Noxonshaw Episode 2
NarayanK & Theobromine
NOXONSHAW EPISODE 2
THEY SEE ME FLOATING
Ganondorf stared at his 3DS.
Suddenly, he felt a sense of deja vu before anything even happened.
Wait a second, he thought to himself as he mercilessly killed... himself on his copy of Ocarina of Time,
I remember something like this happening, actually...He could tell that something was off-
Yup. They were at Chicago. And Mark Noxus was staring at his golden cards, except this particular Mark Noxus seemed a bit... brighter. The first Noxonshaw's Mark was actually a different person from this particular Noxonshaw's Mark, but they were still the same person despite being different people from different timelines even though they were-
Ganondorf's brain shut down as soon as he thought hard for more than five seconds.
"How much till the show begins?" Mark Noxus asked the King of Evil, who barely recovered from his brain fart. The Gerudo rolled his eyes back into reality as he raised a watch, though, instead of numerals, every single hour was labeled as "Noxonshaw."
"About... ten seconds."
"...Ganon?"
"Ye?"
"Why are you sweating so much?"
The King of Evil touched his forehead, only to realize that he was, indeed, sweating a lot. It was then that he realized the true terror of the episode they were doing.
Mark Noxus was flipping through his golden cards.
They were at a destroyed version of Chicago.
The freaking title of the Noxonshaw episode seemed a bit familiar.
Apophis was pissing all over on Agent Smith's car.
Pissing blood.
"Holy crap," he muttered as his eyes widened.
"It's Tuesday."
Suddenly, the once quiet city of Chicago turned into a field of destruction (again) as a bunch of Transformers blew out of the ground, punching each other simultaneously as hundreds of explosions generated each time they collided against something physical. The audience cheered as the hosts revealed themselves and sat at a single line of chairs, with one chair being empty for their (un)lucky guest. This time, the audience was protected by some sort of forcefield that was probably unreliable anyway.
"Well," Agent Smith said as he held onto what appeared to be a doge, "this brings back memories."
"Bad memories, to be exact," Ganondorf grumbled. "The last time we came here, Megatron blew his way
through the silver screen. When the heck is he going to retire, anyway?"
Apophis shrugged. "Not in a million years. As long as there's a six-sided, three-dimensional object that's not in his hands, he will probably continue to tear through everything that gets in his way."
"huz sch e didikted trnzgender," sanic sed.
"...Transformer or Transgender?" Mark asked for confirmation, only to realize that the question itself sounded way too wrong to be considered decent. "Uhh, anyway... WE'RE BACK! Unfortunately, my self from another dimension is currently hospitalized because of an unknown disease known as the 'Bang Syndrome.' Though we're not sure of what the exact symptoms are for this particular syndrome, we're guessing that it came from how terrifyingly stupid the first episode was in terms of every single sense.
"With that said, let's get RIGHT ON to the Noxonnews! Ganondorf, kick us off."
The King of Evil grinned as he snapped his fingers, causing a hologram of... a half-naked Carmen to pop up.
"This is kind of sexy. Let's show this to her mom."
"Her mom's dead," Apophis pointed out. Then, Mark brought up a curious question.
"Does she even have parents?"
The King of Evil smirked as he shook his head. "Well, either way, that doesn't change the fact that she's as worthless as the dwarf stars are. She can't even destroy the world in one second!"
"..."
As the hosts shrugged simultaneously, Shulk, the Monado Boy, snapped his fingers as a hologram of a green-haired woman appeared in front of the audience. The woman seemed very nice, and was surrounded by dozens of children. Many of the Stalfos ooh'd and ahh'd at the sight of her soothing smile.
"This particular woman has gathered the attentions of many people around the Noxonet!-"
"What the fuck is a Noxonet?" Apophis asked curiously.
"It's the Internet modified for Noxonshaw, of course!" Shulk answered matter-of-factly with a proud grin. "Guess why Chicago is burning in the first place!"
"..."
