All Purpose General Fanfiction Posting Thread

It was not like he had an actual poker face.

At least not at all times.

That was the confusing thing, really. He would make an unreadable, cryptic, dead flat poker face at random hands, but most of the time, his expression jumped wildly from one extreme to another. At times, while having a bad hand, he would make a happy, cheerful face, while having a good hand would make him to put on a distressed, troubled expression. And at other times, his face would match exactly the hand he had been dealt. So, as the players learned one after another, trying to base their gaming on reading his features only led to confusion, then to defeat.

After the first round, of course, everyone had suspected him of cheating, so they had made him to roll his sleeves up to his shoulders and to delegate all card shuffling to his adversaries. Surprisingly, the clown had agreed, and even more shockingly, he had kept on winning after that.

After being plucked, Poison Ivy, who knew him well, had claimed he had been pulling cards out of his gloves, so he had agreed to take the gloves off. By now, however, gloves were the only thing he wasn't wearing.

The Joker sat at the grass of the wide gardens of the Link of All Realities Lodge, calmly waiting while an annoyed, flushed Katsuragi Misato angrily shuffled the deck, reduced to her underwear. Behind her, Shinji already had lost everything, curled up into a shameful ball to hide his privates, his face buried between his hands. Asuka fumed in nothing but her panties, covering her chest with an arm while waiting for the next hand as well. Rei just sat next to her, expressionless and making no effort to cover herself.

Joker fanned himself with a hand, sweating heavily under the multiple layers of diverse clothes he had gained through the day. Over his regular suit, he was wearing several jackets, and on his head, he had Timmy Turner's cap over Wolverine's cowboy hat on top of the Mad Hatter's top hat. He was wearing a few schoorgirl skirts over his pants, the Penguin's monocle in an eye and Baron Strucker's monocle in the other. All of the SOS Brigade's armbands but one were wrapped around his arms, and at least three scarfes were wrapped around his neck. To add insult to injury, he also was sitting on top of a small hill of almost everyone else's clothing and parafernalia, from Negi's staff to Hawkgirl's mace to the Weather Wizard's wand. He looked utterly ridiculous, which actually worked on his favor as well; his opponents often would just break into laughter as soon as they sat before him, breaking their concentration.

The stripped down former opponents sat in a wide circle all round the current players, almost all of them but the most unflappable fuming to several different degrees of anger or blushing furiously, or both. At some longer distance, several inhabitants of the Link had gathered to look at the event without daring or bothering to play themselves. Evangeline Mc Dowell was one of these, softly chuckling to herself at the plight of her embarassed teacher and some of her classmates while Chachamaru served her some tea.

"Hey, you!" from the numbers of the stripped, Louise barked at the clown as Misato dealt again.

Joker didn't look at her, his gaze fixed on his cards. "What?"

"Don't you think it's already been enough?" the pink haired mage protested, blushing all of her body. "Come on, just give us our clothes back and let us go!"

"You are free to go whenever you want," Joker stated flatly. "But not with MY new clothes!"

Louise tightened a fist, brandishing her whip out. "You're just asking for it...!! Give them back or else...!!"

Joker gave her a brief, annoyed glare. "I'm not into being whipped by children with no breasts!"

"WHAT??!"

"I won all these clothes fair and square. For once. Don't you have honor?" the clown scoffed.

"Are YOU asking me about honor?! YOU?!" Louise snapped, jumping up to her feet.

"I know I don't have a honor. Your point? I just thought you prided yourself into having one. By the way, you're giving everyone a free show."

The petite sorceress looked down at herself and shrieked, quickly crouching down covering herself. Besides her, Saito's nose was flowing a steady stream of blood down.

At the other side of the plucked crowd, Kyon shook his head. A brief, discreet look at Haruhi (hard as it was to focus on her face) confirmed she was looking sullen and hurt in her pride, but it was weird to see she had not altered reality to prevent such results.

"Maybe she just likes this," Itsuki whispered on Kyon's ear, leaning on him a bit too much for Kyon's comfort.

"GYAH!!" Kyon promptly pushed him back. "CUT THAT OUT! Keep your immentionables far away from mine!". Then he lowered his voice as well. "What's that? Haruhi wanted to lose for once?"

Itsuki shrugged casually. "I believe she might derive some pleasure of being like this with the rest of us," he whispered back.

Kyon made a sickened face. "That weirdo. So, is she actually making the clown to win all these rounds?"

"It's a possibility. Or, keep in mind, she just wouldn't want to see HIM naked."

