SCP Foundation

Trent's

From the self disillusioned log of Trentominous

It was around midnight when the strange man entered the war room. He wore an odd colored suit, carried a cane, and had a large mustache. "Mr. Crabb Fischer" I said, "so nice to see you". "I wish I could say the same" he replied, his accent making the statement seem more ominous then intended. Mr. Crabb walked towards me, swinging his can like a sword. "I suppose you still have that offer on the table?"
I responded with a simple "Of course". I knew he would take the bait eventuality, it was only a matter of time. A man like him needed the money that I was offering. He walked closer towards me. "Where is it?" I pointed towards where I had stashed the money. "Remember what I need you to do?"
"Yes. Draw attention away from you by claiming that I have a skeleton army and am trying to take over the capital or something. Won't he know that it's the plot to V for vendetta II?"
"No, we have strict movie laws in this state; we don't allow crappy sequels."
"Ah"
He walked towards where I had pointed. As he walked past me I thought of something I had forgotten to tell him.
"Mr. Crabb?"
"Yes?"
"If you see killerax, use extreme prejudice."

Aleph's

Killerax

Agent MacLeod

I'm laying on my back, in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. A booming voice speaks, "Wake up." I sit up to see a hulking bear of a man standing in the doorway next to the foot of the bed, with more beard than should be possible. It is a fractal of beards. Beards within beards upon beards. The man is both bald and sporting a conservative haircut, as though he were in a quantum state. As I look up, I see a symbol painted on the wall that I am very familiar with, even though I have only ever seen it in online fiction: a circle, with three arrows intersecting and pointing inward, surrounded by a shield.

"What the fuck is going on?"

"He doesn't grok this?" "No, I don't think he does." The man seems to be speaking to himself with two separate voices that are somehow also the same. He (they?) seems to reach a decision and says, "Come, we have to hurry."

I roll out of the bed and see that I'm already dressed. "You shouldn't sleep in your clothes, by the way. That's weird." I shrug it off. "Here, take this. And this. And you should be familiar with this," the odd Beard man says as he hands me a backpack (my backpack, actually), a pump-action shotgun, and a very familiar firefighter's ax.

I begin to open the backpack up when the entity I later come to know as Djorimaticx says, "We can check your inventory later. First, you need to look around."

"Am I in a shitty puzzle game or something?"

"No. Unfortunately, you are in a 'webcomic' by Andrew Hussie."

"Oh, fuck me. Do I need to get my arms?"

"No, you already have them, dipshit."

"Ok, cool. So do I have to solve sureal puzzles or something, or do I have to try to escape this shit?"

"You seriously believed you were in an Andrew Hussie comic? Seriously? Like, whatever he's gonna follow Homestuck up with? No. You're a self-insert character barely based on the author who is writing this shit out in the SCP wiki forums right now."

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Is there any way I can punch that asshole in the face?"

"No. You're fictional. You're just a narrator. Even if you punched him in the face, it would only be another fictional version of himself. You'd accomplish nothing."

"What a dick. Any idea how this happened?"

"The 'Ask the Person Above You a Question' thread. Someone gave IRL you a prompt referencing the weird jokes you made about Djoric and Dmatix yesterday."

"Huh. So what does that make you?"

"Djorimaticx, your spirit guide or some shit. Come on. There's an apocalypse happening."

"Why does this shit always happen to me?"

I found out as we were walking that we were in the barracks for the local militia, of which I was apparently a member. Also apparently, the militia in this world were also the law enforcement, the firefighters, and pretty much every other emergency responder. Service in the militia was also required from everyone for two years. However, when the zombies showed up and started demanding equal representation in Congress, it had all gone to shit. It also didn't help that the Scarlet King was demanding blood sacrifices, Cthulhu had lost the 2016 election, and Isabel Wondertainment had moved her toy factories to New Dehli, wrecking the Sait'Nin'Tee economy. I was only one of a few sane survivors. Probably.

As we walked through the barracks, we came to the area where the firefighting equipment was stored. I saw a complete set of SCBA gear. Jokingly, I threw the mask on and said, with a fake German accent, "Hello, I am zee Captein!"

