Sorry, but the WP schedule post function has been only working about 50/50 for me lately, so the Hellbender chapter didn’t go up when it was supposed. Hopefully I’ll figure it out soon or I’ll get this cool collection of lost posts that were supposed to be published but never went up and became forgotten.
Archive of entries posted on 17th March 2009
A Story Bit-By-Bit
Hellbender: Chapter 51 – A Proper Ass-Kicking
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Chapters 1 – 39 Archive
The glass shattered as Ronove’s body slammed into it. Doug leapt in after it and ran to Charlene. She tensed in fright as Doug touched her. “It’s okay; it’s me. I’m going to get you out of here.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Doug? I’m so sorry for all of this. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. There’s nothing to it. We just–”
Doug felt as if he was slammed by a tree and was knocked across the room. “Ronove’s plans were to have me inflict pain on the other and leave you be,” said the terrible voice of Loch. “I don’t see why I can’t just tear the both of you apart.”
Doug grabbed his sword and stood back up. “Is that all you got, you little bitch?” He looked around the room; it was empty except for him, Charlene, and Ronove’s crumpled body. It did seem hard to fight someone who didn’t even exist in Doug’s dimension, but he had his theory on it.
Five daggers ripped into Doug’s back. They then pressed upwards, lifting him off his feet. Doug couldn’t even scream in pain, but Charlene was screaming enough for the both of them. He realized he was being lifter up by a massive claw, and the pain was so unbearable his body just wanted to shut down. “I am just beginning, human,” Loch said. “You may not be able to imagine a greater pain, but soon you will not have to imag–”
Doug had turned around his sword and stabbed backwards, and it hit something. Doug was dropped to the ground, and looked up to see a winged demon standing over him. It appeared to be a combination or rock and muscle with giant horns upon its head which were both threatening and somewhat clichéd. Doug’s sword stuck out of its midsection. Doug stood up, his head coming to about its chest, and looked up to its red eyes which seemed to be staring back in shock. “You don’t seem to like taking form in this world,” Doug said to it, “and I think I know why. You’re scared. I may have been smacked around my entire life, but I will not be done in by a worthless coward!”
Loch roared, shaking the room, he swung down, breaking the sword sticking out of him. “You think harming some physical form I made means anything to me?!”
Doug shrugged. “Yeah, sorta, I guess.”
Loch spread his powerful wings, smashing apart the walls beside him. He then snatched Doug with one of his massive claws, and shot up into the air, breaking through the ceiling above him. Doug tried to pry open the fingers, but there was no moving them. Soon he was let go, though, and fell to the hard ground. He was back on top of his Loch’s ship, and flames erupted all around him. Against them, he could see the silhouettes of hundreds of Loch’s creatures. Up against the purple sky floated the massive Loch, the sky cracking with thunder behind him. It seemed like quite a bit of overkill to intimidate one man, and Doug couldn’t help but feel it was a bit pathetic. Frankly, the whole fighting a being beyond his understanding was going a lot better for Doug than he hoped.
Doug stood up as Loch went into another monologue about how Doug was nothing compared to him and how the pain he inflicted would be super bad and Doug would not care for it at all. It was getting quite tedious. “Are you going to do something?” Doug called out. “Or are you just going to float safe up there like a little sissy?”
Loch did not respond right away.
“Okay,” Doug said. “I’m going to go find my friends and get off of this ship, and you can stay up there talking about how powerful you are.” Doug turned to leave and then felt like he was hit by a truck. He was back on the ground with Loch on top of him. A claw grabbed him by the head and lifted him in the air. Doug held on with one hand and swung out at hard as he could with the other. It felt like he punched rock, but the hand released him and he landed back on his feet facing Loch. “You really can’t take it, can you?”
Loch roared, and spires of rock shot up around Doug. “I can twist this universe apart if I so desired!”