"I... see," Kyon went pale. He was seeing, indeed; seeing quite a lot more of Asahina Mikuru he ever had hoped to. His chivalrous side was struggling a desperate battle against his hormones, finally gaining enough ground to make him look far apart from the sobbing, blushing Mikuru a few feet away from him and towards the clothed audience, where Nagato Yuki sat quietly reading a book.

Dammit! Why is Nagato always the only one who is spared the most humiliating things? N-Not like I want to see her naked or anything, of course!

Joker was dispatching the rest of the NERV crew by now. "Next!" he chuckled while clipping Misato's bra over his chest.

But then no one else stepped in. Those in the clothed public just stayed there.

Joker's lower lip pouted up. "Oh, isn't there anyone left but the chickens?" he taunted. "But those are the best ones to pluck!"

His glare coldly wandered over those he already had stripped, never tinted with lust or excitement, but rather an analytical, yet aloofly mocking amusement. From his first victims, his own Arkham inmates fellows, to almost all of the Ala Alba to a rather large group of Hogwarts students. Even a few Justice Leaguers sat there after a faild brave attempt to stop the villain. After his victory, he had asked for masks as well, but Hawkgirl's hand firmly clenched around his throat convinced him otherwise.

"I step to the challenge!" a boy with tall spiky hair walked up to Joker. "I am the King of Games! I'm going to stop you with the Power of the Cards themselves!"

Joker looked at him, then huffed. "No."

Yugi blinked. "What do you mean with 'No'?"

"No means no. Nyet. Nein. No way, Jose. Not with you. You are just too broken; that's why no one of us wants to play with you anymore."

"You can't refuse my challenge to your challenge! I'd have to send you to the Shadow Realm!"

Joker raised an eyebrow. "I'm not cheating. Just for this once."

"That's not the point!"

"Oh? Are you going to punish anyone who just doesn't want to play with you? At the start of this match, we all had agreed no one could force anyone else to play. I thought it was your friend who screwed the rules. And that's because he had money."

Yugi stared pleadingly. "Just a game..."

"No."

Yugi looked back at the others. "I haven't become that unpopular to play against, have I?"

Everyone else, audience and losers alike, just had to nod.

"Like, you always win, dood!" a Prinny piped in. "What is the point, Dood?"

Yugi's eyes watered down and he ran away crying. "I'm telling Grandpa!"

A brief silence fell all over the garden.

Joker sighed. "Well, if that's all there is..." He stood up and began to gather his winnings in a huge bundle on his arms. "See you around, pals! It's been a breeze! I'm sure you are feeling it, too!"

He began to walk away almost crushed under the weight until he noticed he had left Hawkgirl's mace behind. Grumbling, he shifted his load to one arm and stretched the other one to the mace, grabbing it and trying to pick it up.

After a few, strainful and vain attempts, he panted looking at Hawkgirl. "Well... since I'm feeling generous today, you can keep your sextoy!"

"Wait," a strong, stern voice came from behind him.

Joker blinked, tilting his head back to look at the approaching Batman. "Darling!" he grinned. "Oh, I should have known you wouldn't let me down! Ready to expose all those wonderful muscles in all their glory?"

Batman sat down shuffling the deck. "Sudden death," he said. "One single hand, everything or nothing. The winner takes it all."

Joker frowned. "I don't like the sound of that. Too brief for my liking."

"You are wearing too many things now" Batman replied. "At this point, it's impossible to take everything from you before you reduce me to nothing, even if your relied on nothing but luck."

Joker shook his head stubbornly. "I won't play under those conditions!"

Batman shrugged. "Then we won't play at all. What's the matter? Are you afraid?"

The clown grimaced horribly. "Me?! Afraid?-! HAH! Bring it on, Bats!" He sat back down. "But, unlike your cowardly friends, if I win... you take the cowl out."

"Very well."

"That was fast. You are wearing another mask underneath, aren't you? Typical! Okay, smart guy, deal!"

Everyone looked in attentive total silence as they both looked at their respective hands.

Finally, Batman put his cards down. "Pair of jacks."

Everyone but Joker cheered.

Looking downcast, the clown sighed. "I guess my lucky streak had to end at some point... Oh, well!"

He began to shake the upper layers of his clothes off, unfazed. The audience began to recoil back in disgust.

Flash, wanting to look at anything but him, appeared next to Joker's cards and took a peek at them. He blinked astonished. "But... But you had a full house! You could have—"

"Hush, you," Joker silenced him while peeling his final shirt off. "The heart has its reasons the reason can't know."