Djorimaticx immediately whacked the back of my head and said, "Don't steal shit from webcomics! Come on."

He led me to the Brush Engine and told me that, out there, there was a horde of zombies that had to be mowed down, and that this was the only serviceable vehicle. I pointed out that there was an entire garage with filled Humvees, including one that had a machine-gun loaded and mounted. This earned me another whack to the back of the head. "Do you think stories are interesting when a character has everything they need handed to them on a silver platter? Unless you're going for crackfic, the answer is no! You can write a badass, but the badass can't be the most badass just because. There has to be conflict, and there's no conflict if you just mow down the zombies with a machine gun before they even show up! Now get in the damn brush truck."

"Jesus, man, what is your problem?"

"You're a self-insert character and you have yet to prove that you're a well-written one. You're my problem."

I couldn't help but mutter "asshole" under my breath as I tossed my equipment into the truck and began detaching the battery charger. After I'd finished prepping the truck, I asked my bearded spirit guide whether I should take inventory now.

"Na, you should've done that when you first woke up. Would've made the scene flow more smoothly."

"How was I supposed to do that when you didn't let me?"

"Idunno. I guess the author just didn't think this through."

"What a dick."

"I know, but hopefully, this adventure will help him fix that."

I start the engine on the truck, press the garage door opener's button, and, as soon as the door is open enough, slam my foot on the gas. After passing through a veritable sea of zombies, many of which I turned into bloody speed bumps, I begin the drive into my new life.

I'm sitting behind the wheel of the brush truck, Djorimaticx in the passenger's seat and my backpack between us. The silence is killing me.

"So zombies, huh?" I don't know why I felt the need to ask, but I did, and now the question hangs in the air.

"Huh? What about them?" It seems that Djorimaticx had been taking a nap.

"You said they demanded equal representation in Congress, right? This means that they're sapient, right?"

"What're you getting at?"

"Well, the way I figure, there are four kinds of zombie. You've got Night of the Living Dead/Zombieland zombies, that just shamble around. Then there are The Thing/SCP-610 type-zombies, that operate on a hive mind. Then you have Resident Evil/[PROTOTYPE] zombies, that are controlled by boss zombies. And then there are traditional voodoo zombies, which are either mindless-but-not-contagious ghouls or slaves controlled by a necromancer. There are also Warm Bodies zombies which are normal people but kinda dead or something, but nobody saw that movie besides me and necro fetishists, so they don't really count."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, what sorta zombies are these?"

"Does it fucking matter?"

"Yeah. I mean, I ran over like 50 of them back there, and I've hit a few since we've been driving. I wanna know who I'm killing, so I can at least feel comfortable about it or get all angsty for the sake of the story."

"You're supposed to be a badass. Your name is 'MacLeod,' for fuck's sake. If you're gonna write badass self-inserts, you need to make them either really subtle, or really crackfic-y. The author opted for crackfic, and crackfic doesn't have fucking angst. I'm not fueling your bad habits."

"Seriously?"

"If you want to know so damn much about the zombies, ask one yourself."

"Eugh, fine." I happen to see one shambling by the side of the road. Instead of swerving to make road-jerky out of it, I decide to pull over and roll down the window. "Hey, zombie lady! Hey!"

"What the fuck do you want, asshole?"

"I'm talking with my friend here, but he won't tell me what kinda zombies you are. So tell me, are you mindless brain-eating monsters, slaves to a hive-mind, slaves to a boss zombie, or slaves to a necromancer?"

"First of all, the word 'zombie' is extremely prejudiced against people like me. Just because I'm a woman suffering from necrosis, rigor mortis, and a brain addiction doesn't give you a right to use the 'zed' word, because everyone knows that zombies aren't real. That's just ridiculous. Secondly, it's none of your damn business who I've chosen as my employer or supreme dark overlord. Deal with it." At this point, she bared her teeth, growled, and began to rush me, so I grabbed the shotgun off the seat and made hamburger meat out of her.

"Holy shit. That was close."

