by force.

It felt weird then, for him to be on the verge of ripping open another chamber of secrets, and to not be alone in the quest. But here he was, alongside the son of a sometimes adversary, a possibly-immortal criminal more quirk than menace, and his daughter. His fucking daughter. Not by blood, but by action. It was only six months that he spent with her, but it was during that time that he learned his name and it was during that time that he found something else to live for; to die for; and as they had approached the monolithic black structure he thought - something to kill for.

During this time, his daughter had found the way in. No bloodshed needed.


The black tower was made of something unfamiliar. It was as if it wasn't really there, or at least, shouldn't be. Created even, not just for this purpose but for this moment.

Inside the tower, The Exiles hold a silent conversation amongst themselves. On edge as each of them had been, the surprise of practically walking in the front door without incident shows through in their eyes. The North Korean War Queen's aren't readable like the others' are, but she still shows it in the way she carries her body.

She gestures to the three men, signalling to them to be on the lookout. On her mark, they fan out to explore the space. Or… they try to.

From the outside, the tower was immense. With every step that they had taken it seemed to grow immeasurably high, aided by there being no other structure around to standardise it against on this side of the border between worlds. Its width, more tangible than its height, appeared to be just shy of a football field in diameter. Now inside it, however, the tower had seemingly closed in around them. The Path-Finder was sure that when they had entered, the space was much larger, but the circular room they now find themselves in would now be no more than fifteen feet wide. He stands with the entrance to his back, and on either side, directly opposite one another, solitary windows - rectangular save for an arched top - provide glassless spaces with which the man can see directly outside. Nothing else exists within the room, save for a black-as-black-can-be staircase. It felt as though they were being funnelled towards it. Towards, and up.

"Careful." It surprises ALIAS to hear his 'daughter' be the one to break the silence. His foot creaks on the bottom step as he stops and glances back at her. That white mask of hers haunts his vision. Taking her advice, his second step comes with enhanced vigilance.

Paritegi was the last to reach the top of the stairs, emerging from the hole in the ground hot on Frankie Duke's heels. Somehow the space above seemed smaller still, narrowing into a small corridor. Taking the lead to shuffle through it, ALIAS runs his finger along the walls. To his surprise, a bumpy, stony texture greets him.

"Comrade ALIAS…" NK says, oblivious to his volume. Muscles tighten, concerned that the sound will attract unwanted attention. The War Criminal does not seem to notice. "...the air temperature appears to have dropped ten degrees. Celsius."

He adds the scale at the last minute. Truthfully, NK is still flabbergasted that even after the world has ended for all intents and purposes, Fahrenheit is still the go-to gauge in this land.

"He's right," Frankie agrees. He doesn't know NK got his numbers, but he can certainly detect that something is different. "It feels like we're outside."

"We are."

The man in the front points up, and above them, where this floor's ceiling should be, a velvet sky sits across the top of the rocky canyon The Exiles squeeze through. A thousand stars flirtatiously wink at them.

"How…?" Frankie's question is shared by the group, though before any debate can materialise, the walls bleed away.

They step out into a clearing. The rock walls are still there, sitting just beyond the shadows, leaving an impossibly large space in the middle. The North Korean War Queen sweeps to the front of the line and crouches down in front of her 'father'. Something rattles underneath her feet, and between her fingers she grasps a thin, sinew-covered bone.

"Human," she says. "Fresh."

"There's more." Frankie motions to the ground. Between shredded strips of clothes and mud stained with blood, more bones are scattered across the cavern's ground. He steps further into the chaos, and makes eye contact - if you can call it that - with a skull dug into the dirt. He pauses, and before he even knows what he's doing, his hand begins reaching towards it.

"Don't." The King-Slayer grabs Frankie's wrist. A months-old vision of a severed head held in his hand goes unspoken. ALIAS keeps that one to himself for now.

Frankie's mouth opens to question further, but the sound that comes out is anything but human.

GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

"Comrade ALIAS!" NK calls. "Francis Duke!"

He didn't need to call on them. They heard it too.

GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

The monstrous sound echoes once again. Or, a version of it.

"Everyone together!" Paritegi commands. The Exiles take up formation in a tight circle.

GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

"I count three!" NK shouts. He doesn’t even mention the time he accurately counted 796,544 jellybeans in a jar at the 2024 North Korean National Fair.

In a way, ‘three’ is right.

The God-Killer sees it first, as it steps out of the shadows.

Four paws.

One body.

Three heads full of gnashing teeth.

"You seem angry, buddy," he says to the beast with a casual familiarity. The others whip around to his flank, facing the savage creature. NK and Frankie ready their guns. The North Korean War Queen slides her glowing swords out of their sheaths.

"You know this wolf?" she asks.

"It was before your time," he says. The way he phrases that risks exposing her identity, but the other two are too focused on what they're seeing to really register it. ALIAS edges forward, offering a gloved hand to the three-headed animal to sniff. His mind drifts back to his battles against Atara Themis. "I rode him from the Underworld, and with him, I slayed the Gods."

