The reason for the late update... college things. Let's continue.

- Previously:

Maion shows himself to have magical powers. He also shows himself to be more sensitive than he lets on. Lazlo, Raj, and Clam eagerly volunteer to become his friends, despite the fact that he doesn't have full control of his magical powers.

Maion is a strange one indeed. A Wolf that seems capable of tapping into endless magical potential; he can create things from out of the thin air. Lazlo is in such awe... and so is Edward, who discovered this fact after Maion demonstrated so by curing Sampson of his illnesses completely.

At the same time, Patsy and her friends have a magical visitor also; her name is Jensine, Maion's older niece.

But back in Camp, Maion's power undergoes unexpected tests by Edward and the story-hungry Loons that keep hounding him like a... a dog. Lazlo eagerly defends him anyway.

Maion acts more mature and more in control, greatly impressing Lazlo, but even more so, Edward, who's looking for an opportunity to get Maion alone. Somehow, because of Maion repeatedly straining his powers, the tire on the bus gets a small leak, and Slinkman, unaware that Maion's actually magic, decides to take the Campers to Prickly Pines to get a replacement. (Little does the party know that Lumpus and Hoo-hah have already gone ahead of them.)

Close to Sunset, Maion's powers reach a breaking point, SURGE, and are released in a flash of light. In the onset, some of the campers gain weapons, a strange thing to happen indeed. At first, they are in shock, because they don't know what to do with them, and they might get in trouble. But after thinking it over, and with Maion's urging, they all decide that with Maion on their side, they'd have an opportunity to one-up the Squirrel Scouts of Acorn Flats.

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Load: Pupil Color

Loaded

He flipped up the the left most finger, the left-middle finger, the middle, and the last two. He flipped them all down and balled the hand into a fist, and... he didn't know what to think. Maybe because he'd forgotten that hand was actually his own. Attached to the thing they called an... arm, which was attached to the body by shoulder, and that...

"This is the finger, my hand, but... what about everything else?"

That disconnected sentence was all the convincing he needed; now he was trying to think of a name as he bolted off the couch and hit the wall.

THWACK!

Despite the fact that his face made full frontal contact with the wall, his brain felt no such sensation at all. He didn't scream or yell or holler in pain, but simply backed away from the wall, then saw the obvious hole he missed, and ran out.

"Mr. Hoo-vis!"

Half the 200 opened books lying around Gordon had sheep-skin stains lying on some of their trimmed edges. They were books about teaching english, and facts about aliens; but a bunch of useless facts. Gordon put strips of leftover dried bacon as bookmarks: he was very conservative.

It hit him, as it did in the last couple of weeks, how useless these books turned out to be. This was what he was thinking as the kid ran through the room. Startled when his name was called, Gordon tumbled off the mountain of books, and landed at his feet. "Uh..." "Gordon," he tossed into his mouth. "I did not recall immediately."

"Ah, don't sweat it laddie. Failure can motivate you know," Gordon got up on his feet once more. "What do you need, Kennedy?"

"Do you know where... um... Hovis is?"

"Uh... he's two flights of stairs and 3 corridors to the right upstairs dusting, but, why?"

"I forgot what the rest of my body is!"

Cards never looked as colorful, but as he read it, the grey cat became excited.

"3 spaces down left, cross sideways and behind the red plastic car vamp... You get a free Ride to just before the FINISH LINE! WOOHOO!"

Conroy was all angles in the rest of his miniscule frame, had a round, adorable face that looked like melted butter when he smiled, and had a dark grey ring around his left eye. It felt like coincidence, when he returned two of Waffle's newts back to the house, and he saw odd and portly Gordon McQuid at the door. This was about a week ago. "You know that means I'm going to beat you, right?"

Baffled, the grey kitty-cat's mouth dropped open like a conveyor belt. "WHAT? B-But the red spinny-thing said I was close to the finish line and the Green card said I'd won lots and lots of money."

"Uh, Waffle? This isn't Monopoly or that kind of game," Conroy explained. "You're actually close to losing." To prove that he wasn't lying, Conroy leaned over the game board and pointed with his smooth claw at the abstract "horse" piece lying at one end of the board, marked, LOSE. Waffle swore he'd looked at the rules 3 times, then he looked at them again; then he looked at the board, which from his perspective didn't "look" right. The graphic marked at the bottom of the board had a skull and crossbones... a grim reminder of losing.

"Oh... " he said after a long silence, before suddenly screaming at the top of his lungs, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Hovis? Hovis?" Kennedy didn't see the odd old man around anywhere, but he heard a nasty noise. Something whirring really loudly in the distance. It was coming from an open room. As he walked in, the butler was standing there, simultaneously handling a feather duster on an antique vase and a large vacuum on soft carpet. He had both eyes closed; it made sense considering that he'd been going at his job for 30 years.

The old butler stopped the vacuum and said in a very placid voice, "Ah, Kennedy."

"I need your help, old man." "With your manners?"

"What are those?" the strange boy with green hair asked dimly. "Is it something you taste?" He didn't have any idea.

It was the response Hovis expected; such was the character of Kennedy. "Old man?" "What is it?" "... Is manners... something that... taste?" Kennedy titled his head and stood there with the focus of a dog awaiting his master's orders. "No. Manners is part of being polite," the butler explained, but it was annoying having to do so. This kid didn't look like he'd understood. He was right; Kennedy looked satisfied with the answer and dropped out the door. But just as quickly, Kennedy came walking back in, with the strange pleading dog eyes. "What is it now, Kennedy?"

"I don't know... what this?" he stammered out poorly. He was using both arms to indicate himself; Hovis was less than surprised. And irritated; he had no time for this, he had to get back to work, or Blik would pile on the chores again. "Yourself?" Hovis grieved. Kennedy stood there, unable to give the "yes" or "no" answer; he didn't have a handle on that yet.

"Your body?" Hovis inquired more specifically. "The chest and rib cage are connected to the bones that make up your limbs." If you have any.

But all Kennedy could say was, "Oh," as if it wasn't that important. But he wanted to be sure. "I needed to know this... is that. My body."

"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish cleaning up the room."

Kennedy didn't nod or shake his head, so Hovis assumed he'd leave anyway. As he went back to dusting the vase, he was irate to see Kennedy still standing in the same spot. What? Did he not know when it was time to leave?

The butler stopped and asked, "Is there still something with which you acquire my assistance?"

Kennedy tried hard this time to make an attempt to answer. "Ah... um... no."

"Huh. You actually found a tongue."

Kennedy panicked, kept turning his head around, and cried, "A What! Where?" "I mean the thing in your mouth."

Kennedy looked suspiciously at him and said, "I didn't... put anything in the talking hole."

Hovis slapped himself in the forehead and opened his mouth to indicate tongue. "I don't get it," the strange boy shrugged. "You're eating something?"

"It's called a tongue. The device you use to speak."

Kennedy began to understand. "Oh! It makes the sounds out of my... my, uh..." "Mouth?" "Mmm-hmm." "Good, now get out. I'm busy."

Kennedy was going to ask about what "busy" meant, but the black cat entered- or the bottom half concealed underneath a large fibre ballast. "Hovis, I will require all of these washed, dried and CLEANED in about an hour, got it?"

"Of course, Mr. Blik." With that, business seemed to jump back into regular swing. Hovis exited out of the room, while Kennedy stood there at a loss.

"... Waffle for the last time, it's not possible that Conroy cheated. He WON. The rules of the game were pretty airtight."

The response was a Waffle's own airtight and possibly unfazed look of unreadable stupidity. Gordon didn't know what his simple brother was thinking, but if, and hardly, if Waffle was trying to look convincingly serious, he was going to have an especially hard time holding a Newt to the left side of his head and a stack of Game instruction Play cards to his right.

"But I'm telling you!" Waffle whined to his brother, "It's gotta be some kind of MAGIC!" "Uh, what?" "MAGIC, like the Wizards of Waverly Place!"

A terrible show, in my personal opinion, Gordon was thinking, causing a smirk on his face he tried hiding. "Cause... CAuse, If he rolls the DICE, move THE PIECE, SWIM TO SHORE, RIDE THE RAMP, Pet the chicken, color canvas, break the wind, and rolls past the window, over the hedge, through the road and into the Ocean- It's FOOLPROOF!"