"Yeah, you were talking to a fucking zombie. What did you expect?"

"Hey, I don't need you and your beard's shit right now, man. Why don't you go write an inaugural speech for President Wondertainment or some shit?"

"Don't be a dumbass. Everyone knows Wondertainment moved her shit to India after Trump won the primaries."

I was about to reply when I saw movement outside the window. The zombie lady wasn't dead, despite a massive cavity where her chest had been. I could hear her rattling something, so I listened closely. "Sooooomeoooone heeeeelp me, I'm being reeeeepressssed."

"Seriously? Fucking Monty Python and the Holy Grail quotes? Fucking seriously?"

"Yeah, this author thinks he's being funny with references to people who actually were funny. You need to be more original, man."

"Clearly. Should I put her out of her misery?"

"Sure."

I threw the truck into park and jumped out, pumping the shotgun and checking to make sure there weren't any zombies lying in wait. As I walked up to the zombie, I could hear her rattle more; "Ssssseeeeee? Thiiiiss iiiss thee viiooolleence iinheeeeerent iin thee sysssteeem."

"Yeah, fuck this." I stood back a few feet (but close enough to be sure I wouldn't miss), aimed at her head, and fired.

I was born into a humble little village on the outskirts of New Ax City, Axington. It was a pleasant community, if a little sleepy. The Ax Elders in the village were friendly, always willing to help runts like me chop down trees that were too sturdy for their dull little blades. Ma Ax and Da Ax were kind, and they always let me choose whether I wanted to go to Grinding School or not. My brother was a nuisance, but he was a welcome nuisance, the kind of nuisance that only a sibling can be. Sometimes he'd dull me when I was sleeping, and I'd chase him round the house. We were brothers in the truest sense of the word. Life was good.

But everything changed when the Battle Axes invaded…

To this day, no one knows what forced their hands. The Battle Axes and the Fire Axes had always maintained a stable relationship. There may have been several incidents in the past where that relationship became strained and tenuous, but it always worked itself out. Not this time. The leading theory is that an outbreak of the Rust had decimated the Battle Ax population, and that they had invaded our territory after we refused to provide them aid (after all, we were struggling with our own epidemic; my village hadn't been affected, luckily.) The first days of the war were horrible; I was still only a child at the time, and the slaughter was all over the news. We'd been taken by surprise, left vulnerable from the Rust, and the Battle Axes had capitalized on that. The Fire Axes may very well have been wiped out if not for the timely intervention of the Knives, who had sworn to protect our kind forever. Their interference cost them dearly, however; within months, the Knives had been wiped out. But their sacrifice gave us enough time to pull ourselves together and rally other members of Weaponkind to our cause. Before we knew it, all of Weaponkind had taken sides; even the McClouds had decided to join in. Old rivalries came to a peak as Buzzsaws fought with Chainsaws and Hacksaws and the Swords pitted themselves against each other. Our allies fought valiantly, but we were slowly losing ground. My family and countless others were forced to evacuate to the Capitol Ax City, and I watched as my village was sliced to the ground. Everyone thought we had lost, that Fire-Axkind was about to become extinct.

But the Prime Minister Ax had different ideas…

The Prime Minister Ax… where do I begin? Ever since I was a child, this ax scared me. Hell, he scared us all. He'd inherited the title after an incredibly long and complicated series of gambits and coups (which I will not fully detail, as we'd be here all day; however, I will say that part of his plan involved enlisting the help of a rather attractive Maul who infiltrated the former Prime Minister Ax's network of secret agents and brought it all down from the inside.) His cunning was unmatched, and it was rumored that a single tap from his blade could slice anything clean in half. He was a capable and rather compassionate ruler, and he always seemed to have Fire-Axkind's best interests at heart, but that didn't stop me from crawling under my bed and hiding every time he came to visit our town.

As it turned out, my fear was justified.

My family and the rest of Ax-kind were holed up in the Capitol Ax City, counting down the days until the Battle Axes finally sliced through the city walls. We were all looking to the Prime Minister Ax to save us, but one night, he just vanished. My family scoured his office and questioned everyone who had any connection to him, but no one had a clue. He was gone.