Flash still blabbered, "But, but—"

Some boxers thrown into his face silenced him.

“Ground control, this is Ravager one, requesting clearance to take off,” Tomoyo said into her helmet mic.

“Daidouji, your complete and wanton abuse of power fills me with new heights of terror, you crazy, addle-brained lunatic!” Syaoran said levelly, finishing the last four words in Mandarin to spare Sakura’s delicate ears.

“Eh?” Sakura said, blinking innocently. “What did you say, Syaoran-kun?”

“Syaoran! Be nice!” Meilin said, grinning through her flight helmet. “Otherwise she might not let me fly this on the weekend!”

“No worries, Meilin-chan,” Tomoyo said brightly. She looked over her shoulder at them, quite a feat considering the confines of the helicopter, modified as it was. “Consider it a New Years gift. When we return from this little trip of Sakura-chan’s, I’ll get you started logging hours on my flight simulator.”

“‘When’, she says,” Syaoran muttered. “Am I the only one vaguely concerned by this? The last time Sakura had apocalyptic dreams that nearly came true, Yue beat the stuffing out of us. I don’t think it’ll as nice this time.”

“Well, there’ll certainly likely be less Ho-yay type sexual tension,” Meilin muttered in Mandarin.

Syaoran glared at her, ignoring Sakura’s confused look at the language shift. “Must you mock my magically induced sexual confusion?”

“Yes,” Tomoyo replied from up front as she adjusted some controls, many of which read things like ‘Armed’. “Yes, we must.”

“Ravager one, you are cleared for take off,” the radio crackled. “Your mother sends her regards and reminds you not to cause an incident that can’t be covered up. Enjoy your flight. We’ll have the lawyers waiting when you get home.”

“Oh, Tsunade-san you kidder you,” Tomoyo laughed as the helicopter’s blades suddenly got into gear, the loud roar necessitating the helmets and accompanying earphones to dampen. Holographic display that certainly hadn’t been part of the helicopter’s package when it was first made came alive, Tomoyo touching displays in air, setting and adjusting their course. Sakura cried out cutely, clutching at Syaoran for comfort. Due to the fact she and Meilin for both sitting with Syaoran’s in the rear cockpit of the helicopter– Tomoyo apparently needed to be free of distractions– this resulted in rather bright blushing on his part and smug but slightly wistful looks from Meilin.

The last thing Syaoran heard over the radio was, “Who says we’re kidd–” before it cut off, and they were rising into the evening air. Sakura clung tighter, hiding her face in his shoulder at the rather stomach-wrenching lurch as the helicopter rose with speed. The improvised safety webbing was making him very uncomfortable, but it was the best compromise they could come up with, since Tomoyo would very well not countenance Sakura sitting in the seat proper and someone sitting on her lap. Still, the positioning was making Syaoran even more conscious of proximity. Thank goodness the seat was barely wide enough for Sakura to sit next to him, rather than on him…

He saw Meilin’s eyebrows rise just as he became uncomfortably aware a portion of his anatomy had just done the same. She fixed him with a teasing smile. “Why, Syaoran…” she purred. “Are you thinking of doing naughty, decadent things to you little ole cousin and Sakura-cha–”

The specially attached jet engines Tomoyo had modified the helicopter with roared to life, drowning out even the headphones and thankfully sparing Syaoran and the author from the completed suggestion of a threesome as the highly illegal, heavily altered, heavily armed helicopter screamed into the night, heading for Uminari city…

Skuld stared in terror at the young man who had appeared out of nowhere at the middle of her room. "Wh-Who the Hell are YOU?-!-?"

He cleared his throat and announced, very formally, "I'm Keiichi, God of the Downtrodden, and I have come to satisfy your needs and wishes!"

A wrench made its way through the air and into his face. "PERVERT!-!" the young woman shrieked.

He fell on his back, nose bleeding profusely. "Attempted deicide...!"

The ensuing irate conversation somehow took a turn for the worse after Skuld made a sarcastic, ironic wish the Ultimate Force obviously took as a real one...

...

"I can't believe they kicked me out!" the young woman stomped up and down the sidewalk, seething angrily. "My old colleagues! My comrades! My scientific Nakama! And they kick me out without even listening to me! Just because of YOU!" she pointed an accusing finger at the young man examining her motorcycle.

"This is a very good machine, for something from the mortal realm," he absently mused. "Did you work on it yourself?"

