Summary: This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with Change. After the bombs fall, Critic must lead his people on an epic journey in search of a place to call home.
Characters/Pairings: Linkara/Spoony, Linkara/Marzgurl, Critic/Chick, Tom/Mickey
Rating: R- descriptions of death, violence, sexual abuse, and angst.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. This work is based on characters played by the great guys at Channel Awesome.
Author's Note: This is a full blown post apocalyptic rewrite of Kickassia (with added superpowers!). Somewhere between an homage and a parody of post-apocalyptic movies, it makes deliberate use of tropes common to the genre. For those interested, a list of tropes and references will be provided at the end.
Warning and Triggers: For a homage/parody, this is a serious fic. It includes references to mental illness, child abuse, sexual abuse, incest, sexual assault, rape, torture, dub-con situations, good people doing bad things, bad people doing worse things, and issues dealing with gray morality. Please do not read if any of this may trigger you. Warnings include character death, violence, descriptions of gore, and some surprisingly mild sexual content.
Personal Disclaimer:The thoughts and actions of the characters do not reflect the personal feelings or opinions of the author.

The Nostalgia Critic took first turn with the shovel. The earth here was unforgiving, the dry soil heavy with roots and stones. He felt oily with sweat by the time he handed off to Jew Wario.

Handsome Tom came next. He could have finished the job in minutes, dug down deep and fast without effort. It might have taken Lord Kat longer, but when it was over he wouldn't feel the strain that left Critic shaky and sore.

But participation was part of the ceremony, a way for them all to say goodbye with the labor of their hands. Handsome Tom climbed out and 8 Bit Mickey went in, working in silence broken only by the occasional grunt.

Film Brain was down in the hole when The Cinema Snob announced it had reached six feet. They lowered the casket down with ropes, sharing a wince at the thud when it hit bottom.

Covering it back over was an easier matter. The dirt pattered down, violet-colored worms squirming between the clots.

They didn't bother with a cross. Marking a grave site was never wise.

When the freshly turned soil was level with the surrounding ground they looked to Critic. So expectant, waiting for direction to their grief when all he wanted to do was rage at the sky. It was his friend in that rough-hewn box beneath their feet.

But he had to be strong. Even now. Especially now.

"His name was Ma-Ti," he began, "He was a brave man. He gave his life defending us, but what I remember more than his courage was his heart..."

The first bomb fell at 3:22 on a Sunday afternoon.

No one knew who started it. An even greater mystery was who finished it, which nation was the last to fall. A lovely spring day turned to ash and fury, the survivors left to scrape and struggle.

It might have been kinder if they'd just used nukes. Most certainly it would have been quicker. But that technology was outdated, overtaken by stranger science. Radiation killed, but what these dirty bombs left behind were the oddly named particles of new physics.

Had the weapon makers known what the results would be? Surely not. Giving power to the enemy seemed a poor strategy for war.

This was how the world ended. Not with a bang, not with a whimper.

With Change.

They could feel it happen, the untwisting and remaking of their DNA. The pain was crippling.

When it faded nothing was the same.

The Nostalgia Chick was the only one among them untouched, though they'd met others who had escaped with their genetics intact. For most their new abilities were more entertaining then practical. Critic had the power to levitate himself; Chris Larios held mastery over radio waves. Cinema Snob found new insight into the hidden patterns all around them, the hard numbers on which life rested.

For some their gift came with a cost. Paw's ability to reproduce any song he'd ever heard had robbed of his true voice. Angry Joe no longer felt pain, but he also felt no pleasure, his skin deadened, his senses dulled. Lord Kat missed sleep and the dreams it brought, lost to him now that his body required no rest.

The lucky few gained defensive capabilities. Jew Wario took on the color and texture of the landscape, blending in until he might as well have been invisible. 8 Bit Mickey could teleport. Film Brain and Marzgurl twisted the minds of the enemy, Marzgurl with projections of fear and Film Brain with an aura of vulnerability that made it impossible to raise a hand against him.

Others rose as weapons. Linkara's prop gun fired bolts of lethal energy. Handsome Tom could crush a man's bones with his hands. Phelous's left arm was now a blade, capable of cutting through the hardest metal.

It made Critic shudder to lead them, these men who could now kill with such ease. He trusted them at his back, but what of the others like them? They stalked the city streets, stealing the supplies and lives of the unwary. At a distance it was impossible to tell if a stranger was friend or foe, and distance was no guarantee that they couldn't cause harm, not with possibilities like laser beam eyes or telekinesis.