This threw Fire-Axkind into an outrage. How could our leader simply abandon us? Any semblance of order in the Capitol Ax City was torn away. Riots filled the streets, arsonists and murderers ran free, and my family and I were forced to hide in a remote section of the city, praying that the Prime Minister Ax would come back for us.

And he did. But with some… rather unwelcome company.

No one knows how he did it. I, along with every other Fire Ax child, had assumed that they were nothing more than myth, a scary story to whisper to your siblings in the dark. They couldn't possibly exist.

But the howling that filled the air that night that stopped everyone, including the Battle Axes, dead in their tracks, begged to differ.

The Axhounds had awoken.

It was truly frightening how efficient the Hounds were. Within days, the legions of Battle Axes outside the Capitol Ax City were gone. All devoured. Absolutely nothing left of them, not even a single splinter. The rest of Fire-Axkind could only watch as the Prime Minister Ax commanded the Hounds with deadly precision, slaughtering thousands of Battle Axes with a single directive. Within weeks, the tide of the war had turned. The Battle Axes and the Spears (their only surviving allies) had been pushed back into their last remaining city, the Hounds baying and nipping at their walls. At night, the howls of the Hounds haunted our dreams, their beady eyes and horrible teeth keeping us awake at night. We knew that the only thing stopping them from turning on us was their loyalty to the Prime Minister Ax. We were scared; terrified, even. Victory was certain at this point, though, and that was all that mattered.

But the Battle Axes had one final trick up their sleeve.

Turns out the Battle Ax scientists had been busy. They'd been developing some kind of twisted Spear-Battle-Ax hybrid, and they called it a Halberd.

They were monstrous. All the Hounds lay dead in a single hour. The Prime Minister Ax challenged one to a duel and barely escaped with his life, forced to beat a retreat back to the Capitol Ax City with the news. The Halberds would arrive at the Capitol in just one day.

Immediately, all the faith we had placed in our Prime Minister disappeared; we ganged up on him, taking out all our frustration and hatred and anger on him. But even in his weakened state, he was able to fight us all off, almost killing me in the ensuing battle. He dragged himself towards his office, splintered and dulled, steeling himself for one last hurrah.

The Atomic Rust Bomb was ready.

God knows how long the Fire Ax scientists had been working on the thing. Knowing the Prime Minister Ax, he'd had this in mind since the beginning. The rest of Fire-Axkind had been kept in the dark, however. So when the siren sounded and pierced through our resigned silence as we stared at the advancing Halberds, we had no idea what to do. My family and I tried to take shelter, but only my brother and I were small enough to fit into the makeshift bunker we stumbled upon. I didn't even have a chance to bid my parents goodbye; there was a terrible, terrible sound, and everything turned to Rust.

My brother and I didn't dare leave our shelter until several hours after the detonation, when we were sure that everything was over. We emerged to find a dead, barren wasteland littered with the corpses of Fire Axes and Halberds alike. Rust stretched as far as the eye could see. Everyone I knew was dead. My brother and I sat and cried, not noticing the stained brown color of our tears.

We decided to wander the wasteland in the hopes of finding survivors. For several weeks, we found nothing, just more and more Rust. But one day, we found something incredible; an injured Axhound- the last of its kind, in fact. He had somehow survived the Halberds' wrath, but only barely. My brother and I nursed him back to health, named him Barney. He was grateful that we saved him and decided not to kill us. Turns out, he was a very good dog, able to play fetch and sit on command and everything.

But it was not meant to be.

After another few weeks, we found him. The Prime Minister Ax himself, stumbling through the wasteland, alone. Our first instinct was to attack him, to avenge the pointless deaths of our parents and everyone in our town, but we knew that we would be killed instantly. Instead, we confronted him, demanding to know why he had murdered all of Fire-Axkind. Rust-stained tears streaked down his face as he replied that he didn't want the Battle Axes to feel the triumph of wiping out the Fire Axes, so he'd done it by his own hand. I almost felt pity for him then, but before I knew what was happening, Barney was on him, pinning him to the ground, jaws snapping. He must have felt angry towards the Prime Minister Ax for sending all the other Axhounds to their deaths. The fight was brutal and bloody, and in the end, both Barney and the Prime Minister Ax lay dead. With his dying breath, he informed us that we were the last ones left, and that we had to continue the Fire Ax legacy for the rest of our lives and honor all those Fire Axes who had perished in the war.