“No you can’t; you suck!” was the best Doug could come up with a retort at the moment. He then charged Loch, ramming him with his shoulder and knocking the beast against one of the rock spires, shattering it. Loch was back to his feet quickly and swung his claw at Doug. Doug blocked it and was just barely able to keep standing. “You hit like a girl!” _A really large one made of rock._
Before Doug could react, Loch had snatched both Doug’s arms and lifted him into the air. “Enough of this. Now I rip you apart.” He then began to pull Doug’s arms out while he hung there defenseless.
Loch cried out and dropped Doug. Behind Loch stood Charlene who let out another kick to where would be Loch’s kidney if he had them. “You’re not looking quite infinitely powerful right now,” she said while trying to look brave, but she seemed even smaller than usual compared to the massive beast. Loch turned towards her.
“Don’t you touch her!” Doug tackled Loch, but Loch grabbed him by the leg and swung him into Charlene. Charlene was back up first and tried to punch Loch, but Loch grabber her arm and struck it with his fist. There was an audible snap and Charlene screamed in pain. Enraged, Doug ran at Loch again, but was stopped as a claw shredded into his gut. He fell to the ground next to Charlene, his hand covered in blood as it held the wound at his belly.
Loch stood over them. “You things never realize the futility of your existence until its–”
A wall exploded behind Loch, toppling him over. As the dust cleared, Doug saw numerous figures emerge from inside the ship. Loch stood up at roared at them.
“Oh crap,” Bryce said. “Um… before you get too angry, realize this wouldn’t have happened if you had an easier to navigate ship layout.”
Lulu stood next to Bryce. “So, we see you can become the form of a powerful demon, but I bet you can’t turn into something small like a mouse.”
“Now I end you all!” Loch screamed.
“We’re not scared of you demon!” Chimezie called out.
Bryce stepped behind Chimezie. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I will crush you fleas!”
Doug got back to his feet, one hand clutching his wound as the other helped Charlene back up. “If you’re so powerful, then strike me down.”
“I have nothing to prove to any of you!” Loch shouted, the whole ship shaking at his words.
“Well, I have something to prove.” Doug walked towards Loch, his left hand over his stomach and his right hand in a fist. “So I’m going to give you a proper ass-kicking in front of all these people. How does that sound?”
Loch roared as he swung at Doug, but Doug left hand came up and blocked it as he hooked Loch in the face with his right. He felt blood spatter, and the blood burned his skin like acid.
It was a good hurt.
Doug smashed Loch in the face again and he fell to the ground. He didn’t look massive or powerful anymore; just a pathetic writhing little goblin. Doug reached down and grabbed him by the neck, held him, and slammed him against a wall. Loch tried to feebly claw apart Doug’s grip, but he could hardly even feel the effort.
“You can’t–” Loch shrieked.
Doug tightened his grip on Loch’s throat. “Shut up! You listen to me now! You tell the others they can’t push us around anymore! This isn’t your world, and if you want it, you’ll have to fight us for it!” Doug threw Loch aside. The flames were now gone and Doug couldn’t see anymore of Loch’s creatures. It was just Loch, cowering as he looked at the people around him. He scampered for the edge of the ship and jumped off.
“Ow!” Doug finally exclaimed as he clutched his wound at his stomach and back and fell to the ground. The others quickly ran to him.
“Do you see the power of faith now?” Chimezie asked him.
“I think… something like that,” Doug answered weakly. “Can you die from stomach wounds?”
Bryce knelt beside him. “No, the stomach is one of those useless organs like tonsils.”
Charlene sat next to him as well, holding her arm. “Just hang in there, please. We’ve kinda been through a lot to see you die now.”
“Yeah, don’t piss us off,” Lulu said. “If you die, you’re out of the group.”
“You hero. You save us,” said one woman, smiling. The rest of Hellbender who Doug still didn’t know very well stood around him looking at him in awe.
“What have you done?” cried out another voice. Ronove’s broken body now stood on the surface of the ship.
“I guess we stick to the plan.” Lulu walked towards him, and before he could say another word, she punched him in the face.
