"Okay, okay, now here's the funny part," said Hotsuma to the rest of the assembled Ninjas Anonymous group too antisocial to be partying with their loved ones on Christmas Eve. "I'm going along here and this pathetic guy shows up and yells, 'I am C.C. Bounge. You are a wearing a stupid hat, a mask and a big red scarf. You killed my father. Prepare to die.'" "So what happened?" asked asked one ninja, just before being skewered with Hotsuma's cursed sword, Akujiki. "Sorry!" said Hotsuma. "Sword got hungry. Anyway, he's going along and is about to attack me when this big giant oni appears behind him and - one sec..." Hotsuma flashed behind the ninja sitting next to him and neatly severed his head with a single upward swing. "Anyway, big giant oni. Really big, got a bigass spear, horns, armor, you name it. And the guy, C.C., is running at me too, and he's got no idea there's this demon warrior running right behind him." Hotsuma reached inside his outfit, pulled out four throwing knives and hurled them at the ninja sitting across from him, stabbing the man's eyes, throat and heart all at once. The ninja slumped back in his chair without so much as a gurgle. "So I pull out old Akujiki here, figuring I'll just skewer the little guy and use the temporary power his death granted my sword to impale the demon right on top of him. But then..." "But what, Hotsuma?" asked another ninja. His torso then slid apart diagonally, slashed in half by a flying energy blade. "But then, you see," Hotsuma giggled. "C.C. trips on this rock and he goes down, flat on his face. And the oni behind him doesn't stop running. HE trips over C.C. and lands on HIS face right in front of me." Hotsuma burst out laughing and stretched his arms wide, flinging a hail of knives into the foreheads of everyone else in the room. "So I carve up the oni into like a million pieces and the loser takes one look at me and runs away screaming for mommy. What do you think guys? Funny, huh?" Silence greeted him as the dozen corpses lay slumped on the round table in various states of dismemberment. Hotsuma pouted and sheathed his sword. "Aww, nobody laughs at my stories." [---] Forgot About Jae Chapter 32: One Jillion Ways To Die Forgot About Jae originally had its cheeks blown out and was dropped in a vat by Shelby Scott AKA Darkheart One This chapter stiched together into an ever-smiling gargoyle by underpaid criminal surgeon J.P. "Stop calling me Polnareff!" Chabot [---] Last time on Forgot About Jae: - Quan Chi revealed his ultimate plan to kidnap Sumo Santa! - Scorpion's the understudy for the ghosts of Christmas. All three of them. Don't quit your day job, Scorp. - Fuuma and Whip ate mistletoe together. Aww, they're such a cute couple. - Everyone's running for mayor. My vote's on The World, just because she's the best-looking. - Clay9999 attempted to get revenge on Battler Man, resulting in more Angel underwear scenes. - Eiji Kisaragi finally checked his inbox which probably included a lot of "YOUR MANHOOD SO BIG USE IT TO KILL NINJAS" spam. - Battler Man learned the true meaning of Christmas and then forgot it again. [---] "Okay, people, we have a situation here." Back at Violence Unlimited HQ, Cracker Jack paced in front of the rest of the hastily-assembled Violence Unlimited core members, minus the Driver who was still in Vice City. Fuuma and Whip were busy barfing up the mistletoe in their respective restrooms just down the hall. "We have to save Sumo Santa from being kidnapped. But two basic problems keep coming up." He held up a finger. No, the index finger, not the middle one. "One, we have no clue where he is, and two, it's Christmas Eve and we have like one hour before Sumo Santa is supposed to get in his Sumo Sleigh with eight thousand tiny claymated reindeer and deliver goodies to all the good little boys and girls of the world." "That's not enough time!" cried Jae. "All those cute little kids are going to be so dissapointed in the morning when they have nothing to reward their goodness." His eyes widened in shock. "What if ... what if they all decide to turn to evil when they think that being good has no intrinsic reward?" "Oh, come on," groaned Poison. "HRRRGLRMPHRR," said Hugo. "Hugo has a point," said CJ. "We need to take matters into our own hands here, and I don't mean delivering eight billion little gift-wrapped toys. I'm going to call in a favor and--" A loud crash outside interrupted him. "What the hell?" The door to the conference room opened and