Mr. Humor and Mr. Serious escape from the Dark Asylum

"JESUS!" Humor looked up at where he thought the bullet had come from. "Apparently someone doesn't want us here."

Furnace stepped out from behind the metal wheel with a fire ball ready to throw. But before he was able to toss it, Tombstone bursted out of the shadows and tackled Furnace against the wheel. Tombstone threw a fist at Furnace, but Furnace dodged and countered with a blow to the chest, sending Tombstone flying threw a nearby door. Furnace ran after him for their brawl had only begun.

Mr. Serious grabbed Humor by the collar, yanking him out of the room before he got shot at again.
"Yes, lets just stand in the middle of the doorway where a bullet just almost took off your head. That seems like a perfect idea."
"Bah, you worry to much" Humor took out some bombs from his strait jacket and tossed them into the room.
"Judging from the way the bullet impacted the wall, I'd say he isn't on the ground therefore making your bombs useless."
"Serious, Serious, Serious, these are smoke bombs. If you think I'd-" Suddenly a loud boom followed by the sound of collapsing metal was heard from the doorway. Serious glared at Humor while Humor just chuckled, "Oops, wrong pocket." He then looked to see what the damage was. A large metal pipe had fallen on to the catwalk causing it to slant at an angle. Humor then noticed Dark at the other end of the catwalk, he had dropped his weapon and was now lying on the ground. Humor made a mad bolt toward him while pulling his shot gun from its holster. He ran up to Dark before he could get up and placed the barrel of the gun on the back of his neck.

"Well this is how it ends, huh? You dead in some gutter while I get the last laugh. I honestly thought you would put up more of a fight, but I guess your old age has made you to sluggish to be able to compete with someone of my skill. Well Dark, it has been nice knowing you, but it looks like your time is up." Humor pulls the trigger but nothing happens. Humor rapidly pulls the trigger some more but still nothing happens. Dark begins to chortle, "I may be old, but at least I remember to reload my gun before I use it." Before Humor could react, Dark Asylum spins around and pushes Humor away from him. He then stands in a fighting stance, "So you think I'm sluggish, eh? Well we'll see how sluggish you think I am after this." Humor gets steady again before responding. "Fisticuffs? Alright, but I must warn you, I never play fair." Humor then chucks his shotgun at Asylum who grabs it out of the air and throws it back. At the last moment, Humor ducks causing the shotgun to fly off into the shadows. Humor frowned, "You lost my shotgun. No matter! I always have a few tricks up my sleeves," his wicked smile came back as he pulled out a stiletto from his sleeve. "BRING IT ON!!!"

Asylum stood there for a moment, his fists raised, before calling out again.

"Humor, I know you want to destroy this generator, but if you do the joke will only be on you. If you don't stop this now, it will end badly for everyone."

Humor only chuckled, "Why Dark, I didn't know you cared, but I have my own express ticket to Liberation, the capital of Freedom-Land, and I simply HAVE to catch that train." He lunged at Asylum, leading with a right hook.

The old man twisted to the left, dodging around Humor and bringing up his fists. " I guess it's too late to put you back in your cell, isn't it? The Asylum is beginning to wake up, there is no going back." He jumped at Humor, bringing both hands down in a hammer strike that Humor dodged easily, socking Asylum in the face and sending him stumbling.

He recovered just in time to block Humor's next attack, returning with a swift punch to the gut before pushing him away. It was Humor's turn to recover, gasping for breath as Asylum removed his heavy coat, setting it down on the ground carefully before bringing his fists up again. He extended two fingers and motioned for Humor to come at him.

Just as Humor began to move, there was a crash below as Stone smashed Furnace into one of the support beams, bending it and making the already damaged platform above begin to rock back and forth.

Asylum called out above the generators," Stone, Furnace, why are you fighting? Our real enemies are Serious and Humor! Stop them!" But they payed him no heed, for they were locked in a battle that only brothers of such elemental alignments could know.

He tried to call out once more, but Humor was moving in to attack.

