TAPSLAUGHT: Epilogue: "And now my charms are all o'erthrown..."

Two Writers, hiding behind a laptop.

One Muse, holding a very pissed off Writer.

"You did all this because you wanted to have FUN?!"

The shriek rebounded off the ruins of Subreality Hospital, neatly braining a Jackie Estacado fictive.

Captain increased her grip on Yasmin's arm, recognizing the fury that was even now turning the Writer's face to a vivid shade of crimson.

"I'm gonna--" The ensuing long string of words did not translate well to English, and in any case would only be understandable to someone with an extensive knowledge of ancient Malay culture and traditions. Especially the part about boiling oil.

"Cool it, boss. After all, your amalgam did prevent TAPSLAUGHT from chewing up Subreality," the Muse soothed. She cast imploring eyes towards the rest of the Writers. Unfortunately, they seemed to be looking forward to limb-rending and general blood-spilling. "Blame it all on Sinny and Poccy."

The words "Sinny" and "Poccy" penetrated through the hot haze into Yasmin's brain, and she looked at the Captain in confusion. "What have they got to do with all this?"

"Didn't I tell you? It's like this..."

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

Lyssie stood atop the rocky outcrop, watching the reconstruction of Subreality Cafe. The sunlight outlined her figure, and glinted off her hair. The work was going well, despite the difficulty in getting enough cohesive subreality for the walls.

"Oi, quit the dramatic pose already," called out a laughing voice.

She looked down to see a familiar head of red hair, moving slowly but determinedly towards her. For a change, the Captain was wearing faded jeans and a bomber jacket over her "99th Mad Muses Squadron" t-shirt.

"Hello to you, too. I thought you were supervising the work on Subreality Hospital?"

"It's done." Captain grinned. "Nothing like a few dozen fictives and Writers clamouring for treatment to get the ol' elbow grease going."

They watched the labour below in companionable silence for a while, happy in the knowledge that someone else was doing the dirty work -- for a change.

"Say, have you heard about the amalgam business?"

Lyssie raised an eyebrow. "What about it?"

"Yasmin, Fancy, Mitai, Azzy, and the rest wrote up a size-changing copy of the amalgam to guard Subreality Hospital. They said that now even a flock of Dark Phoenixes can't take the hospital down." The Muse grinned wider.

They laughed. "Say..." Lyssie said slowly. "What happened to them, anyway? Haven't seen them since morning."

"Three words: Sinister. Apocalypse. Boom."

______________________

Take it away! :)

(Mi) The Cafe was up and standing and shiny brand-spanking new. With four walls, a floor, a ceiling, and even . . . whole furniture!

The nice, new doors of the nice, new Cafe were flung open by a weary but imperious hand, and a scene from Sarajevo filed in calmly. Though they were covered in grime and sweat and so sort of sticky goo, they looked quite triumphant.

Azzy, Fancy, Yasmin, Mitai, Frito, Alan, Renn, and Rowan stumbled in, their clothes a wreck, their hair disheveled, and genuinely loony grins plastered across their faces.

Mitai was laughing uproarously, but with the muffled volume of one that had been doing if for a while and was trying not to hurt herself any more than she had already.

"Didja see the LOOK on his face? Aaaah, that was priceless."

Yasmin agreed. "We have SO many new ways to kill those two, now. I just might have to write me a Poccy fic."

Captain glowered at her from her seat at the bar. "Don't count on it," she growled.

Yasmin looked slightly put off by the Captain's surly attitutde, but collapsed non-the-less on a barstool which, despite being new, wobbled familiarly unsteadily beneath her. Kielle was sprawled in one of the booths, looking about the Cafe with the blissful expression of one too tired to care if a camel sat on her. Abyss and Tappy were also in the booth, suspiciously keeping their voices low and huddled around a laptop. Rowan and Renn, the two most beat up by the experience, started towards them with one of Apocalypse's fingers, taken from him by Mitai, and rather large and sharp, but Azzy shook her head and restrained them.

Alan plopped down at a table and the others followed suit, scooting it closer to the bar to accomadate their wise leader.

The door was belatedly opened again, this time by a curious Bouncer, and what appeared to be a large, upright sleeping bag bounded in. Bright eyes peered from its depths, and it too collapsed into a chair.

After a moment, a sheet of paper drifted down onto the table.

Is it gone?

Fancy laughed, and shook the sleeping bag with what little strength she had left.

"All gone. It's okay, Frito, you can come out now."

Frito remained in the sleeping bag, although large glasses of alcohol were drawn into the maw of the bag and came back swiftly and devoid of their content.

