OZ Unlimited: A Fistful of Baylors

[Malchus]

“Merde!”

Justinian’s ears perked as he heard Chevalier mutter the curse under her breath. He smiled at how unchanged that particular expletive seemed to be in her universe. That, or she liked old fashioned cussing. Either way, it was funny.

He watched as she hauled herself up to the opening atop their Humvee, her helmet back on and her weaponry held at the ready. As she added her firing to that of the other strangely-equipped girl in another Humvee, he caught a glimpse of the Tyrax firing its own weapon out the window. From the radio chatter, he could tell that they were engaging yet more enemy aircraft.

So far, it had been a really fun night.

“I like this ‘verse,” he beamed, “It’s exciting!”

This earned him a quick, strange look from the driver of their vehicle before the man resumed his focus on driving them “the hell out of dodge” as the delightfully colorful expression went. The boy paid him no mind, though. His mind was already ruminating on the other interesting thing that had been revealed to them all just before the new enemy jets had started attacking.

Qliphoth? Fascinating. He’d run into Qliphoth in their old universe and it had been quite an experience. Funny little things, those, and quite scary. Apparently transdimensional, too. That’d be something to think about to be sure. Then there was the portal that other man who looked like the man who had commandeered the half-of-a-tank they had commandeered (wow, that was a mouthful. Too bad he hadn’t tried to say it) had mentioned. A portal made by the Qilphoth. He’d heard of those, but he hadn’t actually been to those. He couldn’t even sense them, unlike the naturally forming tesseracts.

He always wanted to see one of those, and now he’d had the chance thanks to these people. He’d offered up his expertise in portals, to make sure that he was one of the first they’d get to it. ‘Course, his expertise was with tesseract portals and not Qilphoth portals, and he’d kinda sorta maybe forgot to mention that fact. But, hey, a portal was a portal right? He’d figure it out when he got there, no prob.

Of course, he needed to get there intact. The other guys seemed to be doing a great job of keeping him alive, but a little more protection couldn’t hurt. He turned to the girl beside him.

“Little Shadow? Big Shadow, please.”

Rasa looked up and quietly nodded in understanding. Since he had not undone her expanded access to Zul-che-quon’s abilities, and since she had had time to recover from the earlier battering by the tanks, Rasa was able to quickly shoot her shadow out and around the Humvee. This did elicit a surprised “What the fuck?!” from the driver, but he managed to stay in control. The shadow wrapped itself in a protective bubble around the vehicle, leaving only openings for the driver to see trough and for Gabrielle to shoot through. If needed, it could quickly close around said openings.

Satisfied, Justinian nodded happily and gave his pet another affectionate pat on her head.


OOC: Well, I'm back and rested enough from the chore of handling dozens of high schoolers for nearly two weeks. Since I've been dying to post here, I decided that this would be my first return post. Glad to see this RPG is still alive.

[Heretic]

"What the fuck!?" Annava hissed as a black orb surrounded the humvee near them. "Damn cheaters. Get out of that shell and fight like psycho!" She hollered as she fired at jets. Jets. As in, faster than sound jets who could launch a missile a thousand miles away and forget it as it reached their target. And not only is Annava firing at the aircrafts, but their guided missiles as well. So many pretty explosions.

"COME AND GET ME, CHIMPS!" Annava hollered as she quickly switched to shotgun mode and proceeded to shotgun the hell out of incoming missiles. With a shotgun. No one wanted to interfere right now, as she was the Fucking Grim Reaper with boobs! There was a .50 Cal machine gun on top of the humvee opening, but .50 cals were for wussy men. Hi-precision aiming with high chance guessing using a high-powered shotgun was the way to go, as Annava the pale red-head psycho human-alien hybrid was demonstrating.


OOC: Oh man, I'm so tired that I just splatted this high action scene to continue this stuff. Gonna go make a high-precision diss for Kim Jung Il in OZ World later.

[Malchus]

"Damn cheaters. Get out of that shell and fight like psycho!"

Justinian smiled as he heard the cry over the still-active vehicle-to-vehicle radio.

"Ah," he replied, "But cheaters always win. Provided you do it right."

As if to accentuate his point, the sound of the dull boom of another downed jet reached the ground at that exact moment.

OOC: Yeah, real short. But I couldn't resist replying.

[Booted Vulture]

"Damn cheaters. Get out of that shell and fight like psycho!"