"...AAAaaaaanyway, who's this woman, Shulk?" Mark asked as he stared at the woman thougthfully. "I never really saw her before."
Shulk cleared his throat as he happily answered,
"This is Apophis's girlfriend."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
Totem faltered.
Many people intensified.
Apophis raised an eyebrow as many people turned to him with a horrified look.
"...What?"
"I dunno, man," Ganondorf said as he shrugged his shoulders. "Out of all the things you can get romantically interested in, you seem like the pit-bottom of things."
"...I did kind of look decent before, though," the Deity of Chaos muttered. "Hell, I think I'm actually remembering this woman... WAIT! I GOT IT! I REMEMBER HER!
"I KILLED HER ON OUR ANNIVERSARY! Wow, I'm good at remembering things."
"As usual, Apophis competes vigorously for the 'Asshole of the Year' award," Mark Noxus said naturally as he proceeded to make Apophis look worse unintentionally. "Seriously though, why did you kill someone like her? She seems like a nice person."
"She made me eat mushroom soup."
"God fucking dammit, man."
"AHEM." Agent Smith interrupted the polite exchange of particularly polite words. "I have news as well."
"...You do?"
"Silence, Deity of Chaos."
The man with sunglasses snapped his fingers, causing a green hologram to pop up in front of the audience. The image of what appeared to be an evil version of Mark Noxus robbing a bank popped up.
"Doesn't Mark himself rob banks?" Shulk asked with innocent curiosity. "Or is that someone else?"
"I never robbed banks," Mark responded as he raised his hands to signify his innocence. "But the other Mark probably did. Since he's technically me, though, I guess you can say I did it even though I never really did do it since he did it."
"I hate the fact that there are two Marks already," Ganondorf grumbled. "Can you imagine what it'd be like if there were two Megatrons and four sanics?"
Ignoring the horror behind Ganondorf's words, Agent Smith finally spoke.
"Death Noxus has been spotted right outside a Dimensional Soul Exchange Center, and has completely destroyed the facility for reasons unknown to us. The DSEC, an illegal organization that harvested dozens of souls from many dimensions, has been disbanded as a result of this. Rumors say that Death Noxus was paid to destroy the facility, but nevertheless, his rash action saved plenty of galactic federations plenty of time and money."
"I have a question," Apophis said as he raised a hand.
"I'm not answering any of your questions."
"..."
The Deity of Chaos attempted to make a cute pouty face. It only made the audience flinch instead.
"Alright, any interesting images to share with us, gentlemen?" Mark asked as he smoothly transitioned the scene to the second section of Noxonshaw. At that moment, sanic took out a picture and tossed it on the ground.
"luk gaiz" sanic sed wid smile. "etz megun fix"
megun fix looked very beautiful indeed. Her beauty was so overwhelming, Apophis actually shed a tear while Mark Noxus punched himself away from the image. Ganondorf felt as if he were being stabbed by a Master Sword in the eyes, and Shulk whistled as he wiggled his eyebrows.
Agent Smith cringed, Totem faltered, and everyone swore they heard Megatron screaming beneath Chicago.
The show immediately went to a stand-by.
"...We're back," Mark Noxus said with a smile as if nothing happened. "Anyway, LET'S GET TO THE MAIN PART OF THE NOXONSHAW!"
Thankful that the dreaded image of megun fix flew by, the audience cheered as their excitement grew rapidly.
"Starring the familiar girl who can walk on walls...! The girl who can defy gravity!
"KATHERINE ARGAAAAAAAAAALL!!!"
A portal appeared right above the empty chair for Kathy to plop right onto as the audience's cheers intensified. Kathy would be sitting right next to Apophis; after all, the guest seat was always placed next to the mofo for some reason.
---
Finding herself in a semi-familiar room, Kathy looked around and murmured, "Interesting... I didn't think this sort of thing would have continued on for so long." Then in a less-than-subtle manner, she pushed her seat a good distance away from Apophis and sat back down. Making herself comfortable she asked, "And? What sort of things should I expect this time around after such a long hiatus?"