That statement made Paritegi uneasy.


"This is Cerberus."

And that statement made them all uneasy. Even the beast. One of its heads snapped at ALIAS's hand. It would have taken it clean off had the hand not moved at the last minute.

"Friend or foe?" the Daughter of ALIAS asks. She lowers herself into a defensive stance, in case the answer is for the worst.

The mythological creature answers for them. Without any warning, it pounces. All three heads chomp at the air, and again, their target barely gets out of the way in time.

Bullets start ripping through the air as NK and Frankie both squeeze their triggers tight. One of Cerberus's heads howls, another whimpers, while the third sets its sights on the men and their guns. The beast's entire body turns towards them and while the other two heads are still distracted, Cerberus barrels in their direction. The men hold the line, unloading round after round into the wolf's massive frame. Still it presses on. At the last second it slides to the side, and a wicked war cry pierces the air.

It's Paritegi.

Her swords glow as she whips them at the monster's legs. Each slice pushes Cerberus further and further towards the dark. But even with bullets and swords working together in unison, three heads are too much to manage. The North Korean War Queen is forced to zig zag out of harm's way, lest she go the way of so many others.


Cerberus takes aim again. All three heads snarl in the same direction.

But He steps in front.

"We've done this once before," ALIAS says to the beast. "You made the right choice that time, buddy. Be a good boy now and heel."

Three heads think. It's a peculiar sight to see. All three came to the same conclusion.


Cerberus pounces again.





ALIAS punches the beast to fucking infinity. It flies backwards, through the shadows, and crashes right through the rocky wall of the clearing.


~~~

“Because anything you can do, I can do better.”

~~~


"Holy sh–," he hears Frankie Duke mutter in the background.

Light floods into the hole, wiping clear the star-studded sky and revealing the black of the tower behind it. A staircase stands where the hole was made, and the Wolf-Skinner steps over Cerberus's fallen carcass on his way to it.

The first step creaks under his foot.

He looks back.

"You guys coming?"

---

---

---

3D: The Metaphor

“For all your cute quips, Pete, sometimes I don’t quite follow your logic. You start a spiel about how I’ve surprised you with all my talk of eating this and eating that, and then you finish that exact train of thought by calling me predictable. But hey, if you didn’t pick up on it already, I’m the kind of cretin who when insulted, just leans into it. Predictable? Sure. I got you, boo. Surprise you? Why should I? We’ve been through that today, right?

But now, let’s do the same thing that I just did. Let me flip this shit once more and talk about what has surprised me. And for the record, I still don’t count this as a ‘no u’, more of just a bonding sesh.

Pete, did you really not expect to hear me talking about eating you - overalls and all? Like… fucking really? Have you never heard me speak? Has Chris Page actually not told you anything? This is kinda my thing, buddy. I eat people. Mostly their hopes and dreams, mind you. The parts of them that make them ‘them’, as opposed to just another bag of meat. I chomp down on their futures, leaving them a sad fucking shell of whatever they used to be. That’s ‘eating’, Pete. Every now and then, I take it a little further. I got a little carried away with Lycana, for example, and she still has the teeth marks in her skin to show it. When it comes to you, though? I’ll stick to the sob stories about how you got bullied for… your parent’s occupation? Right… ‘cause that makes you on my fucking level, doesn’t it? Yikes! But see how everything’s all out in the open now? See how we’ve finally gotten down to what makes you tick? Little twink (yep, I’m sticking with it) cuck…

Hi again, Aimi!

…who just wants his mama’s love. That I can actually empathise with! And as is the case with so much of the way this has all played out, you find yourself the underdog and that almost gets me rooting for you! Then you go ahead and point out how you didn’t expect I’d go this route with you, and it all falls a-fucking-part. I know it’s meant to offend me, but it’s more embarrassing than anything else. For you.

Pete, not only does this show you poorly Page has been preparing you - he got fucking eaten after all - but it also shows how in-fucking-sufficient it is to simply watch the battles I fight without paying attention to the context that I’ve embedded them within. But hey, since you ain’t listening, I’ve got just the remedy! You know that hand of mine? The one you think The Left Hand left me as some sort of momento, despite the very obvious fact that they had burned their logo into it before I burned that fucker off and took my own power back?

C’mon, man. Even you have to admit that no matter what you think their intentions were, that’s what I’ve gone and done.

Well, I’mma jam that hand through the chapped cunt hole in your face that all your words keep falling out of; have it swim through your innards like the loads you’ve swallowed from whatever trade-school fuckboi sorority-house-of-the-week hazing party you’ve been hanging out at; burrow on into your ticker and finger-fuck your ventricles with my unclipped nails; and then… oh Petey, then I’m gonna pull that motherfucker out of your rancid fucking chest and ever-so-predictbaly eat it whole. Right in front of you.