Eric convulsively gripped the steering wheel as Annava screamed and cackled behind him, blasting away with the outsized gun. Eric heartily regretted ever suggesting the idea; even with a door gaping wide open, the firing of the overpowered weapon was creating enough of a pressure wave to make his ears ache PEST issue ear protectors or not.

"Ah," he replied, "But cheaters always win. Provided you do it right." came back over the radio.

Eric just had time to think Smarmy asshole kid. Then a downed jet hit the ground.

Right in front of him.

Eric twisted the wheel as far to the left as it going. Making an almost instant ninety degrees turn and slamming through a barrier, in a crunch of collapsing hoods and flying chunks of concrete, before the engine made an unhealthy thwump! noise and stalled out as they skidded to a stop facing at 45 degrees across the incoming traffic line.

"Aww... HELL NO!" Eric intoned under his breath. Desperately searching for the ignition.

[Shroom Man 777]

BAD (BAYLOR) BOYS

"God-damn!" Baylor cried as another near-miss from the near-constant near-death airstrikes sent the nearby Humvees veering off course. "This is so not fair! Mang!"

"Tell me about it," That Baylor grunted. "But at least Teague's using sending Vixens on us, rather than calling down friggin' tacnukes or orbital bombardments in the middle of D.C. So count your blessings, Yu Law."

"Fuck that shit," Vanilla John Baylor replied. "It's totally not fair that you people know about the goddamn Omniverse. Totally not!"

"Man, you still haven't gotten over that, have you?" That Baylor quipped.

"No." Baylor crossed his arms petulantly. To be fair, his introduction to the verses had taken the form of goddamn Space Elvis taking him to a goddamn Space Temple of Space Doom, and after that Space Elvis couldn't just be arsed to leave him alone but came back for even more omniversal omnicidal obscenities. The fact that these parallel dimension fringe world yokels had somehow managed to bypass all those atrocities to get themselves interdimensional shtick was so, totally, not justified!

Besides, knowing this interdimensional shit was supposed to be Baylor's shtick. Either that or Harold's. Or Tiffany Jones.

"Meh," Baylor shrugged and turned to Doctor Jones. "At least you can probably show these mangs up by cobbling together a transdimensional translithopede from a microwave oven, a supersonic spatula, and some ducktape, amirite?"

Tiffany Jones just looked at him with a bizarre expression, something that looked like incomprehension combined with... odd recognition.

"I'm sorry," she scratched her head. "But have we met before, I mean, in one of those adventures of yours you like talking about?"

"Yeah, sure we did. 'Doctor Jones, waddup?' doesn't ring a bell? No? Hmm... yeah, I guess we're from different timezones or something. But I guess you and Harold are familiar with that. How is he, amyway?"

"Oh, he's seeing his daughter." Tiffany Jones replied plainly.

"Mmm... bad timing. We could've used a jerry-rigged Britannic timeship right about now. Ah, ragtag band of interdimensional screwups. Good times."

"Excuse me, but what are you talking about?" Alexis finally bothered to ask.

"Oh, just some past interdimensional misadventures that you interdimensionally-informed guys might actually not've been privy to. Oh, didn't the Logical World guys tell you about it?" Baylor grinned. "Oh. No? Well, ha-haaa-haaah!"

"Clearly, that Eric Rivers guy was very well justified in punching you in the face, and I'm starting to think that it wasn't a case of mistaken identity," the pretty blonde superhuman replied coolly. "Don't you think your information might've been useful to us in the least?"

"Not really.

Alexis Star sighed and seriously contemplated doing another Eric Rivers on Baylor. '

"Seriously," Baylor replied. "There's no rhyme or reason in these transdimensional escapades, it's like the whole story's being written by a bunch of cracked-up chimps with typewriters and that's really closer to the truth than you'd like to think, but obviously the most important thing is to get from point A to point B - namely other dimensions - intact and with everyone on board. Space Elvis might not be calling the shots right now, but someone still got us together for good reason."

"And out of all people, you're the most seasoned veteran combatant of this whole bunch when it comes to these things," That Baylor commented. "God help us all."

"Actually, he can't." Baylor replied. "He's dead. The Bragulans got him."

"No, really?"

"Yeah, really - "

Before anyone could say 'no wai' or quote another shitpiece of owl dialogue, one of the aerospace craft strafing them suddenly fell from the sky like a shooting star of burning jetfuel and fuselage. The Humvee moved to dodge the incoming aircraft, successfully did so too, but the vehicle behind them wasn't so lucky and the jet landed right in front of it and its evasive action brought it off the road and through a nearby divider and into an entirely different road.