the Driver strolled through, smoke rising from his leather jacket. The burning wreckage of a 282 Dodo light airplane lay just behind him. "Holy shit, Driver, did you have to crash that thing straight into the building? And why are you here? I thought you were visiting your uncle in Florida." The Driver shrugged and held up his pager. "GET BACK TO VIOLENCE UNLIMITED RIGHT NOW -- CJ" scrolled across its window. C.J.'s eyes widened, not that anyone could see them. "I didn't send you that page. But whatever, I'm glad you're here. We're going to need all the help we can get. Christmas is basically already lost, so we need to save Sumo Santa *before* he got kidnapped." "Huh?" said Jae. "Huh?" said his Nameless Everpresent Girlfriend. "Huh?" said Fuuma, walking in and wiping his mouth off with his sleeve, eww. "HHHRRRUUUUGGH?" said Hugo. The Driver raised a puzzled eyebrow. "Oh, no," said Poison. "Not that bitch. I thought you said you'd never in a million years go to her for help." "Can it!" snapped CJ. "I know what I said. Unless someone can walk in here in five minutes with a map to Quan Chi's place and magically get us in there and out in less than an hour Christmas is doomed. Now move your asses!" He waved everyone out of the conference room towards the garage. "We're going to Lucca's!" [---] The Violencemobile's tires screeched as it tore down the driveway and out of the parking lot of Violence Unlimited HQ. A lone, dark, and particularly chubby figure huffed and puffed as he ran towards the building. "Hello! Hellloooo!" yelled Battler Man as he pulled on the locked door. "I've got a map to Quan Chi's place! We can all get in the Battlerwing and fly there and save Sumo Santa! Come on, open up! Please don't be closed now! Please!" A light came on from behind the door. Battler Man perked up. Perhaps there was a way for him to atone for his previous hatred of Christmas after all! Whip stumbled out and barfed all over Battler Man's cleats. "Shit." [---] Lucca, pyromaniac mad scientist girl, watched the TV with ire. Yet another goddamed commercial for Prop 451: The Fire Tax. "Ooooh! That does it!" she fumed, turning to a large, clunky robot attempting to roast popcorn with its chest-mounted laser. So far it had managed to blow up three Jiffy Pop packages entirely and shoot one hole straight through the fireplace. "Robo, fire up the Epoch! I'm going to go back in time and I'm going to kick Kyo Kusanagi's dad in the nuts so many times that Kyo never gets born." "What did he ever do to you?" asked the robot from the future. That's Robo, not Megaman X. One breakdances, the other one eats people. "Robo! Kyo's the jerk in charge of the city, right? He's got the mayor in his big pocket, and he's obsessed with patenting fire so nobody else can use it. So what happened if the Fire Tax gets passed?" "Uhh..." "Look around!" Robo's head rotated 360 degrees as he surveyed Lucca's living room/laboratory. A Christmas tree here, a fireplace there, several counters with beakers filled with food coloring (red and green, for festivity) and dry ice smoked merrily. "See? I'm a mad scientist. Half my stuff only works when it's under a bunsen burner, to say nothing of my wonderful, wonderful napalm and fire magic abilities. Mmmmmmmmmm..." Her eyes shut as little tiny flames rose from her shoulders. "Buh, where was I? Oh, yeah. Anyway, do you want us to pay five bucks every time I light the stove or have to fry a monster or something?" "No." Robo fumbled with the next Jiffy Pop and it fell from his grasp. His rocket fist shot out reflexively, smashing the Jiffy Pop straight into the fireplace before returning. "But why are you going to kick Kyo's dad in the nuts when it's Kyo you want? Kyo's dad didn't do anything to you." Lucca's scathing retort was cut off the doorbell ringing. She stormed off to the door and swung it open. "Sorry, I don't have any more wassail, so just---YOU!" Violence Unlimited stood before her on her porch. "Yeah, me," said Cracker Jack. "Look, we have a problem here and we need your help." Lucca stared at C.J. incredulously for a second before breaking into patented Mad Science laughter. "Sumo Santa's been kidnapped," said C.J. Lucca broke off her laughter instantly. "Come in," she said. [---] At the SouthTown's Moldy Oaks Retirement Home: "I killed way more Nazis than you did, ya old fart!" snarled B.J. Blazcowitz. "Pshaw! I killed cultists and fought alongside Poncho Villa," hollared his roommate, Old Indiana Jones. "Back