"From the scratch of a wrecked useless shell, yes!" she roared. "But that's not the point! You'll talk with them, and get my room back, NOW!"

"I have an old shrine down this way. At least I think I still have it," he pondered. "Haven't checked on it for a while. I hope they haven't taken it down to put a Mc Donald's or something..."

"I'M NOT SPENDING THE NIGHT AT ANY CREEPY PRIVATE PLACE OF YOURS!"

...

The young woman with short brown hair stood at the middle of the shrine (seeing a pattern here?) smiling widely at her. "Hello! I'm Megumi, Goddess of Little Sisters! Fancy meeting a protegee! Because I understand you have two older sisters, don't you?"

"One sister and a... half-sister," Skuld muttered.

"Sisters are never 'half'!" the goddess waved a finger. "Family is never 'half' there! That's why I've come here! To take my brother back home!"

"I can't do that!" Keiichi said. "I'm under a contract with her!"

"Oh, yeah, that. Well, in that case, I'm moving in with you!" Megumi all too quickly said.

"Wait, what?" Skuld grimaced.

"Who's going to cover your duties while you're here?" Keiichi asked coldly.

"Oh, that's no problem. I'm sure Mom and Dad can fill in for me for the next few millennia!" his sister carelessly replied.

"Millennia? I've had you here for five minutes, and I already want to kick you out!" Skuld exploded.

Megumi chuckled and petted her head. "Cute kid. You gotta spunk. So, how old are you?"

"Sixteen."

Megumi whistled. "Keiichi! You gonna get arrested! No, wait, silly me, the age limit is lower here, isn't it?"

"It isn't what you think!" her brother yelped.

"Bwa ha ha ha! Don't worry! Remember who are we! Not like the likes of Uncle Zeus are going to disapprove!"

"... Zeus...?" Skuld's face twitched.

Megumi shrugged. "What can I say? Some of our relatives are a wee bit... decadent...?"

Then she smiled back at her brother. "By the way, Keiichi, do you still remember that promise you made when we were children...?"

"I don't," he lied. First Class License be damned.

Skuld had a weird feeling she'd better keep an eye on that girl.

...

"I'm Sayoko, First Category Demon! And I'm here to help you win the love of that boy living with the snot-nosed brat!"

"... You gotta be kidding me..." Marller said. "Get out of my house, you nut!"

"Come on! Don't shoo me off without listening to me! Don't you really want to get even with that kid? Where's your pride? Are you going to allow a brat with a scholarship to upstage you, the Queen of the Nekomi Campus?"

"Well, no, but— Wait, how do you know all that?"

Sayoko laughed. "You can know all of that and more if you accept my contract and become my ally!"

"It won't cost me my soul, will it?"

"No, that's more Neron's shtick."

"Or my future marriage?"

"That's Mephisto's way."

"I won't be transformed into a hideous Witch either?"

"Ewwww! I'd never fall as low as the Kyubey!"

Marller smiled. "Very well, I'm listening..."

...

The young woman with freckles and glasses posed around, red rose in hand. Her pose was kind of awkward, and the highly revealing outfit she was wearing was not very flattering on her modest figure, either.

"G-Good morning! I'm Sora, Goddess of Mechanics, and I'm here to grant your most morbid forbidden wishes, Skuld-sama!" she said, trying too hard to sound sexy.

Skuld's mouth hung open, even if not because of the sexiness.

Keiichi peeked his head in and frowned a bit. "Sora? What are you doing here?"

Megumi's voice whined from the other room. "Keiichi, pay attention to me FOR ONCE...!"

Sora sighed inwardly. She only hoped her little sister was faring better...

...

Mahora Academy.

"Hello. I'm Chisame, Goddess of Computers, and I'm here to grant you one wish," she mumbled, staring down at the bewildered young man.

"R-Really?" Negi blurted out. He had heard of trickster spirits like that at Merdiana. If he really wanted his wish of finding his father granted, he'd have to word it in a very specific way that wouldn't leave it open for any other interpretation...

...

"Hello?"

"Sora, it's me. Do you have some room at that place where you're staying? The brat I've just been bonded with and me have been kicked out into the streets..."

"Just a sec, please," Sora turned to Skuld. "Skuld-sama? My little sister wants to know if she and a friend can stay here for a while..."

Skuld's head hung down in resignation. "Just do whatever you want. I don't care anymore..."

The red-haired girl grabbed the little being, trembling in a combination of rage and fear.