Dark was flung against the railing of the catwalk. The railing gave in to the weight of Dark Asylum causing him to fall off the catwalk. In an attempted to save himself from falling, he latched onto Humor ankles. Mr. Humor quickly turned and tried to grab something but was already sliding down with Dark Asylum. Right before they went into free fall, Mr. Humor grabbed the side of the catwalk. His grip began to weaken as the force of Dark Asylum was weighing him down. He tried to shake Dark off, but the grip of the old man was to strong.

"I know I don't normally do this," Mr. Humor began "but on a serious note, do you think we can die from the landing?" Dark was shocked by the question. Humor being serious? the idea was absurd, but none the less he responded. "Uhhhhh, possibly, If you don't land on your head that is." The metal creaked. "Well, I highly doubt I can manage the strength to get us both up there and even if I did I don't believe this piece a junk will be able to hold us much longer. So on the count of 3 we let go. Alright?"
"Okay"
"1...2...3!!!!" Neither of them budged.
"What are you doing? I thought you were going to let go on 3?"
"I'm not daft. I know how you work, Humor."
"I don't believe I understand what you are trying to insinuate?"
"Oh sure you don't, you wanted me to jump while you just pull yourself up. I'm not stupid."
Humor smiled, "You caught me, Doc."

____________________________________________________________________________


Mr. Serious was at the top of the catwalk now and walked over to where his companion and his nemesis were hanging.
"HEY BUDDY! MIND LENDING A HAND???"
"It seems the situation has taken a turn for the worst."
"Yeah, yeah, just give us a hand."
"I prefer to watch. It is very amusing to watch you fight."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'D PREFER TO WATCH!?!?!? HELP ME OR BY GOD I'LL-"
Mr. Serious lift up his foot and smashed it on Mr. Humor's hand. His body (and Dark Asylum) jerked down then took an abrupt stop. Humor still had one hand left.
"I swear, if you don't help me I will SERIOUSLY injure you."
He slammed his foot on Humor's remaining hand.

Spoiler:

Mr. Serious watched impassively as Humor fell into the abyss with the Dark Asylum. He was certain his old friend would survive, and if hope were an emotion Mr. Serious were able to entertain, he would’ve hoped the landing would knock some sense into him. But of course, he didn’t entertain any such notions.

He turned back to the megalithic generator behind him. A new issue had presented itself. While Mr. Serious had known that the Asylum was some sort of locus of surreality, he had had no idea what had caused it. However, a moment after seeing the handiwork before him, he was certain who its brilliant primogenitor was. The memory of the eccentric clockmaker swam through his brain, the image of a man locked away in his own mini-dimensional workshop. Mr. Serious had thought the man was locked away forever in that little dimension, left with nothing to do but tinker for all eternity.

But apparently, Mr. Serious was wrong. The entity before him bore all the signs of Mr. Fabrication’s craft, the very shaping of paradoxical doohickery, as the man himself was so fond of saying, claiming it was the only proper ‘technical term.’ Mr. Serious began to stride towards the generator, careful to avoid the massive pistons. Their motions were as elegant as they were maddening. So much of the machine simply should not be.

He placed his hand against its smooth surface, feeling the warmth of its wrong power seep into his glove. So Mr. Fabrication was free. And absolutely mad. Mr. Serious’ shoulders sagged a bit. “Not this again,” he thought. He looked at the generator one last time. For all its size, it was just like any of Mr. Fabrication’s other creations: fragile.

He pulled out his pocket watch. No paradoxes here. No trickery. It was a simple, hand wound watch. The time it kept was perfectly linear, and the spring would eventually wind down, needing to be wound again. He tested the weight of the watch in his hand for a moment, and in one swift motion tossed the watch into the gears of the generator. For a moment nothing happened.

Interestingly, that moment was measured by exactly the standards as any other moment. All at once, the singular paradoxes that were woven into the very workings of the generator began to come undone. The machine was flying apart, the center spinning too fast for reality to allow. It could not hold. Parts began to sag, others flew off. Mr. Serious turned and walked away. He still had to collect Mr. Humor.