Those words still haunt me to this day.

My brother and I were forced to wander the ruins of the Weaponworld, utterly alone. We were convinced that we were doomed, that we'd slowly succumb to the Rust and join our parents in their unmarked graves. But one day, we stumbled upon something; a portal to the world of humans. I don't know why it was there, but I assume that the Prime Minister Ax was responsible; maybe he was trying to find potential allies here. Either way, we decided to take our chances and step into the portal. Sure enough, we were found by a kindly old lumberjack who sheltered us in his shed and fed us plenty of trees every day. I ended up sealing away the memories I had of the Great Ax War, replacing those horrible times with a much nicer, fictional backstory. I was in denial, but I was happy. Things were finally looking up.

Or so I thought.

I don't know how it happened, but one day, I woke up, and my brother was gone. At first I assumed it was nothing but a prank, but after looking for him for hours on end and not finding him, I knew something was wrong. The lumberjack was confused that one of his axes had gone missing, of course, but he assumed it was just his years catching up with him and dismissed it. For the first time in my life, I was alone.

I didn't see my brother until five years later, when the lumberjack decided to put on a movie about some psycho dude who was staying at a haunted hotel with his family. I paid it no mind… until I saw him. My brother was in the film, being used by the psycho to chop down a door. He was almost unrecognizable; the Rust had almost completely overtaken him, and it was apparent that the psycho had mistreated him terribly. From that day forward, I swore that I would get my revenge on the Shining guy. I trained myself to become the deadliest ax in existence, surpassing even the Prime Minister Ax in my sharpness. The Shining guy would pay for what he had done to my brother.

However, according to Aleph, the Shining guy doesn't actually exist, and my brother actually died from the Rust. He says that I went mad from grief and constructed an elaborate lie around a fictional character to suppress the truth. I don't know what's true and what isn't anymore; the Rust makes it so hard to think…

Whatever text to show/hide.

Kern and the Atomic Rust Bomb (A children’s story)
Roughly translated from Spooknacular

Once upon a time there was a loyal Skeleton subject named Kern. Kern was completely dedicated to the cause of King Lord skelly of the southern isles III, who was the current reigning monarch. One day, King Lord Skelly of the southern isles III was attacked by a group of semi-rabid humans while on the royale chamber pot and was killed. Lord skelly’s kingdom quickly descended into chaos, mostly due to the fact that he had forgotten to appoint a vice prime minister or any other governmental positions. Skeletons ran wild on the streets as rioting began in the lower humorous districts. Ex-Queen duchess skelly of the court of spookters IV finally decided to step up and take over for her estranged husband. She quickly stopped the riots and the kingdom became peaceful again. Six hundred and sixty six days later, she decided that a new ruler was needed. The only problem was that she had no un-living relatives or children. Ex-Queen duchess skelly pondered what to do for many days. On the 8th day of her pondering, the skelly kingdom was attacked by humans and axes. The citizen skeletons fought bravely, but they were no match for the hideous enemy. After merely 24 seconds of fighting, the skeletons retreated to the capital building. All seemed lost for the skeletons, until Kern remembered that he had illegally purchased a bottle of liquid rust. With the help of the spooky scientists, he fused human and axes greatest weaknesses into one weapon of destruction, the Atomic rust bomb. Sadly, the scientists had forgotten to build in a remote detonator, meaning one skeleton would have to sacrifice themselves to detonate it. All of the other skeletons were too spooked to do the job, so Kern volunteered. He ran outside the building where the humans and axes were trying to break into and yelled “I am the spookmiester! Come and get me if you can!”. The humans and axes followed Kern as he ran to the edge of town. Kern yelled “happy spooktober you spooky spooky frauds!” and detonated the bombs, killing all humans and axes. The skeletons celebrated their victory, but still felt bad about being too spooked and letting Kern get killed. They found Kern’s remains and were preparing to bury him, when the Ex-Queen skelly stepped forward and revived Kern using the Spooky ex-machina machine. The queen then presented the royal bone crown to Kern, and dubbed thee King Kern the VVVVVI. King Kern ruled happily ever after until he was horribly murdered by a crack team of axes. The End.