"So it's over. The hospital is rebuilt, everyone is okay, the Cafe is standing and as good as ever -"

"Tappy is little and cute -"

"So THIS is what the Subreality Cafe looks like."

Mitai gazed around in wonder. "You know, before this whole mess, all I was asked to do was make an appearance. Y'know? A simple, fun thing." She smiled wistfully. "And you know what?"

Yasmin laid her head on the table. "What?"

"I'M NOT COMING BACK IN HERE FOR ALL THE GOLD IN THE PRE-MING VOYAGES CHINA!!! THERE ARE TOO MANY PSYCOS!!! I COULD HAVE BEEN _KILLED_!!!!!!"

Mitai leapt to her feet, and, howling frightened, intelligable noises, sprinted from the Cafe as fast as her weary legs could take her.

Tappy looked up slyly from her corner.

"Anybody notice she was behaving oddly?"

Abyss grinned impishly.

"And speaking in all caps?"

There was a collective groan in the cafe.

"She just needs a little sleep is all. And she BETTER not take my car," Frito murmured from her sleeping bag.

Fancy leapt up from her chair suddenly, a horrified look on her face. Yasmin, who had been nodding off, blinked and breathed in with a snort.

"What? What?"

"Hush." Fancy waved her hand for total silence, and, for once, got it.

The Cafe held its breath as a tiny sound was heard, and it gradually grew, and grew, and grew . . .

Azzy crawled under the table. "Pocket dimension is broken," she said defensively.

Kielle looked over, the bliss replaced by the look of a mother suddenly sensing that her child has just fallen off the cliff and tumbled down into the chasm.

"strike. Strike. Strike! STRIKE!"

Dex and Matt looked over, as did Abyss, and Kielle, and Indigo, and every other breathing organism in the Cafe.

"What," Kielle asked in calm, measured tone, "in the hell is that?"

Yasmin's eyes clouded. "No. No, not this."

"Not now," Alan agreed.

The door burst open, almost deafening the patrons of the Cafe as the war chant from outside increased dramatically, and then was slammed shut by the most frantic Mitai anyone had ever seen.

"The midgets! The fragged flippin' cross-dressing MIDGETS!!!!"

Laersyn grinned, and tucked away his laptop before anyone noticed.

* * * * * *

We forgot about them!

=) Mitai

(Renn) "But, Azzy...they deserve this!" Renn waved Poccy's finger in emphasis towards Abyss and Tapestry.

"I'd say so. Do you have _any_ idea of how much I can't stand being bashing all over Subreality?" Rowan nodded in agreement.

Before Azzy could remind the two why it was that one did NOT disembowel other writers while pouring Blatz on the wounds to increase the torment, the sounds of STRIKE were heard.

All three overheard,

"It's the cross-dressing midgets!"

The blonde woman groaned. "Argh. I can't believe this." She stalked out, her attitude screaming 'I am about to do something insane cause I've lost most of my sanity and why should I be the only one to suffer for it?!'

Curious, even Frito glanced out of her sleeping bag for a moment.

They were a disheveled, rag-tag group. Feathers fluttered from battered boas, and drooping shoulder straps only emphasised the seriousness of the matter of their combat boots.

She cleared her throat.

"STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE!"

Some of the signs stated "Unfair useage of height challenged dwarfs shall not go unnoticed!" as well as, "We want equal pay for equal work!", "Dwarfs aren't minions", and a bright orange sign with glowing green letters about screamed out, "We want medical benefits, too!"

Nudge 'hrrrrked' at Wink. Abyss looked down and hushed them, "Yes, I agree, checking for color blindness would be a good idea, but it's not nice to say that where anyone can hear you."

Renn tried clearing her throat again. Again, it went unnoticed. A determined glint struck in her eyes.

Not even thinking of the possible consequences, she placed her hands on her hips, rocked back on her heels, and glowered.

The Captain suddenly paled. "Oh no..uhmm...you may be my writer and all, but I'm going to go on vacation, RIGHT NOW!" The muse glared over at Abyss and Tapestry. "They just _had_ to have their 'fun', didn't they?"

Thick, black smoke curled from nowheres. Screams were the more awful as they weren't vocalized. Oily colors shimmered as the smoke took on shape. Emerald frozen-fire eyes, capable of scaring anything with sense, and even those that didn't, peered downwards, the feeling that lips were being licked in anticipation emenated from the cloud.

The voice sounded like broken glass had been involved somehow. "Oh, how _tasty_ they look...!"