The fat cat didn't say anything for about a minute and a half. "Uh, Laddie? You sure you're not taking this a WEE bit too seriously?"

What happened was Waffle kept darting his eyes in several directions, hoping to find a way out of making a 'legitimate' answer to Gordon. But nothing beyond Gordon, an Ottoman, a lamp, a shade, a window, Conroy, the fancy nice rug Hovis had vacuumed, their mothers' picture, a slovenly bookcase, a counter, the smell of bacon and a table coaster seemed applicable. The doorbell rang, and suddenly a wild idea leapt into Waffle's head. "Maybe Kimberly would like to play a game?"

Something overcame Gordon like a rising wave and he screamed, "The Human Kimberly!" before nearly mowing down his brother as he ran towards the front door.

"Smooth," Conroy said. "So who's Kimberly?"

Waffle rose up with a sized imprint of Gordon's paw on his face, and blinked a couple of times. "Kimberly's a human girl."

Conroy laughed, thinking he heard his new friend wrong. "A human Girl friend?"

Ernest crawled into the room and sat complacently on top of the grey feline's round head. "Well she's more than that for Gordon."

"Hey Gordon!" Kimberly greeted her feline companion with glee. She was very happy knowing that she could see her odd friends at any time. For Gordon, their meetings were quite different: Kimberly never seemed to notice when "hearts" were bubbling behind Gordon's pupils.

"Aye... heh, heh," Gordon chuckled. "Human Kimberly! I'm so happy that you came! How have you been, dear?"

"I'm great! Take a look at this!" She seemed pretty excited. Gordon reverently believed, she must be falling for me! Aye, it's GOT to be love! She couldn't resist my charms for very long.

Kimberly could barely contain her excitement. She reached in her pants pocket, and pulled out a large paper with the words "Biology test" written at the top. Next to it was a "B+" circled in red marker. "I made a good grade in school today!"

Gordon was thrilled to hear such news, that he grinned from ear to ear; his heart kept beating faster. Though she'd never know it, he was just happy, knowing his beloved was happy. "Aye, that's Wun-derful news, Human Kimberly!"

"It was a really difficult test," Kimberly explained. "We were studying the whole Big Bang theory and also when the first human appeared, and also the animal instincts that they adapted to survive the harsh environment. Oh! And the teacher showed us "Quest for Fire" on the day before the test!"

Gordon hadn't heard of such a movie, but he nonetheless sought a good reason to keep talking with her. He was hopelessly in love; and he didn't watch a lot of movie that didn't involve things such as Scottish myth turned media, or horror. "Oh? What was the movie about? Adventurers questing for fire from the all-powerful 2-headed Schappenslung?"

Kimberly stared oddly at the cat's uttering of the last word, unable to understand. "Um... no, it was about cavemen and how modern conventions were started in their quest for fire to keep their tribe alive. Like education!"

Gordon swooned, though he wasn't actually listening; his concentration honed in on Kimberly's shining brown sugary lochs. "Those are some incredible things to know, human Kimberly," he sighed.

"Gee, thanks Gordon!" she said cheerfully. Upon hearing those words, Gordon's mouth trembled, watering up with drool; his eyes widened up, to the size of tea cup plates. In his view, her voice was honey and her body was lit up like an angel. He couldn't find the words to form any reply, if any, and it was making Kimberly look worried. "Uh... Gordon? Gordon? Something wrong?"

Gordon 'snapped' out of his dream gaze (to avoid letting his relatively clueless lass become aware of his secret feelings) and coughed, "N-Nothing! Um, how would you like to come inside?"

Kimberly brightened up. "Sure!" she said, stepping inside. As she stepped inside and Gordon closed the door she yelled, "Hey, Waffle!" The grey cat ran into the hallway (forcibly causing Ernest to fly off), and then grinned, bounding over to grab Kimberly in a hug. "Kimberly!" Both arms were around her waist, but over a sensitive place, making Kimberly giggle uncontrollably. "He-he-he-he-he-he-he-hey! W-w-what's up Waffle!"

"Nothin!" Waffle cheerfully replied. "I was just playing a game of Rainbows and Rotted Pinwheels with my new friend, Conroy... till he cheated and Gordon was telling me that couldn't be possible because the rules were airtight and then I was darting my eyes around the living room frantically looking for a reason to avoid responding to that and then I told Gordon that you might be at the door when the door was being knocked upon and then I discover that you were actually at the door which makes me a LIAR!... so uh... how it's going?"

Kimberly blinked indifferently. "Yeah... um, maybe that's... did you say Rainbows and Rotted Pinwheels? And who's Conroy?"

Conroy stepped out, curious about what was going on. "Present! You called?" he said suggestively, lifting his paw out in a shake. "Oh. You're that "human Kimberly" Waffle was talking about. Nice to meet you."

Kimberly shook the paw. She felt wholly complimented because the homely looking cat had such a polite manner about him. "You're Waffle's new friend? Aw! You look so cute!" the hand-to-pawshake extended into a sudden grip and then Conroy found himself on the recieving end of a bear hug. Kimberly held him tight, squealing. "H-hey! LET ME GO!"

Conroy jumped out of Kimberly's knit embrace brushing himself off. "You're too much!"

"Too much?" Kimberly didn't understand what he meant. "What are you talking about?" she asked innocently.

Gordon jumped over to her side, being unnecessarily defensive. "I think that she's just right. Kimberly is NEVER too much for anybody!"

Conroy raised an eyebrow and grinned. "That quick to be at her defense? I wasn't trying to sound-!"

"Yeah, well nobody likes a lad with a bit of Attitude!" the warrior cat snapped. Conroy decided this was probably a good time to back down. Waffle looked too confused to figure out what was going on. "Is this a new game?"

"What now?" Conroy asked.

"Playing "Stare face"!" Waffle exclaimed. "I wanna play! I'm really good at it!" Then without waiting for a response he jumped right in front of Conroy and stared wide-eyed at him. "You won't cheat your way out of this one," he said.

"Huh? Weren't we playing one before?" "No, why would you ask! This one has eyes!" Ernest picked an odd time to crawl into the hallway, up to his master and then re-situate itself on his soft head. Clearly that newt did not like being moved. "And Newts!" Conroy didn't seem to get it was a staring contest, and blinked anyway. On that note, Waffle burst out yelling, "I win! WOO-HOO!"

"Waffle, I don't think he was actually playing," Kimberly tried telling him. Gordon however stepped off to the other side and started sizing up the mischievous feline. "Hey now lads, that's a GREAT idea! We'll settle it by having a good old fashioned staring contest! The Battle of pupils! the POPPING of veins in eye sockets... the watering of the Cubozoa!"

"There is NOTHING Kewl about Bozos, now quit distracting me!" Waffle snapped without staring at his brother. Conroy shrugged his shoulders, still in the dark about Waffle's 'challenge'?

"This got too weird for my tastes," said Conroy, who looked down and exposed a short watch attached to his wrist. "And I've got to go anyway. It's getting late. Pops is probably worried sick."

"Time for you to leave already!" Waffle whined sadly. "But we were playing a game!"

Gordon chimmed in with, "Yeah, and lad, it's only 5:00. How could you be late in going home?"

Conroy chuckled warmly. "Eh, my Dad usually has supper WELL prepared in advance. You know how Tom is. He'll kill me on the spot if I'm late for supper!"

This bit of suggestive information sank down into Waffle's skull like a legion of bats; his mouth fell open in shock. "You mean your DAD'S A KILLER! A Murderer!" He burst out screaming.

Conroy looked less than surprised that Waffle misread him instantly; but he didn't want him to get the wrong idea. So to Waffle's extremely fearful paranoid eyes he said, "Waffle, I don't LITERALLY mean my Dad will kill me, I just mean, you know, what with the sharp yellow eyes and everything, he's going to work me over."

Gordon gave a sharp whistle that dissolved into a very odd grin. "You wrestle with your Dad, lad?"