As Humor was forced to let go, Asylum felt himself falling through space. For an instant he was weightless, before crashing into the concrete below. He felt something in his arm give as he landed, the sickening crack sending spikes of pain through the old bones in his arm. His vision clouded over with red for a moment, before being pushed away by the adrenalin in his system. He looked around and found his coat which he had thrown down earlier, it had not landed very far away. As he righted himself, he noticed two things.

First was that Humor, though dazed, was also picking himself up.

The second was the instant Mr. Serious threw the pocket-watch into the workings of the generator. In that instant, he remembered something, an item of thought floating at the vaguest edge of the river of memory. Someone once told him that the generator would not respond kindly to logic.

Indeed, it did not.

The entire thing began to crack and split apart, pieces flying everywhere as if the universe itself was frustrated with the existence of the construct. Asylum dodged past the pieces of hurtling machinery that banged past and retrieved his coat. From inside, he removed a bottle full of a ruby red liquid, not unlike blood, that glowed with an inner light. He unstoppered it, just in time to see a large gear the size of his head come spinning towards him through the air. It broke upon the arm that extended in front of it as Stone moved to absorb the blow.

Asylum nodded at him before downing the bottle and tossing the container to the side. Within seconds, he felt himself rejuvenated, his skeleton repaired. It even seemed as if ha had grown younger by a few years. While he lamented the loss of the Potion of Health, he had decided that being disabled in this situation would be catastrophic. He looked at the flame giant, who had stopped fighting his brother due to the commotion; Furnace would be the only one to survive. Perhaps he was the only one who could do anything in this situation.

"Furnace, you have to stop that or we will all die." Asylum was asking for help, even as his walls crumbled around him and his heart shook itself to pieces. Furnace nodded before walking over to the center of the room.

He stood before the generator like a man stands in front of an age old tree, admiring its design and power even as it began to die. Already, tongues of white hot fire were leaking from the core, increasing the temperature of the room dramatically. He reached out his hands and the fire began to bends towards him, surrounding the giant. It was like a the creation of a star as Furnace carefully absorbed the fires of creation that Mr. Fabrication had so carefully and paradoxically locked within the machine. Within moments, the generator grew silent and only soft rumble of the fire within Furnace remained.

He looked over at his elemental sibling, Stone, standing next to Asylum and said two words. They may not have been the most eloquent he had said in his life, but they were the first ones he had truly meant.

"Goodbye brother."

With that, he vanished, imploding in upon himself, the universal fire dragging him from this place of existence, back to where Hephaestus kept his forge hot. The deity welcomed back the bit of flame, that had so rudely been stolen from him by a man that made no sense so very long ago.

Asylum stood within the asylum and felt it groan beneath him. It was beginning to notice the loss of the generator, and it was not pleased. A cold wind passed through everyone in the room, chilling their blood to ice, before all of the lights went out.

The Asylum calmly withdrew a lantern and a small handgun of an indescribable nature out of his coat as the floor began to shift beneath him. He lit the lantern and casually let it go, which began to float off to his right, as if support by some unseen third arm. He then checked the gun, cocking it and aiming it squarely at Mr. Serious.

Shadows not cast by the spirit-lantern began to swarm around the room as he called out.

"Get out. You're not welcome here." He paused and glanced around the room. "You made the building angry. This is an asylum no longer, this is a madhouse."

Humor was strapped to the table. The leather straps secured him, making sure that any movement was impossible. The table began to tilt forward, allowing Humor to see where he was. He looked around It was all black except for a door with a spotlight glaring down upon it. He had recognized the door, it was none other than the Purple Walrus.

But it wasn't really the Purple Walrus, no, it was a facade, merely there to act as a back-up if the generator fails. But instead of trying to save the dimension that the generator was in, it created an entirely new one. One that Humor knew far to well.