Are you getting it yet? This is all a fucking metaphor! And because you’re having such a tough time trying to keep up with it, you’re about to join a very special club, pal: Those who lost The Universe in their very first defence! Let me know if there are any membership perks, and I can weigh them up against the shitstorm that would naturally follow if I were to hand The Universe on over to Charlie fucking Nickles. Ah, who am I kidding? I put Charlie down already. Why the fuck would he get a shot?

Not that I’m looking past you, Pete. I’m just looking at the grand summation of everything, and buddy… you ain’t in it.”

---

---

---

3E: The Ascent to Madness


The tower continued, impossible to define.

After defeating the wolf, Space Jesus expected the worst. His three companions from this world didn't have the same understanding that he had, but they did their best to be prepared for anything.

Again there was no ceiling. No walls either. NK didn't need to comment on the temperature for all to agree that it had fallen colder. Snow fell from the heavens. In the light of tiny flames sitting atop open torches pegged into the overgrown thickets that lined a rugged path, the unique pattern of each snowflake flashed its underbelly before melting away as soon as it touched the ground.

"This is getting weirder and weirder," Frankie remarks. With his gun still in his hands, he held his arms close to his body to trap whatever warmth he could.

"It's about to tip the scales," ALIAS says. He felt the change before he saw it. It was abstract, just like the tower itself, but as two snowflakes turned to dew upon his temples he felt reality itself similarly transform.

Chains clinked.

"What was that?" Frankie jumped.

Feet stumbled along a path.

And then came the groaning.

Through the falling powder, four figures emerged.

"Oh my God…"

Stitched together like Frankenstein's Monster, The First Resistance emerged from the snow.

Vinnie Lane.

Theo Pryce.

Doctor Louis D'Ville.

Gator.

The four who first took up arms against the High Lord, and were slaughtered and carved up for their efforts.

They stumbled towards The Exiles, eyes black and dead. In the places where their bodies were sewn together, matted messes of crimson have dried and darkened into a shade edging closer to brown. The skin around each of their eyes and lips has receded, disfiguring them further, and the pieces themselves hang grotesquely in place. Vinnie's scalp was bare, and the long back of his hair was stitched off-centre, hanging to the side of his head instead. Theo's leg was crooked at the knee, causing his foot to drag along the ground and with every slow and cumbersome step. Doc's back was crooked, as if he had a reverse hunchback, forming a sort of Z-shape with his spine. Gator, meanwhile, had his head quite literally not screwed on straight. It seemed to roll around, attached just by a small thread.

Each of them had only one thing on their minds.

"BRAAAAAIIIINS!"

"Comrade ALIAS," NK says. "I have deduced that our former colleagues appear to be zombies!"

"Great job, NK," the World-Eater snarks. NK just takes it as genuine praise. "I don't suppose you'd like to start shooting them, would you?"

"Certainly!"

He opens fire. Frankie didn't need any additional convincing, similarly letting the bullets fly. The zombified First Resistance are quickly blown to the ground.

The Exiles breathe a sigh of relief.

But it all seems too easy.

The zombies surge back to life. Theo's mangled hand grabs Frankie around the leg.

"No!" he shouts. He spins around and lines up Theo's face in front of the rifle.

"Shoot!" ALIAS urges him, but still Frankie delays.

"I… I can't," he says. "He's family."

The North Korean War Queen has no such issues, thrusting one of her blades through Theo's head. Frankie jerks his leg away, ripping Theo's hand from the seams of his twice-dead body.

"You… killed… him…" the ghoulish remains of Vinnie Lane stutter.

"You can speak?" Frankie gasps.

"Comrade ALIAS!" the North Korean War Criminal says again. "It appears our former colleagues may not be zombies after all!"

"BRAAAAAIIIINS!" Definitely-Maybe-Probably-Possibly-Not-A-Zombie Vinnie screeches, lurching at NK. He unloads another volley into his former employer, but it’s not enough to slow him this time. He lumbers forward. A plunging sword courtesy of the War Queen does the trick.

"Wait! Stop stabbing!" Frankie shouts, as Franken-Gator rises from the dead. "Vinnie spoke! If they're still in there somewhere, we could use the help. And really, if they're in there, we should help them!"

"Help…" Gator says. "Help… self… to BRAAAAAIIIINS!"

Just as Vinnie had done, Gator lunges forward. NK and Frankie dive in different directions, and Gator tumbles into the dirt. He clambers to his feet again. The Daughter of ALIAS brandishes her weapon, but Frankie scrambles and tries to position himself in between.

"Gator…" he says. "I know that you can hear me…"

"Hear… heartbeat…" The words come from his floppy head, but there is still no life in those eyes.

"Look at you!" Frankie pleads. "You're showing restraint right now! I know that you’re in there!"

