The steel cage rattled as it swung over the chasm of bubbling lava, hissing and popping, droplets sizzling on the broken rubble. Samson shrieked like a teenager only to realize he was a teenager and decided to stop. “How do these things keep happening to me?” he demanded, gripping the bars, giving them a good bending. “I need to find better representation! I'm a billionaire, golly shucks and gee whiz!” He looked across the chasm at the crane from which his cage was suspended, The scruffy-looking janitor idly dusted the controls, constantly knocking the lever that unlocked the chains that sent him plummeting to his doom, only for the air brakes to kick in. He slammed down into the cage floor, creating a large dent.

  He jumped up, banging his horns on the ceiling. “Scruffy! Dude! Please, you can't do this to me! After we've known each other for so long! I mean, ten minutes is more than enough time to establish a lasting rapport between males!”

  “Scruffy hears ya,” the janitor murmured. He gave the hapless Holstein a sour glower. “And Scruffy don't care.” With a wave of his feather duster, he knocked the brake lever, releasing its grip, and down the cage went, Samson screaming to his doom.

  BWARRRRM. The tremendous crescendo of bass sent the cage swinging like a pendulum, riding crazily up out of the chasm, the chain snapping, the cage flying clear of the lava. Samson shrieked, apparently one unable to show any appreciation for anything, the cad, the cage slamming down hard, the door shattering, and out he tumbled, rolling down the hill into a pile of sharp volcanic rocks.

  “I'm okay,” he wheezed, tottering out, a bloody mess.

  “Hear that everybody!” Snap screamed, galloping up to the side of the chasm. “He's OKAY! WOO! My work here is done. I am the Big Damn Hero, all rights reserved, except Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands – ha, I said 'virgin'!” She pumped her four fists as her family lined up beside her. “WE! ARE! EX-ZASPERATED!”

  “Release to us our friends!” Acinony snarled, middle finger popping up, loud and proud. Uncia took one look and followed suit. Acinony gasped and slapped her upside the head. “Don't you do that, young woman! Where did you learn such vulgarities?”

  Snap jumped on top of a hover-car smashed into the asphalt, raising her four fists triumphantly. “Take me down to Pareidolia City!”

  “Where the palm trees are green and the girls are pretty!”

  “Oh won't you please take me there?”

  “IN MY UNDERWEAR! Yeah!”

  Scruffy took off his cap and laid it over his heart, sighing contentedly. “Ah, the sweet refrains of my home town's anthem. They bring a tear to these rheumy old eyes.”

  “Come on, let's go save the day!” Snap declared. “Dang, is it just me or has this particular adventure seemed to have just gone on and on and on with no end in sight? I'm so glad it's almost over!”

  “Snap,” Acinony said gently.

  “Yesssssss?”

  “It's only chapter 6.”

  “GOD DAMN-”

  DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL, THE AUTHOR HAS CHOSEN TO CENSOR THIS SCENE.

  Snap sat on the ground, sobbing fitfully, her head in all four hands, looking like a walnut ready to crack or be cracked. Uncia turned to their mother. “If she dies of heartbreak, can I get her room? She has a bigger room. I'd burn all her furniture though and redecorate it to suit my personal sensibilities.”

  “Hold that thought,” Acinony mused as two figures emerged from the remains of the Fifth National Bank. “What doth my wandering eye appraise?”

  “'Doth'?” Zeke echoed. “Where are we, a renaissance fair?”

  She shushed him. “Ahem. What doth my wandering eye appraise – but my hunky sparkly vampire boyfriend! EEEEE!” She slapped her cheeks and squealed, her tail doing all sorts of bizarre knots.

  “Aww, that's sweet,” Zeke chuckled. “Your mother's regressing to a point in her life when she thought she was happy but was really just dumb. Now she's just miserable, but still dumb. Hey, wait a minute. Boyfriend?”

  “Don't take it too literally, Mr. Zasperate,” Chicago said smoothly. “I only intend on taking your wife, your daughters and your unborn children and convert them all to my legion of the damned.”

  “Ah, well, in that case, more power to you – huh-WHAAAAAT?” His eyes bugged out, his jaw clanged to the ground and the sound of a foghorn blared from out of his scalp as it popped open like a garbage can lid.

  “Oh nothing you need concern yourself with,” Chicago chuckled. “Merely exerting my vampiric authority, against which you are powerless.”