in my day we had to stab ten Nazis in the back and seal twelve gates to hell before breakfast." "That's nothing! I was solving mysteries in the Carribean when I was five years old." "Didja fight Nazi cyborgs? Huh? Didja?" poked B.J. Blazcowitz. "Nonsense! I was too busy fighting off all the girls who wanted to get inside my pants during my professor days," grinned Old Indy. B.J. turned red with rage. "Well I...I...I killed a lot of hot Nazi women. That's close enough." "And I got to meet this sweet redhead when I solved the mystery of Atlantis, and hot blondes, and I smacked up Aztec robots..." "You beat up Huitzil?" "Naw, but I think they were made by the same guys. And I'm only guessing they were built by Aztecs. Memory's a little foggy there. Anyway. *I'm* cooler. I killed more Nazis too." Old Indy settled back into his chair and put his ancient fedora over his eyes. "Like hell you did! Did you blow up zombies? Huh? DID YOU?" B.J. looked like he was about to pop a vein when someone shapely walzed in. "Hellooooooo Nurse Bloodrayne!" "Hi, boys," jiggled the half-vampire. "Time for your meds, huh? Oh, and by the way...I killed more Nazis." Old Indy took one glance at the fanged redhead and went into lusty old man heart palpitations. [---] "So there you have it," said C.J. "It'll be Christmas in a few minutes and with no Sumo Santa, millions of good little children will start turning to evil. Maybe. Probably. Fuck, I don't know, but something bad will happen." "So why do C.J. and Lucca hate each other?" whispered Fuuma in a stage whisper (in other words, really loudly) to Jae. Jae blinked back at Fuuma. "I'm the newest person here next to Driver, Fuuma. How should I know?" "Oooh, what's this do?" said Fuuma, sitting down in a mechanical chair. A dozen plastic straps popped out and lashed him to the chair. "Neat! I always wanted one of these!" "Me too," said Poison. Shi grabbed the large handle on the alternating current generator attached to the chair and pulled it. Jae blinked again, but this was probably because his Nameless Everpresent Girlfriend had stuck her cold hands somplace warm. "Honey, you know how I hate it when you get popcorn in there." "Want me to eat it so you won't have to worry about it?" "Robo, get that dumb ninja out of the chair," said Lucca. She adjusted her glasses and turned to C.J. "Okay, you've convinced me. Just this once we'll work together. I'll start up the Epoch." "Before you do that," said C.J. "Could you kindly let me out of this FUCKING FIRE PIT TRAP?" "Oh, sorry, almost forgot." Lucca activated the winch and hoisted C.J. out of the flaming pit. [---] "Okay, sir, we've warded the ballroom so the ghosts won't be able to leave," said Yuna. "Just sit tight and we'll take care of everything." "I would be liking it if you would not be having the massive destruction like you did down the hallway," said Dhalsim, staff lead of the Southtown Imperial Hotel. "Eh heh heh..." said Yuna. She shut the double doors in front of her and looked at her two companions. "Well, at least there won't be any maids to blow up in here. Oh, crap, they're moving!" "Get those bitches!" yelled Blinky. "Hey! I resent that!" said Sue. "I don't appreciate your use of that word, and besides, one of them is a guy." Blinky stared at the bow-wearing ghost that had replaced the annihilated Clyde. "Okay. How about, 'Get those fuckers, you fuckheads?'" "That's more like it!" "Incoming!" yelled Yuna, rolling out of the way of the marauding specters. "Miku, go!" The teenaged girl aimed her 50-year-old modified accordion camera and flashed Inky, stunning him momentarily. "Luigi!" The short, green-attired plumber activated the suction on his massive vacuum cleaner and shoved it in the direction of the paralyzed ghost. Too confused to realize what was happening before it was too late, the apparition was sucked up and stored in Luigi's ghost-trapping vacuum cleaner. Yuna smiled. "Okay, good job, Luigi--" Luigi, barely able to control the massive firehose-like twisting of his vacuum, kept on sucking and sucking, nearby forks, knives, dinner plates, salt and pepper shakers, napkins, butter trays, wine glasses, champagne bottles and booster seats dissapearing into the storage chamber on his back. "Okay, whoah, whoah whoah!" shouted Yuna, waving her hands. "Nice shootin', Tex!" Luigi turned to the sound of her voice and inadvertantly turned the nozzle in her direction as well. "What are you-a saying, Yuna? I can't-a hear you with this