"A lot. And if I lose this time, I have to... do the dishes," he said unfavorably, shuddering at the thought. Given the number of "siblings" he put up with, the chores were a challenge from start to finish. But as he walked toward the door his face brightened up, and even his stride got a little more energetic. "But if I win, it's a Chug-a-lots-a-root-beer Evening for me!" he said with perky enthusiasm. "See you around, Waffle. Maybe when I come back next time, we can finish that Rainbows and Rotted Pinwheels game, right?"

"Sure!" Waffle cheerfully said. "And maybe I'll totally whoop your butt in the staring contest!"

Conroy was just in earshot and as he pulled the door behind him he pause and then popped his head back in to tell Waffle, "Riiiiiiiight..." before diving back out again. This time he was really gone. Now it was just the two cats and Kimberly in the hallway.

Waffle was still thinking Conroy was standing there and yelled, "Right! Staring Eyes! Tomorrow!"

"Wow! He's really amazing," Kimberly said.

Gordon was a little jealous. "Eh. He wasn't that great. Don't let him steal your heart..." Please notice me, for once, he thought despairingly.

"Huh? What'd you say Gordon?" Kimberly didn't catch the last half of what he said. "Oh, I said, "Don't let him steal your HUNGER. He-he, yeah. H-hunger is what I originally said, me bonnie lass!"

Luckily, Kimberly bought the bogus substitute. "Um, sure? I am kind of hungry..."

"Me too, lass..." Gordon sighed. "Me too." Whew! She doesn't suspect a thing! But at that moment, Gordon's belly picked that exact moment to growl. Turned out he really was hungry; it was quite a surprise to him, even. But this event suddenly gave him an idea. Great Gopher that's it! "Oh, Human Kimberly! How would you like to stay for dinner?"

Kimberly gave the Scottish cat a mildly hard stare that melted to one of flattery and excitement. "That sounds neat! Sure, I would love to!" Gordon put out a very detached expression saying, "Ah, you'll love the food Hovis cooks, he's impressive!" But in the back of his head he was swooning with romantic excitement: Yes! she's going to STAY! I'M going to eat with the Human Kimberly! WOOHOO!

Waffle stopped halfway past the opening to the living room and gave both Kimberly and Gordon a hard stare. "I'm making dinner tonight, Gordon."

"What?" Gordon thought there was something in his ears, after hearing that last sentence. That was why he burst out yelling at his brother.

Waffle had no idea what Gordon was getting upset about. Surely him making dinner was not a bad idea, right? He said to his brother calmly as day, "Yep. I thought we could try this new dish I found out-!"

"Uh Waffle?" Gordon interrupted him, "Don't you remember the last time you tried helping make dinner?"

(Insert poofy cloud sequence of the Cramdilly House overrun by Zombies, Zombies and more Zombies.)

Waffle didn't remember anything like that. It was like a black dot in his memory. "Uh, Zombies?"

Gordon gave a long, drawn out, "Yeeeeees?"

"There were never any zombies... were there?" Waffle asked. Then through an exaggerated paranoid detachment, "was there?"

"Lad, that night when Blik was his fancy-smancy dinner party and I told you to use the Blue Cook Book from the Green Room, page 12 to make some dip, and then you accidentally used the Green "Cook Book" from the Blue Room, page 12, which was actually a Scottish book of the Dead, accidentally reciting an incantation while creating a supernatural dish lure that unexpectedly drew out thousands of zombies in the inconveniently placed cemetery across the street that attacked us and nearly KILLED us?"

"No," Waffle answered. "Uh, um, was it that time we fought that giant squid?"

"NO, the one with the Zombies!"

"Uh...!"

Waffle honestly didn't remember, but it was such a full-blown experience; Gordon was immensely surprised this flew over his siblings head, but instead of admonishing him, he walked over sighing and said, "All right, lad, look, just use the blue cookbook this time. And please, please pick just a simple dish, ANY dish, maybe soup!"

Waffle's mouth curved into an excited grin. "Sooooup! Splee!"

"Yeah!" Gordon cheered. "Soup! Now just remember: Blue cookbook, green room, page 12, understand?"

Waffle donned a serious face and did a soldier-style salute. "Splee, sir. Splee," he said.

Once Waffle was gone, a white-faced Kimberly asked in a scared voice, "Zombies? You guys had zombies in your house?"

The fat cat waned sheepishly. "Uh... yes, I- wait. You heard me talking, weren't you paying attention?"

"You sure Waffle will get it right this time?" Kimberly asked without answering.

Gordon thought there was a positive side to it, then he remembered that Waffle couldn't possibly muck things worse than before. Regardless, he thought, he was amicable to let Waffle have another go; Waffle learned his lesson last time, so what was the harm? "I honestly haven't a clue."

CRASH!

The loud noise made both Kimberly and Gordon jump in a panic. As they turned around, they saw Mr. Blik in a disastrous heap at the bottom of the stairs. "Blik? What happened to you!" Gordon's voice rose to a yell.

Blik's voice was muffled, possibly hysterical, even as he raised his damaged head from the floor. "Dust on those CREAKY stairs."

(Scene change)

Boom!

The mucky room as usual was... well mucky. Blik's natural hate of the disgusting extended to nasty, unkempt looking rooms, and as such thought this room was so disrepair, so ramshackle, he stayed away. He asked Hovis not to clean it or go near it; the butler obeyed. Blik demanded firmly that Waffle and Gordon be as far away from it as possible.

Waffle loved the room; he didn't understand what they were afraid of. It was absolutely harmless. Ignoring the fact that it was in dire need of painting, interlaced with large cobwebs, faded wood libraries, stained windows with spooky owls hanging onto the sharp edges attached to the frames, cracked chairs with only 3 legs, and with the usual overturned books missing their squeaky hinges and missing pages containing stuff about cursed spells. Not to mention the pale-white curtain shades with torn holes. Yep, absolutely harmless.

But as he stepped in, he paused. He thought, did Gordon tell him Blue Cookbook, green room, or was it Green Cookbook, Blue room?

"Uh... wait, I remember!"

("Remember Waffle... Green Cookbook, Blue Room...")

"Yeah! Green Cookbook, Blue Room!" That sounded right; Gordon couldn't have mentioned anything else important. He walked over to the exact same shelf and out of all the champagne-colored books stacked in top 3rd row, Waffle found the exact same emerald-colored spline. He pulled it out, laid it out on the open floor and tossed back the book's cover. Pages flew over, Waffle's mouth curled to a smile. His eyes widened with a strange, excited glimmer. The subtle off-white paper with the watermark text that swam with each page turner was alluring, almost like a magnet and, oh wow, some of these recipes had weird-sounding paragraphs of text structured erratically, almost like a poem... why was that? Waffle almost thought about giving up and looking somewhere else but the next page he turned to was...

Splee! I found it! Waffle thought gleefully.

The top left corner was bone in the pale dwindling sunlight, the text at the center was substantial and small and when he ran his paw over it, the texture was akin to a pop-up card. But Waffle wasn't paying attention to that. The thing that jumped out at him was the bold text at the top of the page that read:

"Apocal Ypse SOUP"

And Waffle was ecstatic with joy.

"NO!"

"But Blik..." Gordon cried. "Don't do this."

But Blik kept yelling anyway. "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

Blik and Gordon were all gathered around the yet-to-be-furnished table talking. Kimberly, having nothing better to do, was looking over her test grade. The fact that this was the first real grade she hard earned for all that hard effort made that her greatest joy.

"I KNOW the lad messed up last time-!"

Blik adapted a more nasty tone. "Uh-uh. NO, screw that."

"Blik, why?"

Blik's mouth turned into an admonishing leer. He was biting down on the jawline, narrowing his eyes to slits. "Because ever since that incident... I'm still, to THIS day, washing off that filthy, nasty ZOMBIE grime..." He paused to draw in a heavy breath for unnecessary dramatic effect. "Off my supple, perfect fur."

Gordon retreated into a indifferent tone. "Blik, brother, it was NOT. that. Bad."

"WATCH YOUR TONGUE!"

"We fought them off! As WARRIORS!"

"Oh sure," Blik cynically rebutted, "And BADLY, cause we ended up getting our furry butts handed to us ANYWAY!"