Tapestry and Abyss noticed that they, not the dwarfs, were being eyed up for a snack.

Renn smirked. Rowan couldn't help the snort of laughter. "C'mon."

Azzy shook her head, and politely muffled her laughter as Rowan and Renn started to help the dwarfs organise their picket-line.

"Saaaaay, Renn?"

"Yes, Rowan?"

"We know that Sinny'll reform somewhere, even after all the damage we writers did to him..."

The blonde glanced over, and lifted an eyebrow. Rowan's grin grew evil.

"Suppose we let..uhmmm..what do you call that, anyways?"

"Oh, she's one of my demons. She has a name, but I'm a bit wary of saying it." The blonde chuckled, "It makes her harder to get rid of."

"Ahh. Well, suppose we let _her_ deal with him some?"

The thought struck them at the same time.They stumbled over each others' words.

"Can sell tickets..!""Charge admission..!""Pay off the hospital bills, cause HMO's just _don't_ cover writers getting carried away!"

Yasmin stepped towards the plotting duo. "Ah, Renn? Care to tell us how to stop that?" she jerked a thumb towards the solidifying smoke.

"Stopped?" The blonde blinked, helped a dwarf get a better position for holding his sign, and shrugged. "As far as I know, she can't be." then added, a bit cryptically. "At least, not by..oh, most folks."

=================================================

heheh! Oh, this could be fun. But, if anyone wants to just wrap this up, feel free to have the demon merely scare the dickens out of some folks, and leave cause she got bored or something. ;)-Renn

(Rowan) "The stage is set," a dark figure mused from somewhere, most likely the AOA Bar and Grill or the Alter-Cafe.

The figure was watching the current events _very_ carefully on the several screens in front of him. On them one could see Rowan, Renn, and a bunch of midgets forming a picket line and stocking up on tear gas. Another one was showing a demon of some sort getting prepared to rip Tapestry and Abyss apart limb from limb.

The third one was the most curious. It, instead of showing a picture of what the writers were doing, was showing a room littered with computers and monitors. In the very center stood a gigantic tube filled with some luminous liquid. One could barely make out the filmy outline of a body inside.

When the dark figure looked at this screen he smiled. "Everything is going just as, if not better than, planned. Apocalypse is permanently out of the picture, Sinister's lab has been destroyed, the writers and fictives of Subreality are seriously weakened, and _I_ have seized the DNA matrix for the ultimate writer, and in only a few short moments it will be ready to be unleashed to do _my_ bidding."

Remembering recent events, the figure laughed. It had been easy enough to suggest to Mr. Sinister during the annual poker tournament the idea of creating the ultimate writer.

He had pretended he meant it as a joke, all the while knowing that Sinister would become obsessed with the idea. It had been child's play after that to leak the information to Apocalypse about 'Sinister's' idea.

He then had gone looking for a muse. Once he found one, he had brainwashed it into suggesting to one of Tapestry's muses the entire idea of "TAPSLAUGHT" knowing that the idea was so alluring that Tapestry wouldn't be able to resist. He also assumed that in the chaos, Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse would be revealed, giving himself ample time to steal what they had started.

After that, it had been quit fun sitting back and watching all those that might oppose him destroy each other in a glorified bloodbath of craziness. He had nearly died laughing when he saw the Anti-Tapslaught.

"The best part is that no one suspects a thing," he said quietly and then began to laugh.

All things considered, it had been a pretty good week for the....DARK BEAST!!!!

_________________________________________________

Surprise! You didn't really think that Hank's evil counterpart would just sit back and relax, not getting involved, did you? Now not only do we have to deal with the midgets, the demon, aaaaaannnnnnddddd the Dark Beast, but we also have to deal with the ultimate writer soon. I have to warn you, I'm not sure how much longer he'll stay in that tank. (Grins and laughs diabolically)
Have fun and best wishes, Rowan

(Azzy)"Wait!" Azzy screamed and threw herself in-between the smoke demon and Tapestry and Abyss. The demon blinked in suprise and looked over at it's mistress, unsure of what to do next.

"Hey!" Renn squealed and stormed over. "What are you doing?" She demanded of the blue-haired writter. "My demon was about to tear them limb from limb!"