The audience cheered harder, and one particular Stalfos screamed something about not knowing who Caleb was. Alas, Carmen had yet to appear and destroy him.
Mark clapped as he turned to Kathy's direction, a bright smile on his face. "He-hey! Welcome to Noxonshaw. This kind of thing does go on pretty long, huh?"
"A bit... longer than it should, honestly," Agent Smith said, finally showing a bit of emotion by frowning. "Where on Earth is Dr. House, anyway?"
Apophis bluntly answered, "He said 'Fuck this, I'm taking a break from life,' the last time I tried to get him to wake up."
"Good."
Ganondorf sneered at Kathy as the memory of a flustered little girl came to him- wait, actually, she was not as flustered as he wanted her to be the last time she popped up. In fact, Crash, her little boyfriend (at least, that was what he thought with a steel will), had more interesting reactions than her. He wondered if she was going to be any different this time.
Unless he got a bit cruel, which might ruin his reputation a bit...
"It is the first time I've ever seen you!" Shulk said, as optimistic as ever. "I hope this episode will go well!"
While the rest of the hosts were not progressing the episode at all, Mark went on ahead in pushing it.
"Anyway, like before, we shall be asking you some simple questions! We're going for a smooth route with our guest for today, so let's keep it cool, people!"
Every other host other than Shulk did not listen to Mark. The cowboy mentally flipped a bird at the hosts as he shuffled his golden cards.
Meanwhile, Apophis suddenly took out a Yu-Gi-Oh card. It was a trap card. Flinging it down on the ground, the Deity of Chaos turned to Kathy as he asked,
"Are you still a virgin?"
Everyone sighed.
Of course he would ask that, Ganondorf screamed internally.
It's like he's BEGGING her to not be a virgin, considering his particular "wife-stealer" status...Only one dense Iron Knuckle cheered, only to fall silent when his iron-clad friends gave him a startled look.
---
Turning to the new face, Kathy gave him a welcoming smile and returned the greeting. "Nice to meet you as well." She told him politely, though she internally doubted that any episode could truly go 'well' from what she recalled years ago.
'Hm. Then again,' She thought,
'I'm not exactly a teenager anymore. Perhaps this won't be as bad as it used to be.'Her first premonition turned out to be true, as the host she took the trouble of distancing against threw a straight ball at her. After a small pause, she broke out into laughter and combed her fingers through her long hair. "I am." She answered simply, shaking her head as if to wonder if Apophis had truly expected otherwise.
---
Apophis frowned.
"I... see..." He mumbled as if he just failed to kill a kitten. "That sucks."
The Deity of Chaos scratched his head as he stared off into nowhere in particular. He officially lost every smidgeon of interest in Katherine- whether it was a good or bad thing, no one knew fully, but they were siding a bit with the former thought.
Right after Apophis died in the inside, Ganondorf decided to step his game up as a host and asked,
"I heard you were taking pictures during your absence from your friends. What kinds of pictures did you mostly take?"
At the sheer idea of Ganondorf asking a normal question, the audience felt like applauding him for his great effort, but they decided to remain silent in order to stay alive.
---
Kathy raised a brow at Ganondorf, remembering that she had actually gone out of her way to request that he not ask her any questions during her last unexpected trip to an interview.
'That was rather tame.' She thought, agreeing with the audience, though she did not know it from their lack of a visible reaction.
"The kinds of photos I took were... Hm..." She stopped to think for a moment, then continued, "A lot of large nature photos. Taken from the sides of mountain cliffs, tall sky-scrapers in the middle of construction... And several photos of conflicts in less fortunate areas. In short... I guess most people would refer to them as 'war photos'. Those sorts of things."
---
The King of Evil raised an eyebrow, surprised to think that the Kathy he met before would eventually take war photos out of all things. Sure, he saw war so many times, he practically gave zero craps about it, but he wondered what it looked like in the eyes of other people.