"AW HELL NO!" came the curse over the radio.

"Shit," both Baylors cursed.

"Just got real," Baylor continued, and That Baylor gave him a disapproving look. 'Sorry. Your line?"

"Yeah." That Baylor smirked, and then he grabbed one of the radio sets. "Humvees Romeo Six to Seven, maintain forward mobility, Three to Four cover!"

Vanilla Baylor rolled open his window, stuck his head out and called to General Grievous.

"Yo, yeah you, REX!" Baylor shouted. "Give us some cover fire."

The enormous gleaming chrome endoskeleton's blood red optics rolled inside their sunken sockets, and the machine moved to cover the airspace with more intensified fire - iridescent beams of indescribable colors and pencil-thin needle missiles stitching through the air and tagging and bagging more F-118 Vixens. Another aerospace fighter got downed, the Tyrax Grievous aiming precisely for its cockpits, and at this sight the other jets peeled off and began circling around them at a further distance, maintaining evasive courses. Instead of strafing up close, now they began lobbing stand-off munitions to distract the Tyrax, who was now busy shooting down the SODs and the semi-smart sub-warheads rather than the aircraft themselves.

Meanwhile, the Baylor Humvee closed the gap with the River Ride - which still had Annava-whatsherface sticking out of the roof and spraying the sky with her multi-murdergun. Providing additional cover fire around them was the Quailmobile, now englobed in darkness and with shifting shadow-things looming overhead and French Samus out the roof just like Anna-va-voom, also shooting with her weapon like Anna, except French Samus' guns were practically just as effective as the Tyrax in wasting those airborne motherfuckers.

With both the Tyrax and Chevalier providing point-defense, acting like a personified phased plasma phalanx, and the shadow-thing providing an actual-factual metaphysical barrier against the incoming warheads, the Baylorvee and the River Ride managed to link up mostly unmolested.

Alexis kicked her door open, nearly sending the armored door off its hinges, and ran off to the River Ride. Vanilla Baylor followed suit.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing, Crazy Cuckoo Clone?" That Baylor asked between barking orders to the radioshack.

"Saving the Omniverse, that's what!" Baylor grinned and ran off.

Alexis had obviously reached the River Ride first, being superhumanly fast and having got out of the Humvee without wasting time one-liner-ing. She examined the vehicle and the crew, reprimanded Eric Rivers for taking over from the designated driver, and moving to the Humvee's front and nearly ripping the hood off to examine the engines.

"Spark plugs?" Baylor asked.

"No. Shrapnel. Harpooned straight through the carburetor. The thing's practically inoperable," the Colonel shook her head. "I could haul the thing off..."

"But that's gonna be mighty bothersome," Baylor shook his head. He examined the area, the River Ride was now on a whole nother segment of the road and was in the way of civilian traffic, though now the civvies were all but gone having evacuated from the city - the capital of the US of A now having all but become a smorgasbord of free-for-all weapons fire. There were still a trickle of civilian vehicles getting the fuck out of dodge from the place, but with the fighter jets and the sky-explosions over the area, most of them had the good sense to not head this way.

"Chevalier or the Tyrax might be able to haul the Humvee," Star thought. "But they'll need both hands to fend off the Vixens. John?"

"Way ahead of you," Baylor replied. He wasn't actually listening to Starr at all and while she was busy talking and examining the Humvee, Baylor had actually been running back to the Baylorvee to get something. Now he was back, and he had something in his hands. "Industrial winch."

"Great. You're not half as dumb as you look."

"Uh-huh. I always like to think of the glass as half-full myself," Baylor nodded as he hooked the winch-hook securely on the River Ride. "I always wondered what it was like to be one of those assholes towing some dumb shmuck's ride away for not parking properly."

"And now you get to find out."

"Hey, what are you guys doing?!" Eric Rivers stuck his head out of his Ride, cupping one possibly bleeding ear that was still ringing from Annava's mega-murdercannon's full-automatic fusillade going off right above his head.

"Saving your ass!" Baylor replied. "Welcome to the Wild Wild West!"

"Whaaaat?!" Rivers cupped a hand around his ear, like a deaf man trying to hear.

Meanwhile, the Baylor Humvee began towing the River Ride with the winch and the disabled Humvee rocked violently as its automotive ass was hauled off the wrong road and back into the right way. In the process, it rocked Eric Rivers off his ass and Baylor grinned at that.