When Mr. Fabrication wanted to lose you but didn't have time to make some complicated dimension he would just create a dimension in someone's mind. These dimensions, although easy to make, can be a challenge to get out of. The dimension has two major parts, the Imagination and Deja Vu. The Imagination is where everyone besides the host is sent. Here, they have to try and survive the host's imagination. While the host has to deal with the Deja Vu. A center that creates and replays moments of the host's life but this time there is something different. There is a code to get out of Deja Vu. In each Deja Vu there is a chunk of that code. Once the host collects the whole thing he is able to escape Deja Vu and head to the Imagination. Once he reaches the Imagination he becomes a god for he has complete control over his imagination and can escape just by setting his mind to it.

'What was it that Mr. Serious threw at the generator to break it? It was a rock, right? No, it wasn't a rock...was it? It had to be a rock. I'm looking for a rock. The rock will have the code. LOOK FOR THE ROCK!'

The door of the Purple Walrus opened. The table started moving toward the door. The smell of liquor and smoke hit Humor as the table made its way in. Mr. Humor saw many of his friends, but they didn't matter, all he wanted was the rock...or was it a bar of soap?"

The Purple Walrus was pretty average for a bar. It was dark in such a way that it felt almost crowded. Even the lights were dim with clouds of smoke. The people in the room were all huddled around a single table. Mr. Humor rolled passed them, rambling on about rocks and soap in the same way he was when he was taken into the asylum,without notice. The table stopped with a shudder as it rammed into the bar. Humor was nearly frantic, “Gotta find the rock. IT had to be a rock. It was round, rocks are round, it's a rock. Hey, have you guys seen a rock?” A sinister laugh silenced his ramblings.

The shadows above Mr. Humor swirled and morphed into a ragged mask with a smile just a wide and demented as the one Humor wore. “Athazagoraphobic?” The mask disappeared and Necrophobia's voice trailed as he walked around the bar. “No, you're not afraid of much of anything are you. Life is one big joke to you. Maybe you're Ergophobic.” The shadows twisted, and the room shifted. Mr. Humor was standing up strapped to the wall, staring at Necrophobia, his scythe draped across his shoulders. “Your not Agliophobic, or Hemophobic, but maybe we can pull a scream out of you yet.” Necrophobia threw his scythe from his shoulders and into Mr. Humor's chest.

The scythe ripped open Mr. Humor's chest. Necrophobia yanked out Mr. Humor's beating heart and held it to his face. Mr. Humor looked at the organ in disgust. Mr. Humor had seen plenty of hearts in the past, but never his own. This was a new experience, but he'd been through worse.

"Jokes on you, Potato sack. I have no fears what so ever."
Necrophobia smiled at this remark, "well if it is nothing that you fear, then it is nothing you will get. Looks like nihilophobia is my best bet." Necrophobia pulled a sack from his noose of a belt and slipped it over Mr. Humor's head.

Nothingness, he was in nothingness. He didn't know how to react or what to do. He was standing in nothingness. But he wasn't alone, in the distance he saw a light. It wasn't very bright, but it displayed the figure of two men standing next to it.

Would it surprise you if I admitted that I had been here before? That I had previously walked to the edge of insanity, staring off into the mindless abyss of unconsciousness with longing? That I had wandered through an eternity of pain and suffering, due to the actions of a single man? That I must now begin such a descent again, due to nothing more than ignorance and stupidity?

Those who seek vengeance cause only pain to those around them . . .

Asylum awoke, the voice still ringing through the dark corridors of his mind. He was no longer in the generator room, that much was certain. The twisted and shattered city around him toyed with his senses in a way that felt . . . familiar. Of all the things to happen, he simply could not believe that this event had occurred.

Yet here he was, striding through Mr. Humor's imagination. There was a boom, and off in the distance arose a dark cloud in the shape of a banana. He had to get out.

Taking off in a light jog, Asylum nearly tripped over a skeleton composed of bits of yarn, pausing only for a moment before continuing down the shattered rode lined with cars straight out of the 1940s. He pulled out his compass to observe its wildly spinning needle before thrusting it back into his coat with disgust.