vacuum on!" Yuna shrieked as the vacuum sucked or ripped off most of her loose-fitting over robes, leaving her with a tiny jacket too small to be useful, a rather revealing bodice and a half-hot-pants/half-skirt apparel at the bottom. The white mage's face flushed red. "LUIGI!" "Sorry, Miss-a Yuna, sorry!" said Luigi, looking genuinely sorry and not at all interested in her new, more exploitative look. Well, maybe a little. "Shit, what the hell was that?" said Blinky. "Okay, change of plans, people. Stay AWAY from the little I-talian guy." He went to hover with the others around the chandelier at the top of the ballroom's ceiling. "Getting that ghost seemed to scare the rest," said Miku Hinasaki, inserting a spirit stone into the flashbulb socket in her camera. "I'm going to try to get a clean shot at them, I need you to clear an area under them." "Right!" said Yuna. She began grabbing tables and flipping them out from under the chandelier. "Come on, Luigi! Help out!" "Wait! I always-a wanted to do this," said the plumber. He walked up to one dinner table and inserted a corner of its tablecloth in his vacuum nozzle, then switched it on for half a second. The cloth sucked straight into the machine, sending silverware and china flying. "But the flowers, they are still-a standing! Ha ha!" Luigi then kicked the table out of the way with one stubby leg. "All right, that's good enough, start dancing, Yuna!" "Right!" The white mage began twirling rythmically and waving her wand around. "Hey, look Blinky, the one girl is dancing and stuff," said Pinky. "So?" "So it's all pretty and stuff. I'm going to take a closer look." "The fuck you are! It's probably a trick and homina homina heeeeeey...she looks nice in that outfit." Blinky began drooling ectoplasm. "Yeah, don't she? I'm gonna have me a piece of that." Sue watched the other two ghosts disappearing in the direction of Yuna before getting a glimpse of the white mage's irresistable Ghost Tantalization Dance. Barely stifling a screech she zoomed down with the other two to gaze and loll her tongue out at the gyrating young woman. "Now, Luigi!" Luigi triggered his vacuum again catching all three of the other ghosts in its pull from behind. The atmosphere shuddered as the ghosts strained towards the attractive young woman yet were pulled irresistably towards the Italian. If that's a metaphor for something, you've got me. "Luigi, watch it, I don't want my face sucked off!" said Yuna. "Oh, so sorry, Miss Yuna." "Okay, I'm going to use my flashbulb to get a proper f-stop time on my exposure meter," said Miku. "Don't look directly into the flash!" The antique camera's spirit-stone-cum-flashbulb flared searing white for an instant. "I looked in the flash, Miku," said Yuna. Disoriented, she began to stumble through the steps of her dance, coming dangerously close to breaking the spell she had over the ghosts trapped between her and Luigi. "Just a second, hold it right there," said Miku, taking careful aim and focusing. "Three, two, one...say cheese!" Yuna broke off her dance and dove for cover as Luigi pulled his nozzle away from the ghosts at the same exact instant Miku's finger hit the trigger. The spiritual stone in the camera flared again, this time blasting the ghosts into blue-white flames and eyes that swirled into the lens of the camera, trapping them forever on the film. Luigi squinted one eye open and looked around carefully. A grin broke out on his face. "We did it! Ha ha!" The trio kicked open the ballroom doors and stormed into the hallway triumphantly, nearly bowling over the eavesdropping Dhalsim. "We came, we saw, we sanctified their bee-hinds!" said Yuna. "What happened? Will there be any more of them?" asked the perplexed and stretchy mystic. "Nope, we took care of them, that ought to be it," said Yuna. "Who am I to be making the check out to?" Yuna looked at Miku and Luigi who nodded back to her. "Make it out to the Ghostdusters, Mr. Dhalsim." [---] Lucca giggled madly to herself in the pilot's seat of the timeship Epoch. "Yes, soon, soon the very ones who laughed at my genius shall be the ones destroyed by it! Mua ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Does she ALWAYS do this?" groaned Poison, strapped into hir crash couch along with the rest of Violence Unlimted. This was not hir idea of how to spend Christmas, especially not with NEG nuzzling Jae right next to hir and making woogie-woogie purring noises. "Yeah," said Robo. "Actually, she rants