On top of the vehicle, Annava was still firing with her mega-murdergun and still hadn't stopped. She hadn't stopped when the Humvee went off course, didn't stop when the Humvee stopped, and sure as hell wasn't stopping now that her ride was moving again.

"Right," Baylor looked at Alexis and motioned to their own Humvee. "Shall we?"

"Surely," she replied.

Meanwhile, all around them lightning cannons and phased plasma phalanxes continued to discharge at the sky while supersonic smart bombs and air-to-ground missiles detonated all around them.

[Booted Vulture]

Eric kept trying to turn the keys and start the engine. He was still trying when Colonel Star ran up and started yelling at him. He couldn't really make it out above the loud ringing in his ears, so he just ignored it. And kept trying to start the engine.

Then that asshole Baylor turned up. He and Starr decided the fun thing to do would be to totally ignore him and instead fiddle about with his engine. They'd probably broken it as well. 'Cos the damn thing weren't starting. Fucking John Baylot hd fucking broke his damn car.


"Hey, what are you guys doing?!" He shouted, angry at them for breaking his ride.

Baylor mumbled something back, way too quiet to be heard of the noise of Annavanna's repeated salvos of gunfire.

River's angrily made the I cant hear you gesture to his left ear. But baylor just walked off and the Humvee started moving again. Fuck yeah! Those fuckers were just in the way. He notice a wet sticky feeling on his left hand. He looked at it, fought to concentrate his eyes on and then noticed the red over his hand.

fuck! My ear's fucking bleeding He rose his hand to his ear again and rand his fingers across noticing that the blood wasn't in fact coming from his ear but from a three inch long gash over his temple concealed under his hair line then was leaking all done the side of his head.

"Bloody, hell" he murmured, "Not my day, at all"

He was feeling wasted though and light head. Oh well, a good night's sleep would probably fix that. Definately time for a nap. Eric slumped over the wheel of the humvee. Snuggled with it slightly. Sleep was good.

[Shroom Man 777]

Baylor turned around and saw the slumbering Eric Rivers, and at this sight the soldier of the Sovereignty could only utter the following words:

"Sleep well, sweet prince."

And then the Baylor man soldiered on, off once more to a world gone mad.

[Heretic]

Captain Animus was clutching his ears and shutting his eyes while the humvee shook, swerved, and stopped. He held his stance for a while, hearing only the drum of Annava's shotgun kept drumming through. When he went to open his eyes, Animus saw one of the Baylor put something under the front of the humvee, Eric Rivers yelling something, and the humvee being towed. With all sorts of explosions all around him.




Annava howled like a banshee, quickly switching her sniper mode into rocket launcher while still firing her shotgun. She then fired her shotgun and her rockets, sometimes the shotgun shots hitting the rocket mid-air and blowing it up, sometimes not. She didn't care. She could make more, and right now, her whole hand couldn't stop jerking the trigger.


And as for Omicron, his vehicle still rolled through, sometimes swerving to evade missiles. He made sure that Fantastic Jack didn't fly across.

[Invictus]

(The following is DOUBLEPLUS UNCANON)


It was a sterile sky, a roiling sky, pressing on a ruined world below. In the distance a storm was brewing, arcing lightning and humongous clouds still bleeding off the energy of megadeaths millennia past. Flashes illuminated a seemingly endless expanse of gravestones that followed the rolling terrain like grass. One particular gravestone was distinguished only by the hulking mechanical figure standing before it, its features locked in a rictus of hatred and pity. Its maker had made it well.

The land sloped downwards behind the mechanoid, each descending row of gravestones narrowing and converging until the exact epicenter of must have been a gargantuan crater was reached. There stood a grim monolith of a cenotaph, distant and irrelevant. Nevertheless, the ambience of the location was comforting to the mechanoid’s virtual soul, soothing away the sting of the indignity that stood before him.

A signal undetectable to any instrument in this universe caused the mechanoid to raise its head. Almost instantly afterwards, a circle of hulking figures twisted into existence around him, their long trek across the universe causing an asynchronization of some milliseconds. Truly, the mechanoid thought, not even the Eternal Empire’s finest could weather this mission unscratched.

The Post-Bruagulan commandos bowed before their commander and sovereign, who was pleased to note that they had all returned from their reconnaissance patrols intact. Just as no single uncontacted para could pose an obstacle to the Bragulan Interdimensional Imperium, no force could ultimately oppose the Imperial Elite on their last and greatest mission – the destruction of John Baylor, no matter which universe he may be hiding in!