"Exactly." Azzy countered. "Tappy still hasn't taken her block off my dimension. Every time I try to acess it, it just keeps asking if I want a cookie. And I don't want no damn cookie!" Lowering her voice from the near-scream it had risen to to it's normal soft, dulcet tones, Azzy turned to mightily confused Tapestry. Wearing the expression of someone who is trying to keep calm instead of going on a homicidal rampage and not doing a very good job of it. Azzy adressed the writer. "Tapestry, dear, sweet, Tapestry. Dear, sweet, Wonderful, Tapestry. Dear. Sweet, wonderful-"

"GET ON WITH IT!" The midgets interrupted.

Throwing them a you-are-SO-gonna-get-in-a-minute look(TM), Azzy continued. "Dear, sweet, wonderful, disturbingly evil Tapestry."

"Yes?" The writer peered at Azzy from over her laptop.

"Tapestry, it seems that your, ah- 'little joke'" She marked the quotations with her fingers. "Has put a wee bit of a lock on my pocket dimension. No pocket dimension, no way to get rid of the midgets." She pointed to the offending crowd. "So, Tapestry, if you could just type your password command in here.." Azzy produced a sparkely blue laptop with an opal imbedded in the center. "Here and here..... I can get rid of those midgets and you can go back to whatever evil you guys were doing. N'Kay?"

"Sure, Whatever." Tapestry typed the commands and the lock on Azzy's pocket dimension broke with a lovely dying sound.

"Thank you, dear, sweet, Tapestry." Azzy then hit a few keys and a flashing blue portal opened next to her. Typing a few more commands, a huge, blue dog-like monster stepped out of the portal. The thing yipped and licked Azzy face.

"No, No. Down boy, stay..." Azzy petted the dog's hug head. It's tounge lolled out from between enormously shap and pointy teeth. Grabbing a midget by it's choker, she held the nuisance in front of the creature's nose so it could get a scent. "You get a scent?" Azzy asked of the behemoth. The dog-thing yipped a positive. "Good." Azzy drop-kicked the midget back into it's annoyance of midgets.

"Um, Renn? Rowan? Could you move just a tad out ut of the way?" The two obliged. "Thank you." Azzy turned to the Dog-thing and scratched behind it's ears. "Good boy, oooh you're such a good boy. Now, Kill." She pointed to the annoyance of midgets.

The midgets screamed and dashed out of the cafe, with the dog-thing barking and nipping at their heels.

Azzy dusted off her hands and stepped out of the way of the demon. "Now you may tear them limb from limb." She grinned. The screams of dying midgets drowned out the groans from Tapestry and Abyss.

"Say," Mitai grabbed Azzy's sleeve. "Won't that thing tear up subreality?"

"Oh no, he's a good doggie. He'll come right back after he's disposed of the midgets. He may piddle on a tree or two but that's okay."

"Cool." Mitai said. "Say, is it always like this in here?"

"Oh no, this was nothing. You should see what happens when Willey goes on a rampage." Azzy smiled. "Comon, I'll buy you a Vodka."

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

And so Subreality returned to it's regular sub-normal antics. Or did they? Stay tuned. Same subreality-time, same subreality channel.

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

Chee-hee

(Renn)The demon -whose voice was disturbingly feminine in a way..- seemed to be amused as she rumbled out to Azzy, "Nice dog you have. You are done with these, then?" A whisp of smoke waved towards Tapestry and Abyss.

The blue-haired writer nodded, and surprisingly serenely added on, "I'll be having a sit down. Running all over Subreality without my pocket dimension," she frowned at Tap and subsided while sitting.

Amusement, the incredibly chilling kind, the kind that makes even the most sadistic of society, -and anti as well as alter-society-, take a step back in sickened awe, wafted from the oily cloud-shape. Faces half-formed, then vanished in it; all of them screaming in eternal torment.

Renn elbowed Rowan and grinned. The grin matched the demons in malicious amusement. "Oh, this is gonna be good."

The demon extended out a whispy arm and merely touched Abyss, leaving a sooty streak on his forehead. She then drifted back a ways.

Abyss looked at Wink and Nudge. They hroooo'ed at him.

"No, I don't feel even a bit different. Ha." He sauntered to the bar. "I want a Guiness. It's such thirsty work to be 'threatened' by a lack-luster demon"

Renn's grin grew broader. Rowan lifted an eyebrow. Azzy just waited and watched.

The one with the oh-so-talented toes sighed happily has the draft was set in front of him. The foamy head wasn't overstated. He took a long swallow.

Then spat it out, a look of disgust on his face as he wiped his mouth off.

"That's not Guiness!" he paused, and a bit uncertainly, "Guiness doesn't go bad, does it?"

The Bartender shook his head. "I wouldn't serve bad beer, Abyss. You know that."