But even Phelous with his silvery sword was still who he had been before the Fall. For some Change had been more fundamental. Benzaie seemed content enough in his new polar bear body, but hearing that accented voice from a sharp toothed muzzle still shook Critic.

And then there was Spoony...

Spoony, who never knew who he would be when he woke in the morning, who had already tried twice to kill himself.

He had been a snarky bastard once, Spoony, with a sharp tongue and clever mind. Now he was broken, rarely speaking lest something come out of his mouth he hadn't meant to say.

Take a world tore apart by war. Add superpowers that wouldn't have looked out of a place in a golden age comic book. It was a recipe for slaughter, and Critic was tired of losing friends.

The Angry Video Game Nerd had been the first. Critic could only assume he'd died in the initial barrage, shot down on his way to join them for the filming of the anniversary special.

They'd been down in the hotel's basement laying out marks when the blast wave hit. A bunch of internet reviewers pretending to fame, mugging for each others' cameras. At first it was just noise, a steady growing roar.

Then it was heat, even through the walls. The lights went out, the ground rolled, and the hotel shook itself to pieces. Sage died an inglorious death when a chunk of the ceiling came down on top of him and they hadn't even known, hadn't realized he was missing until That Other Guy remembered his camera had a light and saw the spreading pool of blood.

They'd shared space with the corpse for three days. The twittering of the rats that came to gnaw at it couldn't drown out the screaming from outside, but eventually their supply of chips and sandwiches ran out. It was an insult to emerge from the hotel to find the sun still had the audacity to shine.

A week later Lee was cut down by a sniper. They never saw who did it. Just a random act of violence, here at the end of times.

His death had made them move to higher ground. It was Critic who'd gotten the clever idea to avoid the streets, moving between the crumbling buildings instead when they could. His idea to carry a board to bridge the gap between roofs.

His idea that killed his brother.

The crack of the board snapping had been as loud as the gunshot that murdered Lee. Critic had lunged for That Other Guy, but their combined weight had yanked him from the air. The surprise of falling had loosened his hold, leaving his brother to plummet down while Critic shot up high.

And now Ma-Ti was another name to add to the list, killed because of a stupid mistake. A mistake Critic could have prevented. It was his job to enforce the rules and keep everyone safe, but he'd let them get lax. Complacent.

They'd thought their little kingdom was secure, their bunker with its poured concrete walls and door of steel. Someone had known what was coming and tried to prepare, only to die before reaching their custom made bolt hole. Their loss had become the Channel Awesome team's gain, a lucky find on par with a deux ex machina spaceship in a shitty Final Fantasy sequel.

But even Spoony had been unwilling to question it. They'd just accepted, squeezing the lot of them into a space meant for far fewer. There had been comfort in the closeness, and soon enough that little box started to feel like home.

And that had been the problem. Instead of keeping an eye out for danger they'd spent their days broadcasting through Larios, grabbing at normalcy by continuing their reviews. They'd even convinced themselves they were doing good, comforting those who wandered out in the deserts of Arizona with tales of heroes from distant planets and heroines in spandex.

Critic didn't know how the raiders found them, or why the door had been left open. Things would have been so much worse for them all if Ma-Ti hadn't met them first. He'd burned one, froze another, used wind to sweep a third into the wall hard enough to snap his neck.

The raiders were all dead by the time the rest of them even registered the invasion, but one of them had gotten in close. The fist he drove into Ma-Ti's belly had passed through skin and penetrated deep, leaving behind no visible wound but very real damage.

Ma-Ti didn't die quick or easy. He lingered, coughing blood for days until something inside finally burst and finished it.

There was no one to blame, not when they'd been getting sloppy with security. And Critic couldn't said for sure it would have made a difference if his orders had been followed.

A man who could punch through flesh might also have been able to pass through steel. They were safer than they had been, but they weren't safe.

Critic hadn't volunteered to lead them. There had been no vote, no process. It had simply always been the way of things, organizing his ragtag little team of misfits, soothing their wounded egos with one hand and cracking the whip with the other. He'd handpicked each of them to work at Channel Awesome and it seemed natural, even to him, even now, that they should follow his word.

But if he was their leader, then it was on him to find them somewhere better. Somewhere with room enough to train and a way to keep watch.

And they needed weapons. The bigger the better.

A tall order, but one Critic thought he might be able to deliver. He'd heard the first rumor weeks ago and had dismissed it out of hand, but now, alone at Ma-Ti's grave, he knew they had to try.

He wasn't going to bury anymore friends.