and raves whenever it's time to drive the car to the grocery store too, and she fires up these big tesla coils when she turns on the TV--" "Fine, I get the picture already, tin can!" "Setting time co-ordinates to noon, December 24, 2002!" Lucca ceremoniously pulled a large lever and the garage shimmered out of existance. "Super Mobile Time Machine Epoch, GOOOOOOOOOOO!" Time and space bled together and the Epoch sped into the time stream. "Uuuuguggg," said Fuuma. "I still don't feel so good." "Fuuma, you are NOT going to upchuck on me," said Cracker Jack. "Unstrap yourself and go look out a window or something." "Okay," said Fuuma. The bright orange ninja wobbled towards one of the windows and fiddled with a catch. Lucca paused her cackling long enough to look over her shoulder. "We should be arriving in the past momentarily. Please make sure to--OH MY GOD! FUUMA, STOP!" Fuuma turned to face Lucca, letting go of the hatch handle in his hands. The door swung open and the howling maelstrom of spacetime whipping past the ship sucked him out into the void. Poison grinned. "Now THAT'S my idea of how to spend ChristmaaaohSSHIIIIIIIIIT!" The straps on hir body snapped loose. The androgyne tumbled end over end and flew through the hatch. Everyone began shouting at once. Jae was vaguely aware of Cracker Jack swearing, Hugo rumbling loudly, and the Driver flailing and making a variety of facial expressions, but most of all he was aware of his precious NEG clinging to him for dear life. Then, everything went dark. [---] The Driver came to his senses as the blunt end of a spear was jabbed into his ribs. Blearily rising to his feet, he found himself inside the lower decks of a...prison galley? "Get yourself up on deck and let's make this as civil as possible," grumbled the guard that had poked him. Frowning, the Driver followed the guard up to the top deck and down a ramp leading to a small medieval office building just off the shore. An aged man greeted him inside the building. "Ah, yes, the soon-to-be released prisoner. You've arrived! Good! Welcome to Seyda Neen. We're in the Varfandell District of Morrowind." The old man noticed the Driver's confused expression. "You *do* know why you're here, don't you? You've been sent to us by the Emperor on a secret mission of some kind. Look, I don't know what it is either, you'll just have to go to the next town over to find your contact." The old man tossed the Driver a couple of scrolls. "And I don't have any money for you or anything, so just be on your way. Thank you! Guards, escort this man outside. Enjoy your new freedom!" Two guards grabbed the Driver by the shoulders and hustled him outside into the medieval hamlet. Their job done, they wandered back inside. The Driver looked around nervously. Thrown through the timespace continuum and stranded without cash in an alien world. He hadn't been in this grim a situation since that time when Catalina betrayed him back in Liberty City. "Oh boy, oh boy," said a passing wood elf dressed much more nicely than the other mud-soaked residents of the village. "I sure do have a lot of money. I like having lots of money. Money for this, money for that..." Old survival instincts die hard. Before the wood elf could walk another step, he was on the ground taking a flurry of kicks and punches to the groin and ribs from the Driver. The Driver scooped up the elf's purse and began counting gold coins. He heard a rustling and looked up to discover himself completely surrounded by guards pointing sharp swords at his head. "Beating people up in a public place is a CRIME!" shouted the guard captain. "You must pay a FINE! OF TWO MORROWIND CROWNS!" The Driver flipped the guard a couple of coins from the purse. "Right. Off ya go," said the captain. The rest of the guards dispersed. The Driver smiled to himself. Maybe things weren't so different from Liberty City after all. A man driving a large insect like a car from a hollowed-out area in its back strode past, and he smiled even more. Then he checked his jacket and found that the guards had left his guns with him -- apparently they didn't know they were weapons. The Driver positively grinned. [---] Cracker Jack awoke to a splitting headache and the distant sounds of gunfire. "Uggh...if I find Fuuma, I'm going to make him WISH I would fire him," he grumbled. He opened his eyes and saw what looked like a dungeon of a medieval castle with rusty instruments of torture and imprisonment lying around. "Crap. The last