"But Waffle saved us, remember! And he learned his lesson, didn't he?"

"The only thing learned," retorted Blik, "Was something. By me. Having to do with Waffle and lasers. And how I wouldn't let him near any lasers again."

Gordon acted reproachfully. "You never let him near any lanterns."

"So?" Blik snapped. "Those HUGE florescent yellow tinted lights will hurt his eyes."

"Also because you don't want to waste the batteries power."

Blik went on being overly-defensive. "Those Quadruple AAAA's are GAS guzzlers! They're expensive! And freaking heavy... "

"You took his Flashlight out of his drawer," Gordon said.

"Fire hazard," Blik hissed. "FIRE!"

An exasperated Gordon sighed. "Es CLOTHES ain't flammable!"

"Well HOW am I supposed to know that Flammable and Inflammable are the SAME THING!" Blik yelled, jumping into the air.

"What the heck are you talking about! You even took his Newts' Sunlamp!"

Well he had to give it up for that; Blik snickered like a little girl and laughed. "Hehehehe... yeah..." But just as quickly his eyes narrowed to horror. On the other hand that WOULD explain why those Newts have been on my case this past month... "Either way," Blik sneered, "I'm not letting, allowing, or APPROVING the "Dipmaster" to cook another meal in this HOUSE!"

Gordon wasn't sure if it was the emotions pounding against the logic, but he rose to his brother's defense; it was predictable. Gordon would get tired of his brother's ocassional hissy fits and episodes of lack in anger management. "Waffle is NOT a bad cook!"

"You can keep saying that till the cows come home, Gordo McFathead. But I'm NOT going to run the risk of ME being the one who has to pump Kennedy's stomach the moment he tastes Waffle's chemical disaster!"

Kimberly raised her head at the two bickering cats. "Who's Kennedy?" she asked.

Both cats looked like they were caught in a traffic light; they ceased arguing. "Oh, you don't know about Kennedy yet. That's right," said Gordon.

"He's an ALIEN, don't talk about him," Blik snapped, trying to hush up the whole issue. Gordon glared daggers at his brother, who showed absolutely no tact in holding back sensitive information like that. It didn't help when Kimberly started to ask, "You mean like an extraterrestrial? You have an Extraterrestrial living in your HO-!"

"NO! It's nothing like that!" Gordon was screaming. "He's a normal, HUMAN-looking guest! Ahh..." It was Blik's turn to send a towering, nasty sneer at Gordon for his "Interesting" choice of words. The fat cat felt cornered; and he didn't want to lie, but his mind went through a hundred thousand choices of words till he ran into a wall, and screamed, "He's an Orphan!" that sounded convincing, and completely inconspicuous. "Yeah... an orphan."

Kimberly was still confused, the vacancy still obvious in her expression. "It's an orphaned alien?"

"Smooth, Gordo. Now the cat's out of the bagel." He paused thoughtfully. "And I freaking hate using those puns."

"SHUT UP, BLIK!"

Kimberly smiled happily, with a joyous cry of, "That's great!"

Gordon tried not stammering, but he was too choked up by Kimberly's fawning affectionate approval. "I-It is!"

Kimberly laughed. "Of course! You're giving a home to an orphaned alien that has nowhere to go and feeding and clothing and helping him and potty training him! You guys are so lucky!"

She thinks I'm LUCKY! Gordon thought his heart would burst out of his chest from the heavy beating in his chest. She thinks I'm responsible! His thoughts were mixed into the imagery of him and Kimberly being... parents!

"Y-You know, you could always come by here and help us take care of him," Gordon said dreamily, without realizing he was. As usual, Kimberly didn't seem to notice. "We can change it's diaper, feed it bottles! Oh, and my mom told me that babies usually need to be pat on the butt to force out the burps!"

Blik kept looking back between his slack-jawed brother and unreceptive, oblivious love interest like they'd both came from another planet. He snickered. "In your dreams! Ha!"

Kimberly didn't know what he'd meant. "That's not nice, Mr. Blik! Don't you take care of babies that way?"

"Okay, for starters, I don't HAVE any experience taking care of babies, I let drones do that. Like Hovis," he casually explained. "In the NEXT hundred places, I DON'T, I, Mr. Blik, the creme de la creme, don't take no orders from no freaking poop machine."

At this Kimberly's face soured. "Blik that's so MEAN! How can you be so mean to the wittle baby?"

Even the fat cat joined in with an angry, "Yeah, Blik! How can ya be so MEAN to the WEE wittle baby!"

Blik ignored him. "FINALLY," he snapped at Kimberly. "We're not talking about some 3-year-old drool-monger, he AIN'T NO THREE, HE'S THIRTEEN, YOU CHICKEN-LIVERED BOARD-WACKED PANSY-WHIFFED GLOBSMUCKERS!"

"Thirteen!" Kimberly screamed. "But how can that be? I mean he's an orphan right? That would mean he's younger than that, right? Did you find him yesterday outside in the city?"

Blik scoffed. "Are you kidding?" the snobbish feline laughed. "No! We found him inside this HUGE meteor that crashed right in front of our house last month!"

Once she'd been told, Kimberly had no choice but to think back, and come to think of it, she did remember the earthquake that hit Bakersfield for an entire week, but nobody knew what the cause was. The Cramdilly house was such an out-of-the-way place, and a centered location of crazy heavy supernatural activity, nobody seemed to notice when something big would be happening.

"Wow..." she said in awe.

"And THAT'S not even the weird part," Blik went on.

Kimberly became curious. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, ever since this alien awoke, he acts like he's attached to someone. Cause back when he actually came, he didn't have any pupil's in his eyes," said Mr. Blik, grabbing a table napkin and wiping his paw with it.

"If he's an alien, then that doesn't sound surprising," Kimberly said, zoning out with wild thoughts. She was beginning to get nervous at the thought of meeting aliens. She had no idea what she would do if the 3 cats actually had one. "What kind of alien would have pupils?" she laughed.

Gordon shook his head. "Um... I think the kind of one where this alien would have a semi-permeable membrane around his skin that would make him sensitive to knowledge siphoning of any kind and thus transmit this as information to his cranium!"

Kimberly blinked.

"That's what happened, human Kimberly! It was WEIRD! He didn't have any pupils, then he got touched, then he suddenly had pupils, and then he started talking! You might as well have said that this alien wears his brain tissue like a skin-"

"GROSS."

"Shut it Blik. A-and every trillionth second he moves around the environment of the house inside and out is feeding him information at an intense speed. It's amazing I tells ya!"

"But he still acts like a brain-dead moron. You know, I heard that there was sup-puh intelligent life out there" but this kid-ALIEN, he's like a-a... a... a wet match, in a dark cave." Blik glowered unpleasantly. "Which would make him wet. And like a wet match! And I repeat my previous statement. GROSS."

"I believe you," said Kimberly. "I never said I didn't. But didn't you guys touch him if you brought him in here?"

Gordon shook his head once more. "Blik suggested wearing gloves, we never actually touched the alien." Gordon looked at his brother, who nodded.

"So then, if he's that kind of alien that can receive information by just touch and become active, getting more information by just learning it, he sounds like... a... like a book without words. That someone's just writing in, making the book with words! This alien kind of sounds like a book without words."

Gordon grinned approvingly. "Hey, that's the most beautiful way of putting it, human Kimberly! It sounds like poetry!"

"I hate poetry," Mr. Blik spat.

"Just who exactly touched him and made him walk around?" Kimberly asked.

"Funny question," Blik scoffed. "With a surprise answer that will mostly likely fry your brain. It was-"

(Scene Change)

"I would greatly appreciate it if you didn't follow me," said the annoyed butler, handling a mixed assortment of tools, including a ladder. He had about as half the experience with the saw he was carrying as he did understanding modern-day television. Trailing behind him was the expressionless, wide-eyed "Kennedy".

Hovis passed through the second laundry-room door to outside. The sky was clear minus the dismal number of clouds close in proximity. The sun's rays were relentless beating down on top of the butler's bald head. The good news was that his job wouldn't take very long.