"Wh-what do you mean, 'it's easier this way'? Do you have any idea what you've done to us?"

You wished for the power to fight. All I did was change your soul into a form where it can use magic more easily. And I fulfilled your wishes too. It stared into her eyes. I did all that you asked of me.

She gulped, throat suddenly dry and felt her mind realise this. She was... just a shell, nothing more than a bauble who thought it was human. Her breathing quickened.

So alien, dead to everyone else...

She would have screamed if she could have. Her body — the body, she now knew — wouldn't listen to herself anymore, as if rebelling against the force that kept it bound. Words, spilling from the little girl like tears of denial from the mouth of the little girl cradling her shell of a best friend before her, echoed in her ears meaninglessly, comprehension so far away that she was nothing even approaching human, by her own choice—

"Cock-a-doodle-dooooooood!", the Prinny-rooster crowed.

"Hsfgtl!", Beauty Queen Etna said rather eloquently, and woke with a start.

She blinked once or twice to get the feeling of existensial angst out of her head. Not much of the dream remained, now. There'd been... something about the Prince's lookalike, only a girl, a lot less capable than the real version, and with no antennae. She remembered Usagi's evil clone, too, and two girls whom Priere was apparently the lovechild of (one had been a silent and taciturn little know-it-all, the other one had long hair and used guns. No, Etna was not at her cleverest in the mornings.).

She yawned, stretching again. "No more of those Gehenna Gargleblasters for me after eight, I guess," she mumbled and blinked again. Tangled up in the covers beside her, Flonne sighed, made a few annoyingly cute sleepy-angel noises ranging between purrs and sighs in tone, and turned over.

At least you don't have weird dreams, Etna thought somewhat unhappily, and resolved to get back at her by snuggling her to death in her sleep.

(We did tell you that she wasn't at best in the mornings, yes?)

Flonne Nagase leaned back into the back of her chair, giggling a little at her (just-arrived from England) teacher Laharl Springfield's attempts at stopiing Etna Kagurazaka and Raspberyl Yukihiro from caving each other's heads in.

She looked around the class, and saw all of her classmates watching with interest. There was Rozalin McDowell snoozing in the corner as usual, Yukimaru Sakurazaki paying attention and sending worried little glances out of the corner of her eye at Sapphire Konoe, and even Priere Rainyday looking slightly more active than usual.

Ah well. With the skills of a Love Ninja (nin-nin-nin <3!), Flonne Nagase knew that this year would be the best one ever.

"—so I'm afraid the lab tests are conclusive," Doctor Chilton said, very seriously, as the two men sitting before him only stared on mutely. "Yes, indeed. You both are actually the results of an experiment on human fertility decades ago. Your real, common mother was impregnated with twins, but after the test was deemed a failure, the unscrupulous doctor in charge told her the twins were dead, and took them... I mean, you, to be sold to two families who couldn't have children: the Fries and the Cobblepots."

"What?" the Penguin said.

"What?" Mr. Freeze echoed, in a more subdued tone.

Then the Penguin snapped, furiously pointing a flipper at the much taller armored man. "I'm NOT, under ANY circumstances, sharing any part of the Cobblepot fortune with HIM!"

One of the nearby Arkham guards hummed. "You know, this reminds me of that movie with Schwarzenegger and Danny De Vito..."

"De Vito...?" Penguin shot him an annoyed glare.

"... Schwarzenegger...?" Freeze's eternally icy and emotionless behavior betrayed the slightest hints of heavy offense.

The guard nodded. "Yeah, haven't you ever watched it? Those two guys were so totally different, but they had the same tics and gimmicks, and well, you both gravitate towards cold, don't you? And in the end, they grew to completely love each other, becoming a real family and—"

Proving they were, as a matter of fact, related, Freeze and Penguin jumped over the other guards and punched him in the stomach at the same time.

"So let me see if I understood this correctly," Skuld pouted in absolute annoyance. "You're supposed to be the God of the Downtrodden and Opressed."

"That's right!" the boy smiled proudly.

"And your job is to help, well, those who are downtrodden and opressed."

"Right again," he said.

"Well, excuse me for saying this, but you haven't been doing a stellar job!" she waved her arms rather childishly. "This world's full of people who suffers under others' heels! Where have you been for them all this time?"

He looked down, gripped by sudden, crushing shame. "I know. I'm not very useful, because I'm downtrodden and opressed all the time myself. That's why I fail at my job all the time, and that's why my colleagues mock and opress me all the time, in turn."