thing I wanted was to be stranded in a time with no toilets or porn," he muttered. Then he realized that they didn't have machine guns in medieval times and wondered what the hell was up. The staircase leading out was unguarded and didn't have a door. Pulling out his bat, he carefully stuck his head out and peered over the edge of the floor above. "Huh, Nazis." C.J. paused for a minute to digest this as he saw the soldiers of Germany's National Socialist Worker's Party scurry about the room, pointing out troop movements on maps and barking orders over the radio. "Nazis?" C.J. scratched the back of his head for a moment, then smiled a very malicious smile. "Nazis!" He leaped out of his hiding spot and started batting one hundred. The soldiers barely had any idea what was happening to them or who this new adversary was. Taken completely by surprise, the half-dozen Nazis in the room were quickly bashed black and blue by the blazing bat of Cracker Jack. A radio next to one of the fallen soldiers crackled. "Castle Wolfenstein! Respond immediately! Vhat do you mean, you are under attack by Babe Ruth?" [---] The mass of human muscle tissue that some called "Hugo" awoke in a dark place. He arose grumbling and groaning, or perhaps actually saying something quite eloquent except it all sounded the same coming from him. A spotlight turned on with a loud CLACK and shone in his face. With a low rumble he shielded his eyes. Two more spotlights switched on, illuminating a pair of teenage girls. "Hi, there!" said one, as game show music began to play. "I'm Mary Kate Olsen!" "And I'm Ashley Olsen!" They spoke together. "And this is...Mary Kate and Ashley's Crush Course!" Canned applause played and the rest of the lights turned on, revealing a sunny California miniature golf course. Hugo stared in horror at the twins before screaming his despair to the heavens. [---] "Bah! Fools all! I shall show them! I shall SHOW THEM!" raved Lucca, piloting the Epoch over Morrowind. "You shall show them what?" said Robo. "I shall show them the safety video before I take passengers next time, that is what I will show them!" She nodded decicively. "'Do not open the hatch until the time machine has come to a complete stop relative to other objects in the timespace continuum.'" Robo paused before speaking again. "How are we going to find the scattered members of Violence Unlimited now?" he asked. "Easy as pie!" Lucca posed imperiously. "I know exactly what time period they fell into and which dimension, the only trick is finding out WHERE they are in each area." She slumped back down in the pilot's seat. "Which could take days. Or weeks, or months." Robo looked out the window. "Hey, what's that?" A lone man was riding inside a silt strider, a large insect used for fast transportation in Morrowind, racing across the hills. He was being pursued by nearly a dozen other silt striders, ones painted black and white with shining red and blue crystals mounted near the creatures' tops. Overhead, two men rode a pterodactyl-like beast also in pursuit of the lone rider. "Give yourself up! This is your last chance!" shouted the pterodactyl rider. The Driver, for it was he who was being pursued, aimed a crossbow loaded with an explosive fire arrow with his free hand out to the side. He fired it, blowing off the legs of the nearest police strider and causing two more to pile up on top of it. "He's not stopping! Waste him!" yelled the aerial rider to his partner. The black elf waved his hands and began to rain fireballs down around the speeding Driver. Lucca perked up. "Well, on second thought, they are VIOLENCE Unlimited. Maybe finding them will be a cinch after all!" [---] TO BE CONTINUED! Will Battler Man and his companions be able to defeat the villanous Quan Chi before the dreaded and unspecified STAGE TWO of his world domination scheme is realized? Will Dan take OOSHA to a new level of pinkness? How many more toasts to E. Honda can possibly be made? All this and more on the next Forgot About Jae! [---] Author's notes Well, here's my first chapter to the much-beloved Forgot About Jae. I ran up against a few time constraints and I had to throw out a few scenes. I was originally going to have Jae and NEG meet Rax (the cyborg kickbocker from Eternal Champions) but I threw it out because it wasn't very funny. Let's just hope that what I left in WAS funny. Hope you enjoyed it. Next up is Grahf316, who will probably do a better job of making with the comedy than I did.