...It probably looked like a Hell that was Heaven for him.
Shulk seemed interested in the mention of nature pictures, as he himself loved nature. "I know of a friend who takes nature pictures as well, actually!" He exclaimed brightly. "She'd probably love to share some of her work with her."
Totem spun.
sanic vibrated.
Mark grinned. "I never actually took any war photos before, but I sure as hell did make some friends with nature pics! Glad to see that I'm not the only one who shares that sentiment."
Apophis excitedly waved his hand in the air as he somehow revived from his initial self-destruction. "I HAVE TONS OF WAR PHOTOS! AND NATURE PHOTOS! AND NATURE WAR PHOTOS... and... uhh... War Torture photos?"
Only a single Iron Knuckle cheered for Apophis for 0.5 seconds.
"I mean, they're right here, if you want to take a look-"
"No thanks. Moving on!"
As Apophis pouted, shuffling a bunch of pictures featuring his victims before putting them in a loose pocket, Agent Smith cleared his throat and asked the girl, "When you left your friends and fellow students, some of them appeared to be... angry. They called you a coward, and some particularly impolite names. But is it true that cowardice was the primary reason you left the ongoing war of the magic continent?"
Everyone blinked.
For the first time ever in the Noxonshaw, Agent Smith asked a legitimately thoughtful question, even if it could be answered in one shot.
Apophis turned to the audience. One of the Stalfos attempted to pick his nose, only to somehow kill himself in the process.
---
Though Kathy nodded in acknolwedgement as Shulk and Mark commented, she ignored Apophis's entirely. Treating him as nothing more than a house plant, of poor taste, placed there for the sake of ambiance in the room.
With Agent Smith's question, she suddenly seemed rather fascinated in the ends of her own hair as she twirled a large lock of it in her fingers. Looking at her rust-red hair instead of at the interviewers or the audience she answered, "Well, I'm not sure if answering that question would even matter." Finally abandoning her hair, she looked back at the formally-dressed interviewer with her hands folded in her lap. Shrugging she continued, "The fact was, I left. And my friends were all left behind to fend for themselves... And the academy."
"As for the impollite names and such," She shrugged a second time. "They are free to call me what they want."
---
The Agent wondered if he should delving deeper into the struggles of the students, but he decided to end it right there. Instead, Mark proceeded to say something.
"Well, there are plenty of
new people now! I'm pretty sure that even if some of the people you knew of do not consider you with good thoughts, I'm sure that there could be better people within those who joined the ragtag resistance group, right? Y' just gotta look deeply and hope with little expectations to get big surprises."
The cowboy then turned around, analyzing the other hosts. Shulk seemed like he had something to say.
"Spit it out, Shulk," Mark said with a grin.
"Ahem! Ah, hold on," the wielder of the Monado said as he raised a hand, coughing once before looking back up to Kathy. "Now; are there any relationships you truly wish to maintain with the people back at this Athalia group? I'm sure there are some, right?"
The Stalfos that accidentally commited suicide revived, only to get stabbed by a random lance another Stalfos brought out of nowhere. They took an incoming fight to somewhere else.
---
With Mark's encouraging thoughts, she smiled and gave a dismissive wave of her hand. "Oh, I know. Well... That's if they don't mind associating with someone that only recently got released from jail with a fresh criminal record but... Perhaps they would still have better impressions than the students that knew about my 'betrayal' back in Athalia."
Then, for the first time, Kathy stiffened up and seemed rather uneasy. "A... Few..." She began, recalling the faces that she missed. Especially a particularly warm smile under a mop of bright red hair... She shook her head as if to clear the thought. "I'm... W-Well, I'd like to maintain the relationships I had once but... I... Wouldn't really blame them if they don't want to talk to me anymore." She stammered, wearing a crooked attempt at another smile.
---
Shulk smiled. It was natural to miss familiar faces; after all, he missed plenty of them. But when he thought that he would be unable to see such faces again, he hoped and worked enough to meet them. It was truly a beautiful thing, even if it seemed so insignificant.