Ronove’s body fell to the ground. It stirred for a moment, and then ripped apart as a being of massive being of blue light sprung up from the corpse and towered over Hellbender. “Do you think you can win this?” it screamed. “We are eternal beings! In due time, we will end you all!”
Lulu took a few steps back in shock, but Bryce came up and stood beside her. “So, are you going to deal with us now or later?”
Ronove floated above them for a moment more, and then faded away.
“Good. Later works better for our schedules too.”
Suddenly the darkness of the wasteland ripped away and there were out into blue skies. As their eyes adjusted to the light, they could hear explosions and gun shots around them.
“What’s happening?” Doug called out, trying to stand back up.
Charlene looked over the edge of the ship. “Asmod and Serpine are still fighting.”
“I think they’re avoiding us because we have the big scary ship,” Lulu said, and then leaned over the edge. “We beat up two gods today! You’re nothing! Bring it!”
Doug limped over to take a look. He could see fighter ships and winged beasts, but they were all heading away from their craft. Loch’s vessel kept moving, and soon they were away from the warzone and over green fields with a blue and lightly cloudy sky above them. The others they had freed with Chimezie looked about with hopeful smiles. Doug walked over to Charlene and put his arm around her. Despite the loss of blood, he couldn’t help but smile himself. “It’s a pretty world, isn’t it?”
“It can be.” She smiled back at him. “So how the hell do we get down from here?”
Random Thought
iPhone 3.0
I know the iPhone is supposed to be the cool tech device, but how everyone is getting excited that it might finally have cut & paste makes it seem like something cavemen use. Wow! 1980s tech! What’s its other new features? It will interface with a Commodore 64?
Anyway, if I want one device to do everything so I have less to carry around, it also needs to be able to shoot people.
Follow Up on the Dick Cheney Assassination Squad
Everyone seems pretty interested in the Dick Cheney assassination squad, so I may have to do some investigative reporting into it. Is it anything like Charlie’s Angels? Do they have dinosaurs with rocket launchers as part of the team? How about dinosaurs with lasers cannons? How does one join?
I’ll need to figure out how to contact Dick Cheney and see if he’ll deny its existence. That would pretty much prove it’s real since everyone knows you can’t trust Dick Cheney.
We’ll probably find out the truth soon enough, though, as Dennis Kucinich is now on the case. Then again, that time it seemed like he had photographic evidence of weird space aliens it ended up it was just a picture of him that had been mis-filed.
lolterizt! Part 77
This week terrorists, next week That One. Submit for either at lolterizt@gmail.com
Meanwhile, pass ’em around, spread the love, and if you make your own, don’t be shy about dropping a link to your pics in the comments. The more, the merrier.
NOTE TO READERS: Hovering your mouse over the picture activates closed captioning for the l33t-speak/txtmsg impaired.
My favorites from the submissions using last edition’s uncaptioned picture (again, sorry for the uninspiring picture):
Two from Rick of The Rabid Conservative:
This week’s uncaptioned picture for you to play with:
PRODUCTION NOTES:
#1: When creating lolterizt! pictures, please caption with either black or white text, as colors like red and yellow tend to blur badly when I compress the images.
#2: Standard image size for these posts is 350px wide by whatever high. If you can have your images 350px wide before you caption them, I won’t end up shrinking your captions into illegibility when I re-size the images.
MAKE YOUR OWN: The free lolbuilder from I Can Has Cheezburger.
STYLE NOTE: Short captions are usually better. Your goal is 10 words or less, with humor value tending to increase exponentially as the number of words approaches 1.
HAT TIP: Snapped Shot for handy links to ripe-for-captioning photos.
Send your submissions to lolterizt@gmail.com and – if they aren’t obscene (IMAO is a PG-13 site) and don’t suck too terribly bad – I’ll post them for you. Remember to include your name (and blog URL, if applicable) so I know who to thank.