Abyss swallowed, braced himself, and tried another sip. "Argh! That's disgusting!"

Matt stepped forward, and took a sniff from the mug. "Smells like beer." He took it from an unresisting Abyss and sipped. "Tastes like Guiness." He paused. "Abyss, ol' drinking buddy, maybe you'll have to take back that part about her," he jerked a thumb at the smugly smirking half-formed demon, "being lack-luster."

Nudge slinked forward, and questioned the demon. "Ksssss?"

"Oh, dear slipper," the demon coo'ed out -sounding more like a threat than anything else- "Your human is merely going to have the taste of Blatz in his mouth for the rest of his life..on this plane of existance as well as any other, that's all."

"That's ALL?!" Abyss was finally worried. His toes nearly knotted themselves at this revelation.

In his dark, dank, yet very clean for all the technical equipment, the Dark Beast watched with growing appreciation. "My oh my," he muttered softly to his nearly-completed project: the ultimate writer. "I believe the demon is working on the principle of: Murder is for the Unimaginitve. This should most certainly torment Abyss far more than anything else in any reality could."

He watched as the screen then focused in on Tapestry.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

*not so innocent whistling commences*

(Fancy)Fancy laughed as she watched the post-Tapslaught antics of her new friends.

"You know guys, we worked well together. And I managed to weasel a little present for all of you. Call it a momento of our first adventure together."

She rose from her seat and passed an object to Azzy, Rowan, Ramiel, Mitai and Yasmin. They each glanced at the small thing in their hands and then looked at her questioningly.

"It looks like a cracker jack prize," said Mitai hesitantly. "No offense."

"Hey!" shouted Azzy as she recognized the isignia on the object she held. "This is one of those damn midgets!"

Fancy smiled and nodded. "Yup. Those are rings, inscribed with a midget and a picture of us as the amalgam. I figured a midget would be the most memorable part of our victory so I included it."

Azzy groaned. "You don't expect me to wear this, right?"

There was a small puff of smoke in the vicinity of Ramiel's shoulder and then a high pitched voice was heard to say "Are you guys talking about me 'cause my ears are burning."

Everyone groaned, including Renn's demon. "I thought we got rid of you!" shrieked Mitai who dove under a table to escape the midget.

"You got rid of the clones. I'm the real deal baby!"

"Take a hike," growled Ramiel swatting at his shoulder. The midget flew there the air and smacked the far wall with a groan.

"That's gonna smart," he moaned before passing out.

"Um, well thanks for the momento, Fancy," said Yasmin uncertainly.

"Well there's more," said Fancy, her excitement a little deflated by her companions' lack of enthusiasm. "You guys remember the power twins? How they could turn into different things when they clicked their rings together? Well this is sort of like that...if we all wear them and join them, we can create the amalgam again if it's ever needed."

Rowan yelped and pulled his ring off his finger. "Geez, why didn't you say so! I ain't ever wearing this then."

Azzy nodded grimly. "Yeah. I don't ever want to be an amalgam again. Mitai doesn't work well with others."

Yasmin nodded. "Me either. All you guys did was blame me for everything! I can't think of a group of people I'd like less to be trapped with!"

Fancy's shoulders sagged. "Well," she said uncertainly as she slipped her ring on, "I just thought it might be nice if we had the super amalgam option available to us. This place is always getting blown up or attacked by super villians. It was just an idea."

The others exchanged glances and then silently slipped on their rings.

"Well, just in case, I guess," said Azzy reluctantly.

"Yeah, it's nice to know it's there," said Ramiel with a weak smile.

"It would only be for a major emergency,"chimed in Mitai.

"And the ring isn't totally hideous," said Rowan with a shrug.

"It can't hurt just to wear it if we don't combine them," added Yasmin.

Fancy smiled. "You guys are the best!"

The poignant moment was punctuated by Abyss' scream of despair as the enormity of his punishment hit him. The bunny slippers rubbed again his legs and chewed his shoelaces sympathetically but to no avail. Abyss sank into a heap on the floor sobbing, words having left him.

"Oh for pity's sake," said the Demon scornfully.

Abyss looked up hopefully. "Does that mean you take it back?"

"No," said the Demon firmly.

Everyone exchanged rueful glances.

"I'm leaving before I actually start feeling sorry for him," said Azzy.

"Yeah, me too," was chorused by the rest of the group.

With a quick farewell and a promise to meet back at the cafe the following Tuesday the various assorted Muse, Writers and General fan-ficcers all parted ways, unaware of the evil lurking just out of site and that their services might soon be required again.

The End