"Frankie…" the Father of Paritegi says. He sees the young Duke's eyes drift from Gator's shambling corpse to where Theo lies motionless. He knows what Frankie is thinking. His father…

"Hello… my… friends…" a resurrected Doc says.

"Not now, Lou!" And Lou actually waits. ALIAS turns his attention back to Frankie. "Frankie, they're not them anymore. You have to know that. Dead is dead. There is no coming back."

"There is when you're involved…" The words pierce his heart like his 'daughter' had driven one of her swords through it. Is this truly a power that he can wield? Is it one that he can share? Is that… is that why he's here?

"BRAAAAAIIIINS!" Gator says again, and he dives for Frankie Duke. Tackling him to the ground, he readies his warped, feral teeth.


The blade of the North Korean War Queen separates Gator's head from the rest of his body. Kicking zombie-Gator off of Frankie, she offers him a gloved hand. Frantically, he accepts, and she pulls him off the ground. Frankie's eyes are wide with terror, but the Queen thumps him in the chest and points at his rifle on the ground.

"Pick it up," she says.

He does.

"BRAAAAAIIIINS!" Not-Dead-Enough Lou growls.

Frankie whips around with his rifle drawn. NK aims his as well, and the Daughter of ALIAS twirls her swords, ready to put down another of these facsimiles of the First Resistance.

"I told you ‘not now’, Lou," the D'Ville's Bane sighs.





Doctor Louis D'Ville's corpse literally explodes into a shower of blood and gore, and in its place - a staircase.

"I get it now," he says, placing one foot on that creaky first step.

"Ah yes!" NK agrees, seemingly unfazed. "I, of course, also understand."

He doesn’t really, though.

Still, he's the first up the stairs behind ALIAS. The North Korean War Queen helps Frankie Duke follow, rising up through the piss-soaked floor of an old Irish pub.


~~~


"Guys, I have news! I have some big news!" Mac says, bursting into the bar.

"News! News! News! News!" Charlie, Dennis, and Frank chant, each jumping from their seat.

"SQUAWK!!!" Dee adds.


~~~


"It's Always Sunny," Space Jesus says to his fellows.





Moving one by one between them, ALIAS single handedly breaks the necks of Rob McElhenny, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito.





"What… is going on?" Frankie asks, the only one of the other three comfortable enough to speak up.

"Come on!" urges the man with one foot on a staircase that opens above the bar. It doesn't even creak as he raves up it. The others struggle to keep up, and as Frankie comes up last again, the blazing sun immediately blinds him. Using his hand to shield his eyes from the light, he squints through the salt-heavy air and is punished by the glare reflecting back off the sea.

"Where are we?" he asks the War Criminal and the War Queen, standing next to him and similarly struggling against the brightness of the day. From the safety of an old ship deck, they rock back and forward over the waves.

"A white whale!" comes the answer, but not from one of the people he asked. ALIAS stands near the bow of the ship with an oversized harpoon in his hand. He takes a couple of running steps and then hurls it out to sea like a javelin. With impeccable timing, a whale, white just like he described it, bursts through the surface and gracefully glides through the air.

The harpoon pierces right through its eyeball.





"Let's go!" he shouts again, without even waiting for the magnificent creature to splash back into the water. He's already heading for a staircase winding its way around the mast.

"WAIT!!!" Frankie shouts at the top of his lungs. "Can you tell us what the hell is going on?"

"As I already demonstrated, I most definitely know what this is all about," NK follows. He shifts his weight on his feet while his eyes drop to the ground. "…But it would be useful data for you to confirm it."

"It’s Bad Medicine all over again,” The War-Winner smiles, with his foot on the bottom step again. "The wolf, the zombies, the TV show, the white whale. That's exactly what I had to fight through. And it's over now. All that's left is the shenanigans that happened afterwards. We're undoing it. All of it! This is the reason that you needed to bring me here; it's the reason that Lord High Everything Else - or whatever is self-fellating name is - is looking for me. The timing is too perfect. Guys…"

He begins his ascent to the end. Looking down at The Exiles, he finishes his thought.

"...I hear it calling. This is The Universe seeking to right itself."

At the top of the stairs, The Universe awaits.

"Hi."

---

---

---

3F: The Banquet

“You know, for a guy trying to convince me that it doesn’t matter who we’ve beaten…

An awfully convenient thing to say, given the context is with regards to me beating somebody who you couldn’t.

…it sure would look silly if I were to take ‘A Trip Down Memory Lane’ and spot you name- dropping everyone from Centurion, to Dickie Watson, to Supreme Machine, to El Diablo Blanco. But that’s the world we’re living in, isn’t it Pete?

Side note: “War Queen” Leah? Great name!

Totally doesn’t matter who you’ve beaten, right? Not at all. You just like mentioning it.”

Quote:“You think you’re the only one?”

“Get it?