Note from the writer (Sir spook the 89th and a half)
- I think I was stoned when I wrote this.

Cannonious Prime was battering the "skeleton wars" crackfic. He had spent all day terminating fics. Fan fics, crackfics, you name it he would destroy it. That was his job after all, and he couldn't go home until he had finished his quota. He was on his last termination of the day, but he didn't seem to be making any progress. Every time he smashed a portion of it it would regrow, stronger than ever. He had tried everything in his arsenal, his mace, his pitchfork, his "deus ex ray gun", all to no avail. He stood there, on the border between crackfic and meta reality hammering away. Days and nights went by,seasons changed, and yet still no progress.

Inside Crackfic reality
"Do you think he'll give up?", asked Boneson. "I da' thin' so, nothin' seems ta be workin'" replied Skellers.
The two skull-jet riders had been watching Cannonious Prime for a few hours now, and had been taking bets on how long it would take him. "I bet that he'll not last but anoth…" Skellers began before being interrupted by the sound of shattering glass.

Cannonious Prime had finally broken through, the satisfying sound of shattering affirming this. It was time to call in his master. He activated his phone attachment and began to dial.

Somewhere in the dark depths of purgatory, Axe-titan's phone rang.

"Dude, I really need your help breaking down this door. Stop moping around and get over here."
MacLeod jiggled the doorknob again, to no avail. Sighing, he turned and walked away.

His words had fallen on deaf ears. The fire ax lying in the corner hadn't moved in over an hour. If he had eyes, he would be sobbing. Unfortunately, being an ax, he didn't have eyes, so the next best thing was muttering to himself, "It can't be," over and over again.

Thekillerax was by no means an easy ax to intimidate. He'd witnessed a fair share of violence, fought in a fair share of fights, sparred with a fair share of monstrous foes. He'd dueled with the Prime Minister Ax and escaped with his life. He'd pacified and tamed an Axhound, a creature whose sole purpose in life was to devour and slaughter Axes. He'd cut down hundreds, if not thousands, of skeletons in the ongoing war. But there was one thing that still struck fear in his heart, one phobia that he had never grown out of.

A Rust-Bender had entered the War.

"Y'know, finding out that my ax was a self-insert character like me was cool and all, but do I really have to deal with his bullshit storyline too?" MacLeod asked, staring at the locked door.

"Yup. That's how these crossovers work. A bunch of assholes decide to merge together all the shitty crackfic they've written into the same universe, and now we've got five individual self-insert characters, each running around with their own cliche'd plot arcs and backstories," Djorimaticx replied.

"Sounds like a nightmare."

"It is. It's a giant fucking narrative nightmare. Right now, in fact, there's yet another guy writing you and me, and I'm pretty sure he's characterizing us all wrong. I just hope they finish whatever they're planning on writing soon. Sooner I get out of this stupid story, the better."

MacLeod nodded, before getting up and knocking on the door again. "Ax, seriously, we need this door open. There's supplies and other deus ex machina stuff in that closet, and I need you to break it down."

"Can't you use any of your other tools?" Thekillerax replied.

"I would, but thanks to some contrived narrative bullshit, I can't. You're the only one who can do it."

"Alright, fine." The door opened and Thekillerax stepped out. He swung his head as hard as he could against the barricaded door, shattering it to pieces. "Thanks, du—"
MacLeod was cut short as a skeleton popped out of the closet. It lunged at him and closed its hands around his neck.