Fun Facts About Ireland
When you go out to drink your green beer today, you’ll probably wander into a pub and bump into some smug Irishman who’ll bust your chops for being ignorant of the history & traditions of the land which St. Patrick’s Day was intended to celebrate.
Well, brother, I’ve got your back. Paddy O’Tatertot will dumbstruck by your vast storehouse of knowledge when you regale him with these:
* Bram Stoker was working as a civil servant in Dublin when he wrote “Dracula” in 1897. The main character was based on an old pub lout named Drac O’La who was notorious for sneaking around the room sipping peoples’ beers when they weren’t looking.
* Ballygally Castle in County Antrim, is allegedly one of the most haunted places in the country. Lady Isobel Shaw, whose husband built the castle in 1625, reportedly did not pay off her student loans, and the castle still receives mysterious harrassing phone calls to this day.
* The national sport of Ireland is “hurling”, a similar to field hockey, with much shoving, brawling, and hitting with sticks. It’s been described as “what would happen if last call lasted for an hour”.
* In 2003, a village known as “Dun Bleisce” changed its name back to the indecent-sounding “Fort of the Harlot,” as it was known in the distant past. Some of the residents claim that a more accurate translation is “Fort of the Hilton”.
* It was once popular in Ireland to pin sprigs of shamrocks on your coat on Saint Patrick’s Day in remembrance of his using shamrock leaves to illustrate the idea of the holy trinity. At the end of the day, one would “drown the shamrock” by putting a few shamrocks into a glass and covering them with whiskey. Thus the saying “In Ireland, EVERY day is St. Patrick’s Day!”.
* The national symbol of Ireland is the Celtic harp, not the shamrock. The harp is less popular, though, because it’s hard to find a glass big enough to drown one in.
* Unlike the Scottish bagpipes, the Irish uilleann pipes do not have a pipe going directly to the mouth. However, there IS usually a straw going directly to a pint of Guinness, so sometimes it can be hard to tell.
* An odd Irish birthday tradition is to lift the birthday child upside down and give his head a few gentle bumps on the floor for good luck. The number of bumps should allegedly correspond to the child’s age plus one. For adults, the bumps are replaced with whiskey shots and fistfights.
* The original Guinness Brewery in Dublin has a 9,000 year lease on its property. Legend has it that when the lease expires, God will descend from heaven to punish the wicked of Ireland with eternal sobriety.
* One of the most popular radio shows in rural Ireland is still the weekly broadcast of local obituaries, since people with thundering hangovers keep hoping to hear their names.
* An old legend says that, while Christ will judge all nations on judgment day, St. Patrick will be the judge of the Irish. Denis Leary gets Boston.
* Catherine Kelly, who died in 1785, was allegedly the smallest Irish woman ever. With a total height of just 34 inches and a weight of 8 pounds, she was known as “The Irish Fairy”. At least until Michael Flatley came along.
* According to one rather obscure Irish legend, a ringing in your ears means a deceased friend stuck in Purgatory is ringing a bell to ask for you to pray for him/her. Or that you got drunk and passed out in the church belltower again, Father.
* “Gulliver’s Travels” writer Jonathan Swift is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, where his remains are held fast by dozens of tiny ropes.
* Montgomery Street in Dublin was once the largest red light district in all of Europe, with over 1600 prostitutes plying their trade. To help you imagine this, picture the lineup outside an American Idol audition, except with talent.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go “drown the harp”.
[Tip o’ the green plastic derby to Ireland-Fun-Facts.com]
Space Exploration
Scientists still seem to not be sure what a planet is, wondering what’s too small to be a planet and what’s too large and is actually a star. I can’t help but think how Captain Kirk never had that problem. He knew exactly what planets were and he was like, “I’m going to go down to the planet, and if I see any aliens, I’m going to judo chop them!” And then Spock would be like, “That’s highly illogical.” And Kirk would be like, “Damn your Vulcan logic!” and then he’d rip his captain’s chair out of the ground and throw it at Spock.
NASA has a lot to learn from him.