When he looked back towards the road, a shadowy figure stood upon it, staring down at the broken rock. It's head snapped up, making eye contact with Asylum. He felt it trying to hold his mind, but he had played these games before. It launched itself at him, sensing his strength. As it closed the distance between them, Asylum pulled his rifle from his coat, firing a single shot that nearly blew the thing's head from it's shoulders.

It was at this point that Asylum noticed that his rifle was made of chocolate. But beyond that, a hole had formed where the corpse had fallen. He examined his compass once more, the needle unerringly pointing towards the portal. Without a second thought, Asylum dove through.

This was not Mr. Humor's mind. This was to sane for his mind. Mr. Fabrication must have cooked up something new just for Asylum. Something that has never been done before.

There was a gun shot in the distance. Humor ran toward it expecting to find his "best friend" Asylum. Unfortunately Asylum wasn't there, but Serious was and he happen to be standing right next to a portal. Humor charged him straight into the portal.

The portal had taken them to a fancy bar that Humor had recognized. It was called The Glass. Mostly wealthy entrepreneurs with no taste for good liquor went here. This happened to be Mr. Fabrications favorite bar. A waiter helped both Mr. Humor and Mr. Serious off the floor. The waiter did not seemed freaked out by the fact that two men just appeared into his establishment. In fact, he had seemed as if he was expecting them.

"Welcome, gentlemen! I've been expecting you! I have a table reserved for you two in the back. Someone is expecting you"
Mr. Serious was a little bit suspicious "You have? Who wants to see us?"
"Who cares!" interrupt Mr. Humor, "As long as he is paying the bill, I'm fine. I'll have 25 bottles of Budweiser and a martini with a little umbrella in it." Serious glared at Humor. "What? I like the umbrella. It adds pizzazz to the drink." Serious rolled his eye. The waiter then escorted them to the back.

Dark Aslyum glanced around the bar he had fallen into, more confused than he had ever been before. On the other side of the establishment, he watched Humor and the serious one pop into existence, only to be waited on. He was now absolutely sure of where he was, which was a nightmare. He had to find a way to escape, he had to get out, but what fallacy of logic would enable him to get back to the real world . . .

He glanced around looking for a symbol of any significance, to notice the bottle on the counter nearby. It was long and slender, the glass perfectly clear, yet contained not a drop of alcohol. What it did contain was much more interesting. He walked over to it, picking it up to examine the contents.
The bottle was much heavier than expected, making it difficult for Asylum to reach inside and remove the note.



The text was very mechanical, as if it had been stamped out in a hurry, the pattern below it mysterious. Beyond that it appeared to be an average piece of paper. He glanced around that bar once more, making sure no one was watching him as he hoped over the counter. Walking back into the building, he encountered the bartender heading towards him, carrying a couple of drinks in one hand. He was an ancient man, a shock of white hair perched above his thin face, which was wrinkled with age. The man still moved with vigor, even though he gave the impression of being incredibly old. When he noticed Asylum standing there, a scowl crossed his visage.

"Hey, what are you doing back here." The man accosted Asylum, moving closer.
"I do believe I am supposed to show you this," Asylum held the note before the man. His mood slowly changed from one of anger to a dazed stupor. The glasses in his hand shattered against the floor as he turned back down the hallway.
"This way," he muttered.

Asylum stepped past the broken glass and followed the man down the dark corridor, passing various doors, some opening to storage rooms, others locked tight against intrusion. As they walked, he was sure he heard a ticking coming from somewhere on the bartenders person. The journey was a short, but by the end, Asylum felt as if he had been traveling for a long time. Eventually the hallway ended at a single metal door. The man pulled a large, rusty key from his pocket and jammed it into the keyhole, turning it with a loud clunk.

"This is where you want to go, good luck." The man turned toward Asylum, a knowing smirk on his face as he walked past him, vanishing from sight. Asylum looked at the paper once more. There would be no turning back after this; he could feel the permanence of the door, the weight of the decision resting upon its hinges.

He decided to step through just so he might escape this mad house. It swung open to his touch, a blinding white light bleaching the world around him as he walked to the other side.