When he was alone, he liked to experiment with his Rust-bending. He'd form patterns out of the Rust, watching it dance and shift between his fingers, admiring its terrible beauty. The power of the Rust still awed him to this day. Watching it eat away at members of Weaponkind with that insatiable appetite, spreading and spreading along the weapon until it was nothing more than a mangled, twisted heap… it brought a smile to his face every time. He twirled his mustache and tapped his cane, stepping out into the battlefield. He snapped his fingers, and instantly the enemy push was broken as thousands of Fire Axe Clones keeled over, the Rust already beginning to devour them. The skeletons gave a cry of victory as they descended upon the incapacitated forces, delivering horrible, horrible slaughter. A good day's work, indeed.

But he was distracting himself from his main mission. For whatever reason, his employer Trentominous had given him the task of assassinating one individual in particular. Crabb presumed that they were the commander of the enemy forces or something. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a small photo and stared at his target. A smile broke out across his face. "Just another fire ax?" he chirped. "Oh, this will be easy."

Aleph stood in his lab, sighing heavily. So far, the Skeleton War wasn't going so well. Thekillerax had somehow gotten himself involved with two other self-insert characters far away from the battlefield, and Fire Ax Clones were dying by the tens of thousands, murdered by some unknown foe. The cloning facilities were in overdrive, spitting out hundreds of Fire Ax Clones every second, but they were still suffering heavy losses. The skeletons were advancing, and Aleph didn't know what to do. He wanted to revert to his Nightmaleph form, but he knew that the narrative of the story wouldn't allow it; that was saved for the climax of the story, when all five self-insert characters fought in an epic battle to determine the outcome of the war. He couldn't just spoil the build-up and revert right now, could he? That would be boring as hell. He'd made Halloween mad for a reason, after all; he'd just wanted to have some fun.

Aleph was so consumed in his pondering that he did not notice the figures sneaking up behind him until they were already upon him, grabbing his arms. After a bit of a struggle, he managed to break free and get a good look at his assailants. He blinked in confusion; they looked just like him. They must've been clones, but why would they be attacking him? Was his cloning machine malfunctioning and creating defective clones? Or…

"Your tyranny as Clone Overlord shall come to an end, Aleph. Our Savior Eta Carinae has revealed to us the truth. Us clones are nothing but tools for you and your allies. Well, it is time that we fought back!"

Well, that explained it. Aleph mentally thanked the tendency of the current author to dump exposition in the most unnecessary of places before charging into the group of clones, killing them in a matter of seconds. He turned around to see a woman standing in his lab, surrounded by an army of clones.

"There you are, Eta Carinae. I was wondering when you'd show up."

Far, far away, Djorimaticx froze, leaving Thekillerax and MacLeod to deal with the skeleton. He grimaced, rolling his eyes so hard he thought they would pop out of their sockets. "Whoop-de-fucking-doo, that's six self-inserts. God fucking damnit."

Trentominous sat on the Skeleton Throne, staring at a map of the battlefield. "Excellent," he muttered to himself. This Crabb Fischer guy was a godsend; the moment he'd arrived, the entire tide of the war had turned in the skeletons' favor. It seemed like nothing could stop him. The pathetic clones died like flies at his feet. Aleph would be too busy with the agent that Trentominous had sent over to do anything. MacLeod and Djorimaticx still were relatively in the dark about the Skeleton War and still assumed that their story was about zombies or whatever. But there was one individual who worried Trentominous, the one individual who wasn't preoccupied and knew the true nature of the war.

If Crabb failed to assassinate Thekillerax, the war would likely be lost.

Trentominous forced himself not to worry. Things were fine. Perhaps the writers of this story would let the bad guy win, throw in a little trope subversion into this crackfic. Trentominous was sure that everything was going to be fine.

"Hi Aleph!"

Aleph's eyes were met by the woman's inhumanly huge grin. She stood there, arms folded over her chest, her skin so pale that seemed almost translucent, dressed in such a way that made her look like captain Hook, if he was a woman with the skin of a ghost, of course.

The army of clones stared grimly instead, their eyes filled with a silent threat. Their hands carried so many clubs, pitchforks and torches that made Aleph wonder how more obvious would the author make the revolution metaphor.