Emperor Byzon’s imprint in the combat mechanoid regarded his inferiors, each the finest possible fusion of Imperial technology and Bragulan spirit, and contemplated the possibility that they could be all that was left of the glorious empire. If this was so, then their mission of restoration was all the more vital. “Report.” It commanded. The Imperatoroid could easily have interrogated them all already, using its commander’s tools to rip their accumulated data from their unresisting minds for maximum efficiency. But as the sole representatives of the Imperium on this blasted world, they must follow standard protocol. For without hierarchy, there was no empire.

“We have completed a preliminary survey of the human-dominated volumes of this particular para, great lord.” One commando, distinguishable by a scar across its facial plating, said. “An individual bearing the chrono-omniversal quanta-profile of John Baylor was located. However, the deviations were not within target perimeters. The John Baylor of this para is not the one we seek.”

“Nevertheless, he has been terminated as a matter of course.” Another commando added. “Parahopping can resume.”

The Imperatoroid emitted a low, pleasureless growl. “Then what of THIS Baylor?”

The assembled Post-Bragulans wheeled and saw the gravestone. The words “JOHN BAYLOR” in this universe’s tongue was engraved upon it. Below that was a line in a script that was not, and beside the grave was a curved human blade and a single flower.

The commandos were afeared. They were afeared of the single thing in all the countless universes which could make them feel fear: the wrath of their Imperator. Incomprehensible suites of sensors instantly focused and bombarded the grave site with maniacal intensity.

Meanwhile, the Imperatoroid felt the presence of warships that designated themselves the “Earthguard” drift past, far above.

“Chrono-Omniversal quanta-vibrational scans have reached asymptotic completeness.” One commando ventured. “The remains of the John Baylor that rests beneath this primitive human mourning-shrine is…not the John Baylor of this para. Multiple para-resonances have been detected here, none of which register extensively in this para. There is a high probability that the John Baylor buried here was a universal traveler.”

“However, this deceased John Baylor is…also not the John Baylor we seek. My lord will not have his vengeance denied.”

“How?” The Imperatoroid made an earth-rattling stomp. “How is it not?”

“Because…the exact para-resonance of our target has also been detected here, great lord.” The scarred commando scraped up the flower from the mud and presented it to his commander. “This dead-plant symbol of primitive human weakness-fragility does not belong to this para. The line of script below our target’s name does not correspond to any language we have analyzed and recorded within this para. We are deciphering the language with our omniversal records right now.”

With a gaze, the Imperatoroid’s internal weaponry turned the flower to dust. “A double disappointment. It is no matter, however, as we have finally found the trail of our target!” It exulted. “Prepare to calculate a intrapara temporal shift. We shall return to the time when our target was within this para and strike him decisively!”

“Language decipher is complete.” Another commando intoned. “Now devoting collective calculational resources to your command.”

“Well, what does the inscription say? Does it contain pertinent information?” The Imperatoroid demanded.

“It is a descriptor phrase, probably intended as a meaningless morbid-epithet for this deceased John Baylor.” The scarred commando reported. “It reads ‘Nobody’s Bitch’.”

“Meaningless indeed.”

“Great lord, the scan-calculations you have commanded are complete. A concordant para-resonance was detected alongside that of our target. It is the one called … John West.”

“John West.” The Imperatoroid shook its massive fist. “You shall live for now! Live your pathetic life knowing the Empire has not marked you for death. Yet.”

A low-frequency laser ignited in its mechanical eyes, and the assembled commandos watched as it scorched two untidy English words into the tombstone, right below the name. “This leaves us with only one option. We will lock onto the para-resonance and follow his path. Wherever it leads, we will go. Whoever we meet, we will destroy. We will teach him to fear his shadow! John Baylor cannot escape us!”

Briefly, a tesseract appeared surrounding each Post-Bragulan, and the death squad rotated into nothingness, leaving only a defaced tombstone reading “John Baylor IS DEAD”.

[Destructionator]

The convoy ran like fuck and somehow made it behind the defensive screen of the nation's capital. They, having finally lost the tail, wasted no time hauling ass right to the Capitol.

Or rather, under it.

They were guided through some place, hella motherfuckin deep, and ended up somewhere with something inside it (LOL me pro writer).

Must be that portal the dude talked about in the car. The portal to The Logical World as they called it. Surely an ironic name; such would only be logical.

Assuming of course, it hadn't switched norms again. But, what can you do when dudes with big ass guns are all to eager to get rid of you?

They were all shoved through the portal. The locals breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the party were shoved through. They were Someone Else's Problem now!