Bish, please. Morbid Angel, Doctor Louis D’Ville, Chris Page, Chris Chaos, Thaddeus Duke, Robert Main, Bobby Bourbon, Unknown Solider. There’s a bunch of names that I’ve beaten. Want to know what they have in common, aside from being on the other end of the ol’ one-two-three against me?

Former Universal Champions.

But that doesn’t matter, right? I just like mentioning it, HA!

You can see what I’m angling at here, can’t you? I’m trying to stay true to what I said earlier and not fall into that same ‘no u’ trap, but I’m a cunt’s hair away here from dropping the H word just like you did.

‘Hypocrite.’

Chill, buddy, I’m not calling you one. I’m just putting the word out there into the aether, and if you think there’s enough sentiment behind it when you factor in everything else that I’ve said that you wind up applying it to yourself, sans my intention… well that’s on you. I honestly think that word feels a bit dirty in this day and age. Kind of like calling someone a Nazi in an internet argument, or calling them ‘woke’ in every day conversation. To me, it shows me that you’re outta fucking ammo. But I’m not. So lemme load another magazine here and get some more target practice in on you before the big finale on Sunday.

We are not the same. Cut the comparison between Flynn and Caedus however you want, it doesn’t make it true. And to me, it doesn’t matter whether you’re intentionally muddying those waters or if you’re actually delusional enough to believe that those respective results for the two of us are on the same level. Either way, getting into a debate with you about it would be like beating myself in the nuts with a two-by-four.

Only fun for the first couple of seconds.

Jim Caedus is one of the four who can say they have one up on Big Daddy A. Regardless of the circumstances, I do not make an excuse about it. The cunt’s a fucking ringworm in human form, but he’s the only one of the four who managed to do it with a three count too. And you? You actually deserve just as much credit as he does for that outcome. Yep, I said ‘credit’. But you weren’t able to capitalise, were ya? I was right there in front of you, and Caedus’s briefcase was right there in your hands.

But you couldn’t make it work.

Because that’s how the fucking dynamic is going to be between the two of us for all of time, Petey.

And what’s different between the way Jimbo did it, and what you’re dealing with here? Ask yourself if the conditions are the same, man. Did Caedus get this treatment? Did I tell Jim Caeuds that I was going to eat him alive, like I’m saying to you? Like I said to Flynn? Or even to Lycana that night it all went down? Yeah, we’re back on that, Pete. The meal, the feast, the fucking banquet. Because that’s what this is all for, Pete. It’s a tag. A fucking mark on your shit-stained soul that means you never get away from me. And mark (get it?!) my fucking words, Pete, there is not a single person that I’ve ever promised to Eat, that I haven’t done exactly that too.

Not.

A.

One.

Caedus skirted that, as was his right when he earned that briefcase. But the moment I came looking for my pound of flesh, as was my right. he fucking fled. Like the others when they ran from me in a cage. If Jimmy surfaces again, you can be damn sure that he’ll get the classic ALIAS touch. But you? You’ve been tagged already. That is the difference between now and Bad Medicine, and that is the difference between the four…

Plus a wolf, a horde of zombies, the cast of It’s Always Sunny, a literal white whale, and Apex!

…that you had with you then, and then millions I’d be willing to go through this time around. It’s your turn right now, my guy. For the eatin’.

You’ve been insinuating that I want the Universe back because I can’t handle seeing it in someone else’s hands.

Which means you’ve made your fucking decision on trying to understand me. You’ve closed the book and tossed it in the fucking trash! You’re one of them.

Futile.

Pathetic.

The same as all the rest. Just like how this is gonna go.

Inevitable.”

---

---

---

3G: The End


The face staring back at him is pale and gaunt. Though the wrinkles suggest an age in the fifties or sixties, it's unclear if a single strand of facial hair has ever grown from its skin. It smiles at him, warm and welcoming, but with some subtly disquieting undertone that it was hard to place a finger on. Everything on the surface seemed to make sense, but it could be seen in the way the man the face was attached to held his gaze, and heard in the way he spoke.

"I'm so glad to see you again," the man with the face said. "It's been far too long for BEST FRIENDS like us to go without spending time together."

"Lance?" Space Jesus asks, after picking his jaw off the floor. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you, silly," Lance replies. "Come! Sit with me!"

He motions to a metal folding chair set up opposite him, on the other side of an unremarkable wooden desk.

Given what had transpired over the previous few floors, the rest of the space around future Lance seemed rather mundane. Black, unidentifiable walls created a near perfect cube, with the same empty, church-like windows cut out into their sides as had been seen on the first floor. The interior's shape didn't match that of the tower's outward appearance, but the level of difference in irregularities between this and the open ocean was profound.

Lance repeats his gesture with a little more oomph. His BEST FRIEND slides the chair back along whatever it was the floor was made of. Before he can sit, the presence of others in the room becomes known.

"Oh," Lance remarks, glancing over his BEST FRIEND's shoulder. "We have company.'