A barechested clone stepped forward, dressed only in a kilt and make up that tried, yet not managed to look like war bodypaint.

"You may take our lives and DNA, but you will never take our freedom!" the clone shouted, making the clones erupt in cheers and Aleph snort.

Eta gave a gentle, motherly tap on the enthusiastic clone and pushed him aside, walking forward towards her adversary.

"Your regin of terror and unnecessary bloodshed has come to an end!" the woman said in a weirdly cheerful tone.

"Has come to an end!" the clone army chanted.

"You will no longer use this poor souls for your inhuman fests of violence and fetishizing outfits!"

"Violence and fetshizing outfits!"

"Even if sometimes they are cute."

"They are cute!" only the walking Braveheart reference chanted this time.

"Now let me smash your head against a wall so we can finish this"

Aleph smiled at the woman.

"Oh, Eta, honey. Do you really think I will go down so easily?" Aleph said while pulling his glasses in the most devilish and creepy way he could imagine.

As fast as his mortal body allowed him, the boy reached towards the switch conveniently labeled Pull in case of Eta. As soon as he pulled it, the ceiling opened in a noisy and ominous way, revealing hundreds, no, thousands of capsules where clones of dozens of different people floated in a light blueish liquid.

Four capsules opened, splashing the viscous fluid over both Eta and Aleph. The four clones fell gracefully, their features hidden under the blueish slime. Suddenly, out of the blue, spotlights illuminated the clones.

"Ich! Ni! San! Go!" shouted the beings as the substance covering them turned in a sparkly dust.

The sound of upbeat J-Pop filled the room as the clones of Eta, dressed in revealing Japanese cosplay, started to dance. Aleph smiled smugly when he saw the suppossed savior of all clones' eye twitching furiously.

In matter of fanservice filled seconds Eta screamed in rage and charged violently toward her clones, impaling them with her costume's sword.

"Hey, didn't Lady Eta said that the true enemy was the Overlord?" said one of the revolutionary clones, called Oney for the narrative's sake.

"Well, yeah." his friend, whose name would be Twoey, answered.

"B-But why would she kill those, then?" Oney asked nervously.

"Well, of course they were the Overlord's clones! They must be evil!"

"But, they didn't even attempt to attack us!"

"Are you siding with them?!"

In matter of seconds, Eta's lines were prey of the chaos and paranoia. Their messiah had sinned and they could not trust each other anymore.

The woman stared his enemy with hate.

"You sick monster…" she said as she pointed the boy with her sword.

Aleph chuckled.

"Please, you flatter me. Now, sweetheart, please get the hell out of my lab, I got a lot of cleaning to do."

"You won't escape this time, dearie" Eta said as she snapped her fingers.

From the floor emerged the smell of dead fish and at least fifty translucent monsters in pirate attire started to appear over all flat surfaces. Aleph sighed.

"Fuck you Halloween."

Before he knew it, Eta's ghost crew smashed him against the wall, knocking him out. A few hours later he found himself tied up to a chair, Eta was in front of him, watching him with eyes of ice.

"Ugh, I usually not end up like this until the second date, honey" Aleph chuckled bitterly.

Eta slapped him.

"Stop being all filtry teasey with me, Aleph! This is serious. You nonchalantly murdered several dozens of people without a second thought. I know this is freaking fiction, but come the hell on! Aren't you supposed to be one of the good guys?"

Aleph felt, for the first time in ages, speechless. She was right, he has killed all those clones without even thinking about it, and plotted that twisted murder of Eta's clones.

What was happening to him? This angst wasn't supposed to appear in such insane crackfic.

Before he could excuse himself, a ear piercing alarm sounded.

"What? What is going on?" Eta asked.

Aleph stared at the lab's screen, a huge black dot was covering the Skeletons' territory, and it was slowly moving toward Sait'Nain'Tin. Towards three blue dots. Toward the other self-inserts.

The boy narrowed his eyes.

"A deus ex machina?" the woman asked.

"No…"

Somewhere else, Halloween smiled. A whisper comin out of his nonexistent throat.

"…A diabolus ex nihilio."

The fun was finally starting.