Being a natural-born cheepskate that he was, Blik decided against buying a new window. So he decided to go ahead and have Hovis fix the one destroyed by himself. An odd turn of events. But secretly the 43-year-old was happy to be busy working around the house... if not for that.

"Very well then, if you're to just stand there, perhaps you can provide some assistance?"

Kennedy remained silent.

Hovis set up the ladder along the wall, and grabbed the hammer from the slot in his belt. He started climbing up the ladder, balancing on portion of the window frames in his left, and a hammer in his right. At the top was the broken glass; it was the same place that Waffle was thrown out of, along with that ridiculous CD player and the polka music. Hovis started by plying away the nails out of the first frame, grabbing each nail as they fell out. Kennedy was still standing below watching him with a dog's lingering gaze.

The sun was diving down towards the west. Hovis had removed the broken glass and frame, and was just putting in the new one. The job had taken no time at all. he breathed a sigh of relief, with THAT done, now he could-

He was agitated, and perplexed that the "Alien" was still standing there below. He was like a dog; expression unreadable with a one-track mind to follow its master around wherever he went. "Something wrong?" he said from the top of the ladder.

Kennedy didn't say anything.

"Not the type to talk normally, aren't you?"

Kennedy finally managed to open his mouth. "You are doing work."

Hovis cast a pitying glower below at the bizzare child. "That's the general idea. I'm fixing a window."

"Window. "WIN. DOW." You are fixing a window."

"That's what it is," Hovis answered, getting back to work. He climbed down to reach for the second frame, the new one he retrieved from the shed. He picked it up and went back up the ladder, adjusting his spine so he would not fall off the ladder holding onto the frame.

The window frame fit in like a glove. But now came the difficult part of putting in the nails; he knew he would have to reach down and get them, taking his hand off the slippery glass. There was no choice. He through a number of safer options till he thought, maybe he could hold the glass in his mouth, and grab the nails quickly. It seemed reasonable enough- until the real bad thing had happened. Attempting to quickly reach the nails in his pocket, he accidentally let the glass drop. "Ahh!"

The glass fell straight off the large window, falling below the ladder and the butler. But the glass did not hit the ground. By a strange coincidence the alien who'd been standing vigil at the bottom caught it. Hovis was in a rare form of relief that the glass didn't break. "Thank goodness... nice catch." He started climbing down to retrieve the item from Kennedy.

"... Catch," Kennedy said, without even knowing what it meant.

Hovis walked over, looking troubled- he didn't scream or look scared or anything, even knowing that a large sheet of glass had fallen towards him. That glass could have easily pierced his skin, due to its' sharp edges. But Kennedy was standing there holding it, the flat surface propped up horizontally on its' side. Hovis sternly ordered, "If it's no trouble with you, I would like that back, please."

"Catch," was all Kennedy had to say.

"Yes, that's particularly 2-dimensional of you," the old butler responded smugly. "Now learn this new trick. You giiive that to me." Emphasis was put on "Give". This wasn't the first time that Hovis condescended to becoming a visual and vocal dictionary.

Whatever the case, Kennedy's mind was off kilter and could not register, let alone fulfil the request. Not seeing the conversation going any further, Hovis took the large sheet of glass away with meticulous ease. But just as quickly as he did, he dropped it, as his mouth did in shock. Both of Kennedy's palms had a nasty red streak running across them. A warm liquid was flowing off both like a miniature waterfall. Hovis seemed to forget the sensitive glass that crashed into pieces on the dirt. The agitation and indifference that were like old friends to him were a million miles away from him. His expression kept changing; going between the blood-stained hands and the subtle lack depth in that alien's large eyes. He couldn't stop staring at the blood, then at Kennedy's expressionless face, a complete hypocrisy of indifference that was ignoring or unable to understand the idea of pain.

"Add one gallon of Lizard guts..."

DROP! went the bottle of lizard guts into the pool. Waffle wasn't paying attention, immersed into the large "cooking" volume.

"Add a WHOPING 3 pounds of FISH-head Sticks..." Waffle read from the book, producing, as it read, 3 large netted bags of a stinky silvery substance with dead eyes and scaly faces.

"And recant... huh? "Re-chant the hundred verses of the all powerful zombies de las Romeroion, turning ash into the day, day into the unending night of sickness, TEMPTATION, CURSE MOON..." Waffle forgot why he read it, and also that his mind was faintly touching on a very familiar scene of his memory, mirroring this exact situation... even that line in the book about the "chanting". Almost as if this was a situation he knew too well... "Oh well," he shrugged. "The soup isn't going to make itself! And it's gonna taste like delicious fish, too!"

So he said, as he continued stirring the large and stinky green soup with an garnish of parmesan cheese and peppers with the gigantic ladle he pulled from the "Gigantic Culinary Creation Tools" closet. The book demanded that the soup be stirred 10 times every 3 minutes for smooth perfection. Waffle was humming an old tune he heard off a cartoon show, one he couldn't recall immediately. The song had a nice beat in a background and a cheerful melody, both being his favorites.

"He's utterly hapless?"

"Aye! And the odd lad's been following him around like an aimless little puppy!"

"That sounds a lot like this thing I learned in Science and Biology class at school!"

"Like what, Human Kimberly?"

"Like you know how when a baby chick is born and the first thing it sees fully once its' eyes are developed is its' mom, and it immediately recognizes it as the leader, the person he's supposed to follow."

Gordon mulled it over, and realized that it was fairly decent description of happened. Kimberly's beauty, to Gordon belied her unappreciated genius. "Ooh, riveting," Blik mocked her. "That is completely stupid. I'm talking like Waffle's brand of stupid," Blik put in.

"What does Mr. Hovis think about all of this?"

Blik clapped both hands together. "What are you talking about?"

Kimberly tried again. "What does Mr. Hovis think about Kennedy following him around?"

Blik burst out laughing, "Oh-ho-ho, you silly, silly girl! Hovis doesn't think!"

"Blik!" Gordon yelled angrily at his murky-hearted sibling. The pointy-eared feline returned the angry gaze with a collected one. "Don't see what your problem is! She thinks he's people! PEOPLE, Gordon. PEOPLE."

Gordon could barely stomach the snobbishness of Blik, but he ignored him, nonetheless. "And you know, the first week after he started to speak, he was using... eh... very colorful language."

"Colorful language?" Kimberly echoed.

Gordon struggled to find the right words, but he came short to none. He did not desire to use anything that would sound offensive to the ears of his love interest.

"Curse words," Blik put in suddenly calmly and quietly. There was a subtle hint of enjoyment in his voice. "Profanity. Nasty talk, whatever you like to call it."

"BLIK!" Gordon exploded at his brother, raising over the length of the table, threatening to attack his brother.

"Oh my gosh!" Kimberly screamed. "Curse words? Did you spank him?"

Blik chuckled. "Don't worry about it. The weird thing it was, this only lasted a whole week! We had to blank out Waffle's memory like a trillion times, which WAS a pain." Blik's mind wandered back to the crazy machine in the basement, the one that wiped out minds of previous events. "Ho-ho-ho man it was cur-razy! You'd have flipped your lids after hearing all the BAD language he used!"

Something bothered Kimberly, even though she was on the edge of her seat hearing layers upon layers of shocking facts about an alien she hadn't even seen yet. "He completely forgot all his curse words in one week? After an ENTIRE week?"

Blik darted his eyes away. Kimberly looked to Gordon who just simply nodded. Gordon wasn't lying.

"And it kept getting weirder after that," Gordon explained, but he didn't sound happy talking about it. "Things like flying chairs... exploding chemicals... scary howls into the Night... oohhh..."

It was sounding even less like an alien invasion and more like someone's screwed up version of a "mad scientist-esque" story, Kimberly decided. She thought it might not have been a good idea to listen anymore, though she did. Blik was the one who indirectly voiced her thoughts. "Sounds like some stupid ghost story, doesn't it?"

"Great gopher!" Gordon gasped. "You don't it's the... Legendary New New Jersey Devil!"