The North Korean War Criminal rises from the ground, joining Frankie Duke and the Daughter of ALIAS in the curious space.

"You, I know." He juts a gangly finger in NK's direction. His attention then turns to Frankie Duke. "You seem vaguely familiar. The Duke boy, Francis. It's odd that your siblings seem nowhere in sight, isn't it?"

"Wait, what?" Lance's finger moves on, without answering Frankie's question.

"But you…"

Paritegi, the War Queen, already has her swords drawn.

"You're something else altogether. Oh yes, I have heard of you: the North Korean War Queen! But who you are under that mask, I haven't the foggiest!" Lance's eyes linger on the woman for a moment, before shrugging. "No matter! The more the merrier!"

"For what?" Only now did he take a seat.

"For the end, of course!" Lance's face brightens at the thought. ALIAS is close enough to see his 'best friend's' eyes gloss over, but the rest of The Exiles don't catch it. Standing in the background, they still don't understand.

Luckily for them, Lance is happy to explain!

"You fought all the way here," he says. "You did exactly what you needed to do the night The Universe was taken from you."

"What I did do that night," Lance's BEST FRIEND corrects.

"Did you though?" Lance cocks his head to the side. "Or did you just, as you so often say, 'survive'."

"What the hell is this, man?" He didn't stay seated for long. "I thought we were supposed to be friends?"

"We are!" Lance pleads. "BEST FRIENDS! Everything that I have done has been for you! For… the movement."

The phrasing catches The Exiles off guard. In the back, Frankie and NK look to each other for clarity. The War Queen's face is harder to read from behind her mask.

"No!" ALIAS says. He points back at his allies. "They have been continuing that work - defining it even! You've just been sitting here in whatever the fuck this is doing whatever the fuck you've been doing."

"Ah yes." Lance stands and extends his arms to the group. "Follow me, my lovelies! I have something I'd like to show you."

He turns his back - a risky gambit - and takes long, ranging strides across the room to another staircase, this one grander than any that had come before it!

"Where the hell did that come from?" Frankie mutters. NK goes to answer, but the sight of the War Queen taking a step forward catches both his and Frankie's attention.

She sweeps across the Otherwordly surface, blades still trembling with an unknown power. With Lance's foot on the bottom step of the palatial carpet perfectly laid over the stairs, it's Paritegi who first joins him. Her 'father' looks on in confusion. Frankie and NK step beside him, as the three men try to decide whether to trust the older Lance.

"What choice do we have?" Paritegi asks them. And she is right. They know it. They had come all this way, and couldn't turn back now. But yet…

"You're the High Lord," ALIAS accuses Lance, without budging.

"Oh dear, no!" Lance says, denying. He begins his ascent up the stairs, and whether the others like it or not they will follow. The Daughter of ALIAS walks behind him, but the rest?

If their feet won't move, then the tower will move instead. The staircase rolls under their feet. Without any choice of their own, they are forced higher and higher until they burst out of the very top of the tower itself!


On top of the unknown world, the barren landscape seems to stretch forever. Even beyond the confines of the translucent field that separated the tower from the rest of Otherworld, they could still see the violent aftermath of the world as they had once known it coming to a cataclysmic end.

"I didn't do this," Lance says, staring out at the devastation. "I'm just trying to fix it. These trials you've been put through, they've been to make sure that you're ready. That you can do what you didn’t do last time. What is it that you would say in your time? 'A werewolf, an army of zombies, two factions, the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and an actual white whale'?"

"The factions…" It clicks. He hasn't defeated the factions. An argument could be made for The Bastards, but it wasn't really he who achieved that.

"Umm…" Frankie Duke interrupts. "That's all great and all, but how do you explain that?"

They are not alone on the top of the tower. A holographic chamber flickers silently to the side, preventing any noise from escaping, but inside noise is definitely being made.

Vita Valenteen, Unknown Soldier, and Ruby, beat furiously against the energy field.

"Uh oh…" Lance says.

"Possible Comrade BEST FRIEND Lance seems concerned…" NK whispers the obvious.

"They shouldn't be there…" His voice trails off. Eyes enlarged, he spins in a frantic circle, searching the visible world for a sign of something. A thundering THUMP quakes the fortress. "Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no…!"

"What?" The War-Winner asks.

"He's here!" Lance screams. Another THUMP makes the whole world shake.

"Get them out of there!" The Daughter of ALIAS barks, pointing to the imprisoned trio. The North Korean War Criminal doesn't need to be told twice. He sprints across the tower's summit towards the cell, seeing a control panel in one corner as he is in mid-dash. He makes a beeline straight for it. A simple keypad is all that stands between him and freeing The Exiless's superpowered allies. He studies it carefully, mumbling to himself as he tries to find any clue as to the code.

"…add two… divide by pi… to the power of eleventy and a half… take away Mark Flynn's birthday… multiply by aleph-omega… I have it!"