  Zeke mulled it over. “I could...punch you.” Snap giggle-snorted and he smacked her, earning a smack back.

  “Go ahead and try,” Chicago said, spreading his shirt, showing off his impressive chest, all coated in glittery diamond-like substance. “You'll break your fist. I won't even have to throw a punch.”

  “Okay,” Zeke said calmly. “Oh, by the way, I hereby invoked the ancient rite of doubles.”

  Chicago screwed up his face, awash with disgust. “You can't invoke doubles-”

  “Snap, beat the crap outta this sparkly pansy-ass. You have permission to do 'crotch stuff' to him. I.E., fight dirty.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Snap roared, tackling Chicago, grabbing him by his long hair and swinging him around. “Put out the Bushroot! Put out the Bushroot!”

  “AH! AH!” Chicago shrieked, actually losing it. “Not the hair! NOT THE HAIR!”

  “Nobody does that to my big brother!” Floyd yelled, the veins in his scalp throbbing extra hard now. He rose into the air, energy crackling at his fingertips, when suddenly he felt a tug on his neck towel. He snarled, spinning around on the malefactor. “You don't tug on Floyd's cape – HUH?”

  “Get over yourself, Charlie Brown,” Uncia quipped, punching him right in the nose. He twirled round and round, squealing most undignified, before settling to a stop, three Uncias circling around in his vision. “It's a cute little cat-girl! And she's my age!”

  “I am not your age! I'm five years older, yeesh! Maybe even six or seven! Eight is NOT out of the question. Ten. I am TEN years older than you. Okay, I graduated college three years ago and am working on my post-graduate thesis. Grandson. I am now one foot in the grave, will somebody PLEASE stop me?”

  “All my dreams have come true!” he whimpered, pink hearts beating in his eyes. “I'm in LOVE! Cat-girls are real and they're spectacular!”

  Uncia slapped her forehead. “Oh boy, I done stepped in it now.”

  “A little help here, Casanova?” Chicago grunted, Snap pinning him down with two arms, smashing her other two fists into his face. Didn't make much of a dent, but dang was it ever annoying, head ricocheting off the ground back into her fist. She had quite the rhythm going down.

  Floyd shook his giant head, coming out of his reverie. “Huh? Oh right! Sorry!” He zipped over and raised his hands, summoning Snap off his brother and sending her flying. “There!”

  “You need to learn to focus, Floyd,” Chicago chided. “Distractions will get you killed in this business. Ah, Acinony, aren't you the loveliest of distractions?”

  “Aww, go on,” she cooed. “Tell me more about myself.”

  “I would, but alas,” Chicago sighed, Floyd lifting them both to The Naughty Lass above. “Pirate business before land lubber pleasure. Until we meet again, my dearest, I bid you a fond adieu.”

  “Hear that?” Zeke scoffed. “He speaks French! He's just all sorts of bad news and bad attitude!”

  Samson groaned, scratching his head. “Who was that guy? And what was with the abnormal amounts of body glitter? Some sort of unhealthy body modding addiction?”

  “Sparkle-pire,” Snap answered.

  “Seriously? Like in 'Twilight'? Are those guys still popular?”

  Snap shrugged. “With aging Millennials trying to recapture their lost youth, if I cared to wager a guess. And I don't. Wagering is a sin.”

  Samson looked up at the submarine turning towards the ocean. “Gotta admit, he was pretty gorgeous.” Snap's eyebrows popped up as she stared at him. “What? I can appreciate hotness regardless of gender!”

  “No you can't.”

  A sleek black hovercycle whizzed up, grinding to a halt, and the cute black girl with the big hair and a flouncy, bouncy school uniform radically, possibly illegally, altered against regulations jumped off. “Snap!”

  “Kendra! Hey, you're looking hale and hearty!”

  “I'm a coffee achiever! Have you seen Hippie?”

  “No. Why would I? Am I my Hippie's keeper?” She looked over her shoulder. “And for you keeping track at home, the answer is 'no, I'm not'.”

  “Snap! This is serious! She went into the bank looking for you!”

  Snap grimaced. “Now why would I ever go into a bank except to rob it, I mean, ahem, to save the victims of the disaster?” She glanced around sharply. “Anyway, no, I haven't seen the Viking-horned hotrod. And the only ones in there are Steely Dan and her crew of miscreants.”