Skuld's eyebrows jumped up and down. "Wh-What kind of stupid vicious circle is that, and why would anyone put up with it?-!"

"Hey! The universe works based on vicious circles of causes and effects chained to each other!" Keiichi said. "Look, even you are contributing to it now! You're yelling at me and opressing me!"

Skuld grimaced for the umpteenth time since meeting him. "That's because you're supplying me with a darn good cause for my rage effect. Stop doing so."

Not Just Tempting Fate, but Putting Yourself in Lingerie for It

"Hah!" Skuld laughed mockingly, pointing a finger at him. "You, useful? You, able to give me anything I might ever want? After all you've done and said tonight! Oh, yes, of course I would like to have your help! Oh, how do I wish I could have you around all the time to help me, for the rest of my life!" she taunted.

Then she froze in place as she realized what she had just said.

He did as well.

Then a beam of light came out of his forehead, shooting itself through the rooftop and high up into the sky.

Skuld wished she could have learned a bit more restrain from Sis Belldandy, but it already was too late for that wish...

Oh! My Classroom!

Negi gestured towards the stiff looking brown haired girl standing at his side.

"And so, this is our newest exchange student, Miss Chisame Hasegawa! I hope you all will make her feel welcomed for the rest of this term and beyond!"

"Pleased to meet you all," the young Goddes of Computers forced herself to bow.

"Hey, hey!" Misa Kakizaki from the Journalism Club reached over with a microphone. "Miss Chisame, are the new rumors running through campus true? That you're living with Negi-kun?"

"What?-!" the blonde lazily sitting near the teacher's desk perked up all of a sudden. "I call bull on that!" She zeroed truly killer blue eyes on Chisame. "Say it ain't so, you ugly geeky cow...!"

Then someone knocked on her head from behind. The blonde barked, looking back with extreme anger. "What's the great idea this time, Class Rep?-!"

"The new living arrangements for our teacher come from Headmaster Xavier himself, Ayaka!" the prim and proper redhead with mismatched eyes said. "Please restrain yourself from doubting the wisdom of such measures! Please forgive her, Miss Chisame. I, Asuna Vesperina Theotanasia Entheofusia, Class Representative and Monitor for Classroom 2-A, welcome you in the name of all our classmates—"

"Not in mine!" Ayaka barked.

"You're right, sorry," Asuna didn't miss a beat. "In the name of all our classmates who do matter..."

Ayaka jumped on her throat. "That's it! I'll teach you this time, you holier-than-thou aristocrat!"

"Get your claws off me, alley cat!"

"Old man-chaser snob!"

"Has-been rotten fruit from a has-been family! Also, Shotacon!"

"Don't fight! Don't fight!" Negi began to try and separate them.

Chisame stared on with disgusted horror. Humans were such strange, abnormal creatures...!

"Asuna, please...!" Konoka joined the negotiations. "You're losing your class and category...!"

The tall girl watching her from the back of the class sighed. Oh, Konoka-dono, always so graceful, so peaceful and dignified... I, Kaede Nagase, your loyal retainer, will watch over you forever, and so gladly...

The girl sitting next to her only looked at her with disgust.

Freakin' lesbian, Setsuna thought.

Now this is good.

Finally, I have been able to find a constant, reliable source of relaxation to calm the inner beast. Who would have thought it? Despite considering myself fairly scientically advanced and caught up to the current times, I never was truly Internet-savvy. Years and years of being on the run will do that to you.

Now, however, I have found this hobby is perfect to keep the Hulk down. It never fails to amuse me, navigating through the unending paths of the Information Highway. Okay, and the porn is useful at times, as well. Betty is far, far away, after all.

Betty...

No. Mustn't think of her. Let's see what do we have here... What is this link? It seems a funny image board for cartoons. Childish as these things can be at times, they're also harmless, and bring their own kind of joy to my jaded heart. '4-Chan'? What a funny name. Okay, now what...

What...

What is THIS...?

Doctor Bruce Banner's eyes bulged out, and veins pumped up on his head, protuding under his skin.

Then he began to seethe...

.................

"Thirty nine wounded, sixty destroyed houses and five hundred million dollars in other property damage in the latest rampage of the green skinned savage behemoth known only as The Hulk. The Mighty Avengers have been called to the area to investigate, find and stop the beast; their leader, Captain America, has admitted having no knowledge of the motives behind Hulk's current rage, but promised any guilty parties would be found and properly punished—"