Blik was taking a great level of pleasure in putting down his not-so-intelligent brother's bizzare ethnic-based paranoia. "Legendary my crooked little tail. (JUMP) THEY DON'T EXIST." (Plop!) Blik gasped trying to take back in most of the air he used when bellowing. "Also Hovis said something stupid about Kennedy trying to offer him something stupid like a... jet black sword or something out of nowhere. Nothing important. Since when did butlers get gifts! That BREAKS the natural order of things!"

Kimberly didn't know what else to do but blink. After an exaggerated gag fit, Blik jumped off his chair. "Man, I'm hungry! We got any snacks in the Kitchen?"

Gordon realized with horror where Blik was headed, and in a flash jumped off his chair to stop him. "B-Blik! No, wait! I don't think that's such a good idea!"

But Blik kept going, much faster than Gordon expected. He waved his hand over his shoulder. "What you call a bad idea, I CALL a pretty good idea. I want a snack, and a snack I will GE-!"

Blik didn't get to finish his sentence, as the second he stepped into the kitchen, he was blinded by both horror and rage.

"WAFFLE!"

It was becoming more difficult to tell the bizzare alien's personality, behavior, and actions apart from a common household dog. Kennedy didn't bat an eyelid, let alone move any parts of his body. He sat quietly on top of the toliet seat lid. He didn't it was a toliet seat lid. He didn't know what anything in the sanitized room was because he had trouble thinking.

Kennedy thought that Hovis looked ill. Ill people barely moved around; Mr. Hovis didn't look ill at all, but at the same time, Kennedy saw an illness ailing him ever since he got a good look at his... things part of his body that held, carried, and touched things. Hands, Kennedy remembered, hands. His hands, covered from start to finish with a slick warmness that slid off his hands like a... a liquid. Liquid, Kennedy reminded himself. Liquid.

Hovis opened up the thing called a "Cabinet" pulling out a... round object, smooth except for a tacky, colorful covering with a lid having an endless number of edges on the side.

As he did, the shiniest surface he'd ever seen suddenly came swinging out, staring Kennedy in the face. But he didn't remember or was trying hard to remember that the thing staring at him in the face was not a monster- no. The face in shiny surface that reflected everything was his own.

Hovis pulled out a long strip of white that looked soft. He then closed the door with shiny thing- it was nagging Kennedy... he learned this, but he didn't remember. mirrors.

(2 weeks ago)

"It's pronounced Mirrors! Mirrors are reflections!"

"... mirrors," it sounded like it was stunted.

"Good, now open the book and read more of the words in the paragraphs."

"Wuuur-urds?" like it stuck out like a sore thumb.

"You're learning very quickly. I'm at a loss as to why you needed teaching."

But like a couple of times before, Kennedy's response was a stupid smile. Until this point, "gratitude" hadn't been properly covered.

"You could say "Thank you", you know. "Thank You" expresses a feeling of gratitude, Thankfulness. Say thank you."

But like a thief, the concept of thankfulness eluded Kennedy. The machine in his headr was unplugged and ceased functioning, and his arms felt like dead limp noodles. His whole body was rocked in some kind of seizure.

"Something wrong?" said the man with a shiny head. Shaken up by a nameless fear, Kennedy fell back on bed, clutching himself, hyperventilating. "Oh dear," said Hovis worriedly. "We'll just have to take a break."

Kennedy didn't know what break meant, but the sound of the word felt so heavy that he could almost feel like he understood the meaning.

It was a surprise; he remembered it.

Hovis sat on an opposite chair and said, "lift out your hands, now." Kennedy didn't know what to do so he did as he was ordered. He wondered what Hovis was planning to do with that white strip, but he didn't use it at all. Instead, he pulled out a grey bottle of liquid and poured over both of his palms. The warm red liquid vanished, to his indifference, and to Hovis' surprise.

"You don't feel anything? That was alcohol. It dissolves blood."

Kennedy didn't answer and drew a blank.

"You really need to be careful with sharp things, dear boy. You're going to sooner or later sustain an injury that can't be healed so easily."

Again there was no reply.

"Might be troubling, but, are you even listening to me?"

Kennedy had been taught to nod positvely and to shake his head dismissively when the situation called for it. He nodded because he was. "Yes," he said. "I listen to you and Gordon Cat."

The old butler's eyes widened humorously as started putting on the bandages. "He's not referred to as "Gordon Cat", as you so bluntly put it. He was the one who started teaching you separately." He was still putting on the bandages. It was baffling, he was fixing an injury from which an alien did not feel any kind of pain. But why was he worried about it? What was strange about an alien not feeling any pain? Whatever species "Kennedy" was, maybe it was an inbred race of super-intelligent lifeforms that were incapable of understanding things like regular humans. Nothing about this should've been strange.

But the way Kennedy didn't react to the damage his hands sustained; that empty blankness he surveyed in his eyes, in all his movements, and his helpless idiocy- He didn't didn't even feel like like he came from outer space at all.

Shoot, if he was an alien, Hovis was surprised to learn that that another race of beings were out there with the exact identical limbs, arms, legs - all the things a normal human would have. He talked like a regular human, was learning to eat like one, and he even breathed like one. And the only reason this could have happened at all was when the butler touched him; the same as if he was pressing a button to start up a machine.

"Mind if I ask you something?" asked Hovis, once he finally finished the process of bandaging both hands.

Kennedy was still watching the palms of his hands, like he was expecting something to happen to them. So the butler asked away.

"Doesn't this injury cause you pain?"

Kennedy blinked. "Pain."

"Yes... pain."

The face of the alien squinted like it'd been asked a question under the threat of a gun to the head. "Pain. I don't know what you mean by pain. Is it a new word to learn?"

"A new word?" the butler responded in disbelief. "No, it should be something you can feel."

"... Do you feel it- pain, like happiness?"

"What?"

"Like what I learned from reading."

Impatience set in his voice, something weird he hadn't anticipated. "Your species doesn't know anything about pain, none at all?"

Kennedy's eyes widened, unable to understand. "Species... what does that mean?"

"Out of all the things I've read about aliens, why would that be impossible for you?"

Never had Kennedy been hard-pressed to think critically about anything before; but for an entire month, watching his caretakers and only abled "teachers".

Kennedy had given up looking for an answer. "I just don't know."

After that was silence, till the alien surprised the other by asking a direct question: "I want to know something."

"Well, if you want to know anything, why not just read it out of a book?" said Hovis, choosing that moment to leave because of a weird noise he heard downstairs.

"Why is my name 'Kennedy'?"

"A flimsy and faulty method of choice," he said.

BOOM!

Neither had time to properly react when a rotted corpse with a green smoke pouring out of his mouth suddenly burst through the top left corner of the bathroom walls, shattering the glass. Both residents had indifferent reactions, but Hovis was the one who sounded more agitated than anybody else. "Safer to assume that Waffle probably caused this."

Ken began to get worried. "Waffle? Why? What is that?"

Hovis sighed, grabbed Kennedy by the arm, and he suddenly pulled out both a moped and a large blue helmet putting it on as he got on the vehicle with Kennedy jumping right behind him. The alien was beginning to make enough to sense to know that the horrific thing that jumped out at them in the bathroom, now accompanied by several terrifying duplicates, was dangerous. "Those are zombies. Living dead."

VROOOM!

"Ack! oof! EEk! Aek! Oh! OOF! ACK! EEK! ECK!"

CRASH!

All the respected party had a rude landing down a large steel shaft. It opened up right into one of the 3 basements the house had. Blik was the first to flip! out and fall right on the floor. next came Gordon, Kimberly, and last of all, Waffle.

All 3 had fallen right on top of Blik, who calmly assessed the situation before acting on the first impulse: exploding and knocking everybody off of him.

"AGAIN! EXACT, SAME, THING!" He yelled.

Kimberly was still shivering. Blik stomped over to slap! his brother. "You idiot!"

"Ow!" Waffle recoiled from the awful sting of his brother's angry slap. "What'd you do that for!"

"Don't play dumb!"

"There is no game called that! Are you trying to trick me AGAIN! *gasp* TRICKER!"

Not one to interrupt a spectacularly crazy spectacle of stupidity in the face of their possible plight, Gordon decided enough was enough. He ran over and separated the two. "LADS! That's ENOUGH!"