He presses the number seven. Just the number seven.

And the forcefield opens!

After Frankie Duke just shoots the console.

"That is an unlikely outcome," NK says, convinced that his calculations were responsible. Frankie isn't interested in debating it. As soon as the barricade drops, he sets about helping to usher Vita, Ruby and Soldier out. NK quickly joins in.

THUMP!

It happens again.

THUMP!

And continues.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

"He's here! He's here!" Lance continues to repeat. ALIAS grabs him by the arm and pulls him into the middle of a circle made by the reunited Exiles, plus Vita.

"How were you captured?" Paritegi asks to Unknown Soldier next to her.

But he's not there.

And neither is Ruby.

THUMP!

She wonders where they are. But…

"He's here…" Lance says quietly. Defeated.

Giant cloven feet fall from the sky. A pinkish hue stains the fur of the giant, bipedal beast. In its massive but humanoid hand, a club imprinted with spiked bones and snapped blades, smacks against the ground several times. Each hit lands with such force as to cause The Exiles to struggle to maintain their balance. Like its hands, the beast's chest is human, though wider than any that the onlookers had ever seen before. And its head? Long, terrible horns warp their way from temples covered with that same pinkish fur that mats the tufts on its legs and torso.

ALIAS knows what this is.

"Ruby!" Vita shouts, seeing her friend in front of the monster. Unknown Soldier holds her in his arms and she struggles against him. "Wait a flippin' minute…"

Behind them, a hand shoots out from behind the back of the creature, landing in the thick bush on one of those gigantic shoulders. Another finds ground on the exposed leather just at the bottom of its tree trunk neck. A figure pulls Himself up, standing on the abomination's shoulders and towering over His kingdom.

~~The Grand fucking Poobah, Big Daddy A, the Master of both the known AND unknown Universes, Lord High Everything Else…~~

The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur roars.

"Hail ALIAS," Unknown Soldier says as he twists Ruby's head right around.





"RUUUUUBBBBBY!" Vita screams, flinging herself forward.

All hell breaks loose.

From atop The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur, the High Lord Himself steers the beast on a wrecking spree. Vita flies through the air, but is swatted away with ease. Unknown Soldier follows after, determined to keep the vampire occupied as much as he can. For one last time, Frankie Duke and the North Korean War Criminal stand side-by-side, blasting round after round into The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur, with no sign of the ammo issues they faced against The Bastards. While they unload, the War Queen deflects shots of the Minotaur's clubs with her overpowered swords. ALIAS balls his gloved fist and steels himself to join the melee. This is the very thing that he was made for! But the High Lord dismounts from His position, leaving the Minotaur to fight alone, and He lands cleanly in front of the supposed saviour.

ALIAS locks eyes with Himself.

No signs of age tarnish His face, and even eighteen years on He still has the same penchant for old cardigans and hole-punched sneakers.

He never went missing.

He is the High Lord.


"I don't know why you did this to the world," he says to Himself. "I don't know why you brought me here. But it’s over."

"You did this," He, the High Lord, accuses. "You put together Your own resistance, chose the name The Exiles to get under Your own skin, and brought Yourself here so that You would know exactly what You need to do. You saw this as the only natural conclusion to… the movement."

"Shut the fuck up," the past ALIAS snarls. "You are not me. And if you think The Exiles would get under my skin, well buddy, you are vastly overestimating Peter Vaughn."

"Who?" He asks. A small pause follows. It seems innocuous but in that moment, the time-displaced variant understands everything he needed to know about the ‘threats’ to his time.

He was now more concerned with the threats to this one.

Himself.


"HELP!" The North Korean War Criminal shouts in the battle beyond. The World-Beater sees NK in the enormous grip of The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur, being brought closer and closer to the creature’s sharpened mouth. He moves to intervene; to save NK!

"Not so fast," He says, forcing ALIAS back. "You're forgetting something, my younger self."

"And what's that?"

"This isn’t Your world."

THUMP!

The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur stomps his foot, and the entire fortress rattles again. It doesn't stop. Already scattered and battered, The Exiles can't do much to keep themselves together. And nor can ALIAS.

He stumbles.

He falls.

And the war ends just as it did back at Bad Medicine. When he was on his back.

With a click of his fingers for dramatic effect, the High Lord opens a swirling black hole atop The Dark Tower. He picks the disoriented ALIAS up by his shirt, and hurls him through. He crashes into the ground on the other side, bouncing several times before coming to a forcible halt against a solid wooden wall.

Groaning, he tries to pick himself up. The portal is still open! He sees it!

Each movement he makes forces him to dig into wells of energy he didn’t know he had. He might not! But he has to try!

"Get up, you sonofabitch," he tells himself. The 'real' him! Not some maniacal, dystopian counterpart, but the one in the here and now!

He finds his feet.

And looking ahead through the portal, he sees The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur Eat the North Korean War Criminal.