  Kendra's face fell. “Oh, kablooie.”

  “As in 'Hamster Huey & the Gooey Kablooie'?” Samson asked excitedly. “My favorite book when I was a little kid!”

  The ground rocked and split wide open, gas mains spraying their contents, the slightest spark enough to set them off in a monumental inferno. A tie-dyed missile slammed into the asphalt, grinding through the pavement, leaving a long trench behind her, grinding asphalt into pebbles. Coughing and grunting, Hippie Matchstick extracted herself from the rubble, dusting herself off, nary a scratch on her. “Say what you will about Steely Dan,” she muttered.

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  “She's a daft bugger,” Snap said. “There. I said it. I'll say it again if I have to.”

  “Ahem. Say what you will about her, but the daft bugger sure can hit.”

  “You mean Pinky,” Zeke interjected. “Right?”

  “Oh, I bet she can, but it wasn't her that done smacked me with the broadside of a chain-sword. Something supernatural about that creepy white critter, and not just her freaky-deaky smile.”

  Intense revving, chugging, belching of smog and smoke, and out of the ruins of the Fifth National swooped Steely Dan, balanced deftly on the flat of her chain-sword like a black metallic surfboard, tiny anti-gravity thrusters keeping her afloat while the pommel now doubled as the thrusters and exhaust. She circled around, cackling obscenely, spreading her black smoky trail behind her. 'I HAVE THE SEVEN SEIZE CHOKE ON A-' And then it trailed off as her chain-sword sputtered, belched one last time, and conked out, sending her screaming to the ground.

  Snap dwelt upon the writing. “That means something. Choke on a what? Choke on a Coke? Choke on a joke? Choke on something that rhymes with 'choke'? Or maybe it doesn't rhyme with choke. Maybe it's something esoteric and arcane. Something mysterious and foreboding. I ought to see a cryptographer to decipher it!”

  Steely sat up and with a quick hop, got to her feet. “I told them to refuel my sword before we started. Oh brother.” She sneered at the Zasperates and their colleagues. “Y'all gotta lotta nerve, yanno that? What did I ever do to deserve this?” Zeke calmly gestured towards the leveled bank and she nodded. “Yanno. Jesus knocked over a bank once-”

  “He did not!”

  “All right. Maybe. But what if he did? HMM? Then we wouldn't be having this conversation then!”

  The ground split and out popped Pinky, having punched her way clear of the vaults below. She glowered at Steely. “What?” the pirate captain demanded.

  “You left Pinky to fend for herself!”

  “Yeah, and look at you. You handled it just fine! Anyway, my chain-sword's out of gas, get us back to The Naughty Lass like yesterday.”

  “Ja, mein Führer,” she growled.

  “What was that?”

  “Nuthin'.”

  “Damn straight 'nuthin'. Comparin' me to Hitler, how could you – HITLER AIN'T GOT NOTHIN' ON ME!”

  They watched as Pinky scooped up her sister, who scooped up her chain-sword, and bending her knees, launched herself straight up to the rapidly departing Naughty Lass. “Swell, just swell,” Acinony groused. “They have the Seven Seize!”

  “On account I have no idea what the 'Seven Seas' are,” Zeke said, “why don't we just count this is an overwhelming win and go have some victory sex.”

  “You,” she snarled, grabbing his nose and tweaking it, earning an ear-splitting howl, “are an imbecile. We have to follow them!”

  “Oh SURE honey!” Zeke yelled. “I'll just flap my arms and WHOOSH! Away I go! Whee! Look at me! I'm Zeke Zasperate, the Flying Boy! Cock-a-doodle-do!”

  “You Charleston Chews ain't going nowhere!” Up marched Lt. Frank, Officer Allison right behind him, accompanied by a dozen heavily armed and armored police-babes, a formidable force – if only their chests weren't exposed through their otherwise impenetrable armor plating, showing off their blue bikinis.

  Kendra was aghast. “Do they not realize how impractical that tactical armor is? It totally defeats the purpose when your most vulnerable area is exposed and hanging out like a huge target!”

  Hippie smiled gleefully. “A huge BOUNCY target-”

  “Oh shut it!”

  “Back off, Franky,” Acinony snarled. “I ain't got time for none of your hanky-panky! And no I didn't mean to rhyme, sweet succotash. Don't even think about laying cuffs on us for doing our job which YOU couldn't handle! You're one lawsuit away from oblivion!”