"Oh man!" Kimberly cried, crawling into a corner. "I thought we were goners for sure!"

"There, you SEE! Human Kimberly's frightened out of her wits! How can ye be thinkin of yourselves when we've got someone to protect!" he snapped at both brothers, his sympathetic voice taking a sterner, admonishing tone.

"Will you PLEASE cram it!" Blik growled. "There are Zombies upstairs, swarming our FURNITURE, GAMES, AND OTHER EXPENSIVE ITEMS, AND DESTROYING OUR HOUSE! Though most of it MY stuff. Actually, I sort of own A LOT of stuff, like my nice arsenal of nuclear wea- BUT that's beside the point! YOU KNOW this is Waffle's fault!"

"Blik! I'm just as unhappy that zombies are probably eating out all those nice Haggis I had stored in the back of our king-suite refrigerator, But you can't go blaming Waffle!" Gordon said.

Nobody would've believed the look of incredulousness and sheer disbelief invading Blik's face in short span of 4 seconds. "Lemme ask you something," Blik began. "Are you high, or are you retarded?"

"... What-!"

"Never mind, forget it. FOR-GET it," Blik rudely ended the conversation, still shooting a cold stare at Waffle.

"Oh come ON!" Waffle snapped down at this dictator-styled sibling. "How was I supposed to know that cursed terrible incantation out of the dark tome of the Romero Infanalia of the damned wouldn't go great with the sour cream!"

Gordon wasn't going to be merciful with his brother. "Waffle? Remember what we talked about earlier? About you getting the Blue Cookbook, from the Green Room?"

Waffle put a paw to his mouth and tried really hard, really, really hard to remember. "Uh... but, wasn't that actually Green Cookbook, and Blue Room?"

Gordon sighed. "Noooo... Green Cookbook, blue ro-!"

"Enough," Blik put a paw on his brother's shoulder, forcing himself to be calmer. His voice lowered to a dull indifference. "Give Waffle a minute to sort it out in his head." Gordon had no choice but to concede.

Waffle analyzed it over his head to make sure he'd gotten it right, because as it turned out there was something out place with some of the things Gordon said, and more troubling was the fact that Gordon had told something like this happened before, and he couldn't remember any of it... It was true that a lot of the bizzare things around the Cramdilly house were caused indirectly by all three cats or just Waffle himself. They were head-spliting events, insane, and not as easy to forget... why would he not remember something as equally mindblowing as an event involving zombies...? Could Gordon have... was he right?

*PING*

"ZOMBIES! WAAAAH! Gordon!" Gordon did not foresee Waffle bombarding him and grabbing him by the neck in a panic, nearly choking the surprised cat. "There were Zombies here last time! I just suddenly remembered!"

On the side, Blik entered with a dull, "Oh no. Zombies in the house. My god, we are dooooomed. Somebody dig us a deep, dark grave, so we can stick our paws in the gaping hole. Clearly we've never had anything like this happen to us before."

Waffle nodded in complete agreement. "That's what I thought too, but there were here before! And I brought them! By Accident! Reading a Book!"

"Yep. Scottish Book of the dead. Book of the dead that are, were in their graves. Rotting. Like Corpses. Cause they were dead. Till you brought them back. With your reading. Cause you got smart with reading. Cause it made your brains smart. With thinking."

Gordon made a nasty look at his brother, but Waffle looked more determined than ever. More than he should've been, actually. "This is NO time for thinking! We've GOT to do something! At this rate, our house will be destroyed! To BATTLE! EXCELSIOR!"

Blik held his breath. "Yeah... We've established that."

CRASH!

The Cats were caught off surprise and blown back. Immediately, Waffle the first to call, "THEZOMBIESHAVEINVADEDEARTH! !"

"Waffle it's not the zombies!" Gordon yelled as he got in front of the shivering Kimberly. Blik, in a strangely calmed mood picked that moment to say, "What kind of zombies invade? They're ALREADY in the Earth, why bother using ships from the sky to freaking INVADE a planet they're inhabiting by the dozens already?"

"... Just to borrow from 'ya dictionary for a wee few seconds, Lad, but will you JUST CRAM IT ALREADY!"

Once the smoke finally cleared it was none other than Hovis and Kennedy, who'd crashed right into the basement via ocean blue moped. Both looked just as shaken up by the sudden arrival of the Zombies, but neither looked incredibly terrified. Either way, Waffle rubbed both his eyes and screamed:

"OH! It's not Zombies, it's a... bald guy and an Alien! AAAAAH!"

"Apparently the house is under the threat of being usurped by the reanimated corpses of up to a million innocent once living organisms," was the first thing Hovis said as he jumped off his moped, accompanied by Kennedy. "... Do I need to know how that came about?" This was directed at Waffle who did not know he was being referred to.

Blik's answer was a quick, dismayed, "Uh, no."

Seeing as how Kennedy and Hovis were safe (Usually because in any such event involving supernatural things and UFOs and other ridiculous insanity, Hovis was the first to escape and inexplicably turn up again), Gordon took the reigns. "All right, lads, obviously whatever the reason-"

"Waffle."

"-Shut up, Blik. We've got Zombies in our house, but thankfully this time, we've actually got a weapon on our side. Waffle's lasers!"

Blik's eyes popped open to TV size. He was surprised to hear Gordon say something like that. "You're joking."

This definitely was the single most bizzare thing Blik thought he'd ever hear out of his brother. Everybody, minus Kennedy, was staring at the Scottish-accented feline like he'd openly admitted to beating up little kids.

"... What are lasers?" Kennedy broke the silence.

"They are large beams of light. Damaging large beams of Light," Hovis told him.

"Lasers! Splee!" Waffle cheerfully screamed, while Kimberly came to strange realization. "Lasers...? Wait, are you guys talking about Waffle's Laser Light Show from 2 years ago?" Dancing and jumping excitedly in the background Waffle again went, "Woo! Laser Light Show! Splee!"

"Yep. Despite what Blik said, I told Hovis to keep those in place for a defense system."

Blik's lower lip quivered, and he would've burst out shouting in Gordon's face, if not for the ego. "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. But question, Gordo. Why would you bother using a laser light show when we've got weapons?"

Gordon was perplexed. "Aye... I don't follow." Blik sighed and tried again. "Come off your high horse, please. YOU'RE the first person in this house that's always in favor of taking the stupid way out of things! YOU'RE the person who's always like, "EM Gerdo, end em gunna cut through en enemi weth me meighty giant encient relec Scetts swerd! Cause ELL potent-shially lefe frhetening shitetuations gots ta have MEE screeming me hed off ento de NEIGHT with me feroceous wempy cre ef En de NEME ef de Heghland Qed Clen feel me steng!"

Gordon let his mouth drop open, and it stayed that way for a couple of minutes.

"Wow. That was incredibly mean," Waffle said to his brother.

"It's true, you know," Blik said superlatively.

"But that was still mean!" Waffle shouted at him. "Maybe he just liked my laser light show so much and thought that the zombies also liked it, that... uh... that the zombies would like to see it again!"

SLAP!

Gordon was still reeling, his feelings and his pride burnt to pieces, unable to completely recover. As much as he wanted to get even and claw his rotten brother's face off, the bigger problem still lay at hand. Surprisingly, he was wondering how, and why, the zombies hadn't bothered trying to get down here into the basement. It was basically an entire repeat of this house's last zombie infestation. Out of his fur coat, he pulled out a small black controller with a big red button and a big green button respectively on top.

"Plan A, Ladies and Lads," said Gordon, "We'll fry those scummy zombies in about a couple of seconds!"

"Woo, go Gordon!" Waffle shouted.

Blik grumbled, "There'd better be a Plan B."

Gordon pressed the button.

(Meanwhile Outside)

Meandering hordes of the undead wandered too eerily close towards the large powerhouse only a mile away from the Cramdilly Residence. The powerhouse was whirring sending a charge of electricity. One of them, an unusually less-than-looking degraded rotting corpse dragging a giant axe along the ground, blood red eyes aflame with a strange attraction to the sound, smashed through the gate, lifted the reeking axe high into the air and...

SMASH!