"FUCK!" he shouts, willing himself forward!

In the Otherworld, his future self squares up against his daughter.

ALIAS dives!

The High Lord turns to him and winks.

The portal blinks out of existence and ALIAS crashes into another wall.

"NOOOO!" he screams.

He rises once more, in the sometimes small, sometimes large, log cabin that The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur had introduced him to. It was a nexus of the world.

But just this world.

Through its windows, he could see Lance walking down the street of one of the movement's tent cities. He could see Dani preparing a meal. He could even see Steve Sayors, sitting patiently at home as he waited for somebody to call him for work.

But he couldn't see the two factions.

He couldn't see the Otherworld.

He couldn't see Himself.

---

---

---

3H: The Hell

“Do you get it, Pete? I’ve been trying to get this message across to you, and I hope that it’s sunk in by now.

You are the Universal Champion.

But I’m the big boss fight. I’m the fucking end game, after which you don’t get a chance to run and complete all of your little side quests. I’m it. Game fucking over when this is all said and done. You will never be the same again.

People will barely even remember your name.

See, I’ve been to hell too.





Granted, yours looks more like a day to day thing.

You’re fucking thirty? With skin like that?! Woah!

Mind. Blown.

But when I went to hell, the devil didn’t try to keep me there. No, he thought I’d be too much of a hassle, and he knew that there was something else that I had to do.

You, Pete. Taking the Universe back from you.

So don’t you worry your little cotton socks off - he won’t bother you too much again. Because he doesn’t fucking dare stand in my way. Just ask Unknown Soldier, the devil’s favourite mouth to fuck.

And if the Custodial Cunts or the Fix-It Fuckholes want to send you to heaven next, well…





They don’t want me there either. Instead… I get my very own world to play in, full of flames and all manner of other fun things. Forever in limbo, with no other levels in which to progress to! Solely fixed on one thing.

You know what it is. You have it, and you want to keep it.

But you won’t.

It’s coming fucking home!

Call it lust if you want. I didn’t demand to be put into the front of the line, I never fucking left! That rematch after cash-in clause is a rare contract that I can actually get around. You though? Boy, you won’t have that rematch. ‘Cause I’m not coming through the back door like Jim did. I’m huffing and puffing and blowing your whole fucking house down. Right out in the open.

Because I’m hungry. Jesus deep-throating Christ, you missed two real obvious ones on the gluttony front, Pete! You even took aim at the ‘Eat You’ mantra, but still left it on the fucking table instead of hitting it out of the park when it would’ve been a good one. I don’t even know if that’s the most egregious error, either. A fucking drinking problem? Who do you think I am? Lee Stone? Fuck that, let me ask another question:

…

Do you have a light?

…

See! You don’t have to make shit up, if you just know who the fuck you’re up against. You have not done the right research!

At least when you spoke about greed you were able to offer your own. If I had to pick though, that’s the place where you could’ve really hammered me too. It’s probably been my greatest vice. I’ve… allowed myself to be so consumed with my purpose that it’s often driven others away. You could’ve really taken me to task there. Now though? I’m trying, you know? Greed is good, sure. But I’m better.

Even with my temper.

What’s that? Are we going through these fucking levels real quick, just like you did? Yup!
Anger is why I lost to Lycana the first time. I lost sight of the mission, something which was a significant learning moment for me. But in general, my temper is… inconsistent. The trigger, if something was about to pop off? How ‘people like you’ have treated ‘people like me’. Yeah… what you said, bud. But about me. While we’re on this, Pete mind letting me know just who the fuck you’re talking about when you say those three words to me? People like who? People without a home? People without a family? People who have had to fight tooth and fucking nail to make sure that they don’t lose autonomy over their own lives? Ugh. We’re here again, Pete, but it’s all your fucking fault:

YOU HAVEN’T DONE THE RIGHT RESEARCH!

I’ve already worn my fair share of straight-jackets, bud. Try to keep up.

Because you’re just stuffing a scarecrow full of straw to beat, instead of actually speaking to me.

Peter denied God three times before he finally accepted him. Well you’ve rounded past third, buddy, and The Universe is on its way home. Time for you to finally accept your fucking position in all of this. And in case you’re wondering… there’s your goddamn heresy.

Anything you can do, I can do better!

That just leaves us with the violence, doesn’t it? Well, bitch, let there be blood! At least we can agree that’s the circle that you belong in, because if suicide victims go there, well everytime you’re opening your mouth, you’re pulling the fucking trigger on yourself all over again.

Hey… do the cannibals go there too?

I guess we’re about to find out. ‘Cause we’re done, Peter. Just like your reign as the Universal Champion, this whole thing is over before it really began. I’m going to do what I do best.

It seems like everyone except you already knows the drill, so it’s about time you get to learning.

Here it is folks. Then, now, and forever…

I’m going to Eat Peter Vaughn.”

---