  “You mean a lawsuit against the taxpayers who pay his salary,” Zeke noted.

  She shoved him. “Don't go ruining my sulky mood with facts and logic!”

  “Actually,” Allison interrupted, giving Frank a stern look, the grizzled cop grumbling under his coffee-stained mustache, “you're obviously not at fault for what transpired here today.”

  “NO FAULT! NO FAULT! NO FAULT!” Snap chanted, pumping her fists and marching around. “My favorite words in the English language! Those and 'cellar door'!”

  “Apparently,” Frank growled, refusing to make eye contact, “legal is upset with ME, despite my LOVE for MY COUNTRY, and MY CITY, and all I want is to see her SAFE and SECURE! But they think I'm just a bigoted thug who's fixated on ruining a young woman's life. Even if that young woman is a freak of nature. So I gotta back off. Guess it's good-bye for now, Snap Zasperate, if not...farewell.”

  “Bismillah!” Snap squealed, latching onto him like an erratic intestinal parasite. “No! I will not let you go!”

  “Let me go!” he spat.

  “I will not let you go!”

  “Let me go!”

  “I WILL NEVER NERVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER LET YOU GO-oh-oh-oh-oh!”

  “Snap, let him go,” Acinony sighed.

  “Okay.” She let him go and skipped away, la-laing cheerfully to herself.

  “What we WOULD like to do,” Frank grumbled, brushing off his tobacco-flecked trench coat, “is to kindly submit a request.”

  “This never leads to anything good,” Zeke snorted. “Unless it's a karaoke request, those could be solid gold.”

  “Yeah?” Acinony asked, crossing her arms between her belly and her breasts, one eyebrow raising in contempt. “What sort of request?”

  “For assistance,” Frank said. “Obviously we're dealing with forces beyond the usual run-of-the-mill street thug or money laundering operation here. We need help.”

  “I'll do it!” Snap squealed.

  “SHUT UP, SNAP,” everyone ordered bluntly. She curled into a ball and sucked the claw equivalent of her thumb.

  “What sort of help?” Acinony said. “And what makes you think I-” Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh no.”

  “We need,” Frank said glumly, “the Man of Gold.”

  Acinony threw back her head and fell to her knees. “NOOOOO!”

  “Yay!” Snap and Uncia locked hands and danced around. “Grandpa! Grandpa! We're gonna play with Grandpa!”

  Zeke helped Acinony to her feet. “Honey, we've discussed this before.”

  “I know, I know,” she whimpered, lip quibbling, and rubbed her knees. “No more dramatic falling to your knees while pregnant. My cartilage can't take it anymore!”

  “My cartilage is strong and resilient,” Snap declared. She hit her knees and bounced back, doing this repeatedly, up and down, her knees popping like bubble wrap, the vein in Frank's forehead throbbing faster and faster with each pop.

  “WILL YOU KNOCK THAT-” He caught himself, Allison shooting him a devastating glare and he cleared his throat. “You adorable, ack, ugh, urchin. ARGH.” He clutched his chest, looking ready to explode in an orgy of gore. “That left a bad taste in my mouth. And my mouth tastes like grandma's ashtray to begin with.”

  Snap frowned. “I don't like this new and improved Frank. I want Captain Grumpy Pants back.”

  “Lieutenant Grumpy Pants,” Uncia corrected.

  “Yeah, yeah, you're right, lieutenant, my bad. I guess that makes Frank here a Bad Lieutenant!”

  “Port of Call!” Uncia squealed.

  “New Orleans!” Zeke concluded, all three exchanging high fives.

  Frank whimpered, then got on his knees, pleading with Allison. “Please lemme pop a cap in their asses! PLEASE!”

  “En, oh,” Allison said, shaking her head. “No.”

  “We don't need Dad for this!” Acinony snarled. “We can handle these jokers ourselves!”

  “Uh, we're trying to avoid the 'joker' moniker, Mom,” Snap said, “on account our baddie is a white-skinned creepy-smile type already. She's a wholly original character, created from scratch, with no precedent in fiction!”

  “She's named for a rock band named for a particular item of some grotesqueness from a landmark dystopian sci-fi novel,” Zeke snorted as they strolled off. “Ain't diddly squat original about that broad.”