Giving her a thumbs-up, the Monado Boy gave her his optimistic view on her situation, "Well, it doesn't matter if they don't want to talk to you. In the end, it all matters on when
you want to talk to them! Trust me; I've known some faces that really seemed to hate my guts even though I knew they were good people. There is a massive difference between 'seeming' to dislike and 'disliking' people."
Mark nodded in agreement. "The world's only so big to separate you from what you are fond of."
The hosts nodded. Totem spun with a fantastic balance. All was well.
Until something familiar happened.
CRASH!BOOM!!!Dozens of explosions erupted in a single file line as an unfortunate Autobot was sent tumbling across Chicago. Standing in all of his metallic glory, the bastard child of death and Michael Bay stood with a demonic bloodlust, his claws glinting within the clouds of destruction. Raising one of his arms, the Decepticon let a blade slide out of it as he growled,
"
I am... Megatron."
Ganondorf screamed internally.
The audience screamed externally. Some of them seemed to recognize the situation, however, and took out their 3D Glasses. All of the hosts (except for Ganondorf and Totem) took out their respective 3D Glasses, Shulk having the decency to provide Katherine with her own as an all-too-familiar cacophony of explosions began.
Megatron took a step forward, causing a car to explode into a beautiful array of flames. He then swiped his claw at a set of buildings, somehow letting it collide against volatile materials and causing the buildings to blow up as well. The instant moment he roared, an Autobot blew up for no reason, and when he started running, explosions began to erupt at the pace of his footsteps. No one knew how the hell he did it; he was Megatron, and that was all the logic one needed to understand what was going on.
"
THE CUBE... THE CUUUUUUUUUUUUBE!!!!!!!! WHERE. IS. THE. CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUBEEEEEEEE!?!?!?!?!??"
Suddenly, Mark stood up and took several steps away from his chair, raising what appeared to be... a Rubix Cube.
A Rubix Cube that looked a bit too similar to The Cube.
In other words, he was carrying The Cube.
"
OVER HERE!" Mark exclaimed, somehow catching the Decepticon's attention five thousand meters away from him. As soon as the tiny object fell into the Decepticon's eyes, Megatron started to tear his way toward the Cube.
"
GIVE ME THE CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUBE!!!!!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
But right before Megatron lay his hands on Mark and the Cube, however, a large figure appeared out of nowhere and crashed into Megatron shield-first. The Decepticon tumbled over, causing an explosion to erupt from the ground each time he spun. When he eventually crashed into a skyscraper, the skyscraper suddenly blew up without any warning, and it fell on him like a melting Hershey bar.
"
HNGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! PRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!!!!!!!"
A blue-and-red Autobot stood galiantly with a blade and shield in his hands. Glaring at Megatron, the Autobot leader known as Optimus Prime growled,
"Freedom is the right to
all sentient beings."
After hearing the same phrase for the twelve-thousandth time, Megatron screamed in agony as he charged towards the Autobot. Optimus Prime, however, was ready, and activated his jetpack. As soon as he charged towards Megatron, the Autobot flew into space with the Decepticon leader violently attempting to free himself.
"
NO! NOT LIKE THIS! NOT LIKE THIS AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!"
Megatron and Optimus Prime turned into a tiny star.
...
...
...
...
...
"...And that's how Carmen was born, people."
"For fuck's sake, Apophis."
The Noxonshaw eventually ended, with the hosts proceeding to leave one-by-one. Ganondorf sludged his way out with the massive audience, Apophis vanished through his dark portal, and Agent Smith entered another Matrix-like portal. Shulk and sanic disappeared without a flashy exit, and Totem continued to spin. Dr. House was... not even there, and Mark Noxus sat still. Excluding Totem, he was the only host left with Kathy.
"...Well then; that was interesting," he said as he tossed his 3D glasses off.
Staring at the destruction caused by Megatron and Optimus Prime, the cowboy blinked.
"So uh," Mark said as he put his attention to Kathy, "I hope you don't mind me for asking this, but uh... I'd like to ask one last question."
The Mark Noxus that currently sat before Kathy was different than the one her past counterpart had dealt with. This particular Mark seemed brighter; it was already a huge contrast with the Mark that first interviewed her.
"According to some files I looked into, there seemed to be one particular person you were interested in."
The cowboy tilted his head curiously as he asked, "Do you mind telling me what he's like?"
---
Sometime during the entire chaos, Kathy had busied herself with taking as much photography of the distruction as she could. Holding the camera in her hands, looked at the screen as she transitioned through her photos, occasionally nodding in satisfaction.
Hearing Mark's voice directed to her, she turned her attention back to him.
Shaking her head, she smiled warmly at him, resembling her old self quite a bit as a slight tint of red appeared in her cheeks. "Not at all, I don't mind answering a simple question like that."
"He... Well,
was since I'm not sure if he's changed since then, but he was really clumsy... Running around like he had too much sugar in system..." She laughed at the memories. "And always just throwing his whole self into whatever he did. He was that kind of person. The clumsiest, and the most childish gentleman I have never met. Even after I've travelled through every continent of the mortal world."
Closing her eyes she added in a soft voice, "And I'm always hoping that he'll be happy... Whether I'm there or not."
---
"Wow, I wish I knew of someone like that," Mark admitted, his eyes widen with pleasant surprise. "Last person I met said that I was invading his swamp or something. Tried to kick my butt with a Welsh Corgi for some reason..."
As much as it was true, he did not want to admit that the person was actually his dad rage-quitting in Smash Brothers.
Now that he thought about it, there was always that
one person who brightened up people's days. It seemed like a particular mystery he would never be able to solve, but be able to eternally appreciate. With that in mind, he smiled at the memory of his parents first introducing him to the concept of "adventure." Through adventures, he met plenty of people, and some of them were truly good people.
He predicted that it would, indeed, be torturous if one were to be torn away from someone they liked. Friendship or romance, the one thing most relationships tried to avoid was the idea of having two certain people separated from each other.
"Hey now," he said, wondering if he could cheer up the somewhat sad situation. He was always known to be a pile of laughter, after all; though, he really wanted to ask his friends whether they were laughing because of him or laughing
at him.
"Chances are that he's thinking something similar about you! If he's a strong person, then he will be strong enough to wait for his friends. And he'll be all fine and dandy after you meet him, and things will get normal naturally. Some scars aren't actually permanent wounds, anyway; they might be reminders that lets us drive towards a cool goal."
Standing up, the cowboy grinned as he shrugged, shaking his head. "But what the hell; I'm no philosopher! Though I'm in no position to judge the kind of ending you have, I'm sure that you can have a good one if the people you know of are good too."
The man walked away. On his way, he gave Kathy a pat on the shoulder as he took out a machete with his other hand. Walking a bit further, he raised the blade before tearing a dimensional rift open with a single slash at the air.
"Gotta keep movin' on," Mark Noxus said with a grin. "Because I'm pretty sure everyone else is doing just that as well, anyway. Later!"
And with that, the cowboy faded into the portal. A white portal soon formed next to it for Kathy to leave through.
---
Kathy laughed, "Don't underestimate corgis! They can pack quite a punch you know!"
She shruggled, then nodded in agreement. "He is a strong person, I think." Though in the back of her mind she thought of all the millions of ways he could render one of his limbs permanently useless just from tripping over the wrong thing at the wrong time. "And... Hopefully." Since it was obvious that Mark was trying to be cheery, she didn't add that she wasn't entire sure she was ready to meet him again...
"Bye." Seeing him off with a wave and a smile, she looked at the portal that had formed next to her.
"... If this doesn't take me back to Lavanya directly, I'm going to be arrested again." She mused, then stepped through the portal to return... Hopefully.