  “Mrs. Zasperate, regardless of your personal issues,” Lt. Frank muttered, “we really appreciate you getting your father to aid us in this crisis.”

  “Yeah, yeah, and what's to stop me from bypassing your requests and just tackling this myself?”

  “Or,” Frank continued, “we can contact your sister at the DSII and have HER deal with it.”

  The cheetah-woman stared at him, long and hard. “I'll get my Dad.” She stormed off, muttering under her breath.

  Frank and Allison watched them go, Allison waving good-bye. “We're still gonna contact the DSII, right?” Allison asked.

  “Oh hell yes!” he laughed. “This is right up their alley. And who knows. Maybe we'll see the Lawful twins engage in a little cat-fight before this adventure is through! Huzzah!” He stopped, his face turning purple. “Did I just make a lewd joke and say 'huzzah'?”

  Allison smiled and patted his shoulder. “Face it, Frank. She's rubbing off on you.”

  He fell hard to his knees, throwing back his head. “NOOOOO!” He sighed dejectedly, clutching his knees. “Damn, my cartilage.”

  “I told you all that caffeine would wreck havoc on your joints!”

  “Call my father for help,” Acinony snarled as they loaded up into the hydrogen-powered Lovecraft, she taking the extra measure of slamming the door shut. “I hate my father! No, I love my father! Girls, I love my father! You didn't hear that I really hate him! Which I don't! I love him! LOVE!” She yanked her long hair over her face and screamed.

  “And yet,” Zeke noted calmly as he fired up the anti-grav, “you let him live in your basement.”

  She peeked out through her hair, her yellow eyes dry and bloodshot. “That's because I'm also terrified of the societal implications of the famous Acinony Lawful, kid adventurer, tossing her old man into some sort of superhero old folks home!”

  “You worry too much about what society things, Ma,” Snap said, kicking back, putting her big reptilian feet up on the back Acinony's headrest, her big stinky feet right in her mother's spotted face. “Look at me! I go through life without a care in the freaking world, and my stress levels are basically nil!”

  Acinony calmly looked out across the devastation wrought upon Pareidolia City's financial district, gas mains erupting in flames, the very mantle itself dislodged, lava flowing through the streets like rivers of fire. “I cannot disagree with that.”

  “Wonder who's gonna clean up this mess?” Zeke said as the Lovecraft took off.

  “Why the Wrecking Crew from Marvel Comics, duh!” Snap said. “It's their job to fix all the toppled skyscrapers and overturned banks leveled by superhero fights!”

  “One, that's Damage Control you're thinking of,” Zeke chided, “Wrecking Crew is a group of construction based super-villains. And two, that's popular fiction, Snap Xoxana! This is REAL LIFE. With REAL LIFE consequences! As opposed to Half-Life: Full-Life Consequences.” He shot them a really janky grin.

  “Speaking of real life consequences,” Snap mused as they zoomed off, “I feel like we're forgetting something. Something important. Something vital to my personal constitution and functionality as an individual.” She mulled it over then shrugged. “Meh! Probably not that important.”

  Jessica careened along, exceeding several dangerous limits she had placed upon herself in the course of her day-to-day superpowered life, the energy indicators fluctuating into the red. Her legs were huge, her muscles tearing through her delicate skin, the pain compounded by the speed at which her nerves operated. “HELP! MEEEEEE!”

  Samson clung by his fingertips to the rock, his hooves dangling into the yawning chasm, lava bubbling up. He took a deep breath and let it howl. “HELP! MEEEEEE!”

  Kendra and Hippie stared down the gang of ruthless werewolves, decked out in their leather jackets and spiked boots, their leader towering head and shoulders and pointed pickelhaube above them. “We came to loot through the rubble,” he chuckled as they closed in on the girls, their backs against the wall. “Didn't think we'd run into you hotties. Icing on the cake.”

  Kendra threw back her head and shrieked. “HELP! MEEEEEE!”

  “Help her, whatever,” Hippie chuckled, lighting up a reefer. “Me, I'm all yours, big boy.” She cupped her chest, bouncing it playfully. “Ever make out with a hippie Viking babe?”

  “Hippolyta!”

  “What? Have you ever seen a naked wolfman? They're friggin'-”

  “HIPPIEEEEEEE!”

  “Yep,” Snap said, sitting pretty, a big smirk on her freckled face, “Not important at all.”

  Her family all looked away, wincing in unison.