(Basement)

The lightbulb hanging in the middle of the room seen by everyone suddenly went off. Kimberly screamed, prompting Gordon to rush over and shield her from any oncoming danger.

"What's happening!" Blik screaming.

Didn't take much thought for Hovis to understand what happened. "I believe the generator's gone out."

"NO WAY!" Blik yelled. "NO! NO! That DIDN'T HAPPEN!"

"I'm afraid it did," Hovis assured him. "However, the auxiliary should be on in about..."

*PING!*

"Now."

"So..." Waffle began, "The zombies are fried?" He looked at Gordon, who was still pressing the button on the device like crazy. "Dead batteries?" Blik was asking Gordon. "NO! This remote is powered by the generator! It's DEAD!"

Blik cleaned out both ears before saying anything more. "I take back everything I said earlier, Gordo, this was an equally stupid option!"

Gordon got angry. "Yeah, you keep on piling it on like that."

Kimberly looked fearful, and though Gordon was true as steel to his promise to protect her, he couldn't help but look admonishing. "Don't worry, Human Kimberly! We will get you out of here!" He walked over to the other side to reveal a section of the wall that was almost 'out of place' with everything else. As he tapped the bottom left portion the section of wall flipped to reveal a gigantic arsental of weaponry. Medieval weaponry. "And me and my brother will FIGHT these Zombies! And we WILL win! Plan B!"

"Plan B! Splee!" screamed Waffle.

Blik's mood didn't change one bit. "So we're really going with plan B! Are you CRAZY! WE'LL GET GROUND INTO CAT BITS!"

Gordon ignored him still angry and still furious with what Blik said earlier. He walked over and grabbed, out of all things, a medium-sized hammer with a silver cat head effigy on top. "We're definitely going to win this time. Grab a weapon!"

Blik shrugged his shoulders, deciding against his better judgement that going out like a idiotic vigilante was a hundred times better than whimpering in the corner like a coward. That was weird though... in situations like these, though he never liked admitting it, not even once, he was the first to squeal like a little girl and flee in the corner. Where did his sudden cool-headed attitude and nerve of bravado come from? He was starting to like it. Oh well; nothing left to do but pick a weapon off the wall. They were all of the same strange style of medieval weaponry that old Mrs. Cramdilly favoured. Blik picked the large sword with a mace fixed to the tip of the blade.

"All right, let's do this," said Blik, taking the weapon off the wall. Then he turned to Hovis and Kennedy said, "Keep him out of trouble."

"Of course, sir."

Waffle bobbed over, excitedly screaming, "Yeah, let's do this!"

SLAP!

"No, no! Bad Waffle!"

"Aw, come on!" he whined.

"Waffle, you made zombies come out of nowhere again. You're staying HERE with the bald guy, alien, and buck-toothed chick."

"What!" Waffle burst out screaming.

"You HEARD me, Dipmaster."

"Awwww..." Waffle sadly walked back over to Kimberly's side. Kimberly from over in the corner suddenly yelled, "Huh? Buck-toothed chick! I have one gap in my teeth!"

"It's for the best Laddie," Gordon was still concerned for both his love interest and brother, aware they wouldn't last against the zombies. "This way, I will know that Human Kimberly is being protected. Can you protect her?"

Waffle put on a stern confident look. "Yeah! I'll protect her even if it costs me my newts!" which made Gordon laugh, though as he turned around, his face looked grim. Waffle hurried Kimberly into second section of room out of Hovis and Kennedy's view, while Blik and Gordon ascended the stairs to the door.

Kennedy kept staring after them. The door opened once then both disappeared behind it. His face didn't show any signs of depression; but was there something else? There was, but he couldn't describe it.

"Hovis."

"What is it now?"

"If they lose to zombies, do they... die?"

He gave the alien a strange look. "Of course they will."

"But you're a butler. You told me once that Butlers protect their masters..."

This was interrupted by cold laugh from the older man. "I think you're thinking of something different. My boy, Butlers serve their masters. Though I suppose it would be somewhat much the same thing."

"So if it's like your job, then... shouldn't you help them?"

"You're very unusual today. Why the sudden barrage of questions?" Hovis asked him, sounding worried.

"Are Zombies... bad?" Kennedy struggled to say.

"I would assume so, considering that the only way to eliminate them is by severing the Head from the body," the old man said in a matter-of-factly voice. By this point, Kennedy's first real expression of pleading anxiety was standing out over his blasé, indifferent face. "Are actually implying that I should help? The last time I did, I didn't fare as well. Nor did my Masters. Waffle came through with his lasers."

"But something happened to make the lasers not work, right? We should... do something," Kennedy insisted. His hands in-subconsciously started to ball themselves into fists.

"You are a puzzling case. What the devil is wrong with you? What specifically do you expect ME to do?... Are you mad? Those zombies will Kill US!"

Kennedy's look of bizzare need resumed its' original uncolored plainness. "Can't you just grab one of those weapons on the wall?"

"Those are Mrs. Cramdilly's antique weapons. Basically for the show, not the use. But Gordon and Mr. Blik are of more reckless thinking."

"They can't use... weapons? They're not... not use?"

"The word you're looking for, Kennedy, would be useable. As for the answer, no."

"Then why not use a real sword?" Kennedy's voice rose to a scream.

"Where in the world do you expect me to gain a real sword?" Hovis thought it was stupid that he was arguing with an alien of all things about things like chivalry and... utter complete nonsense. Till he realized where Kennedy was really going. "Are talking about that...?"

Kennedy looked like his flesh was about to catch fire, then in his right hand appeared a fine and sharp-looking black sword from out of nowhere.

"That's starting to become less startling the last times I'd seen it."

Kennedy's expression was shadowed by confusion. "Other times...?"

(3 weeks ago)

"Mmm... mmm...!...mmmm!" The giant brown sack with a green mop head kept wriggling like a hyperactive worm. Blik was yelling his head off, and Waffle was clutching the buttoned end like a spider. "Wo-o-o-oo-oah! HE'S quick!"

Blik was coming over with something huge that was shaped like a bat. "Gordon, GET IN HERE!"

Enter Gordon whose face was full of terror like you wouldn't have believed. "Is it doing THAT again!"

The alien with steely bold eyes wriggled his mouth free of the binds on his mouth. "SHITTE! PUBS AIN'T SHITTE! THAT DAFT FUCKER WITH ALL THE TROLLOPS AND ODD BOOLLLOOCKS! WHAT KIND OF FUCKING WANKERS DRIVES HOME WITH THAT-!" whatever he was screaming was muffed out by Gordon's firm fists.

It took two hours, a Dog's muffle, and newt pellets, to finally make the alien be quiet.

Blik asked the entire "Staff" to assemble in the meeting room. A wide room with a concave supercomputer in the background that monitored all of the the house interior, exterior, and if necessary, the bathrooms. The most sophisticated software that was rarely ever used. Blik appreciated having a more "interesting" background when holding things such as family meetings. Hovis was there as well, standing near Blik's chair.

Gordon tossed the first bone. "He's been at this for like what? 3 days!"

It took some time for Blik to respond. "I THOUGHT that was the reason we tied him up! To prevent the curses from flying out of this house!"

"Blik, you've got any ideas that would've worked better than that? This EIN'T some regular alien we're dealing with!"

Blik shrugged his shoulders and said quietly to himself, "Everything about this whole... thing just seems so crazy. Alien looks human, and when it starts speaking, it spews foul language, running around like a chicken that's lost its' head... no pun intended."

Gordon looked down at the table. Agitation was setting in. "And there's that little thing with blanking Waffle's memory..." he pulled out a large gun with a dish-styled end nose. "So he doesn't remember."

"HAHHAahaha... are you KIDDING!" Blik's uproarious laughter was echoing off the walls. "BEST thing ever!"

Gordon had never seen his brother like this. With such odd tastes in humor, to boot!

"I mean, we both know that he's "Sensitive" and everything, but I never imagined that something like THIS would happen. I mean, how cool is that, cause I've never got to try that laser!" Blik was drooling as he grinned bigger.

Gordon had no rebuttals. All he could do was stare at the blank, empty stare of a Waffle who had the bottom half of his mouth hanging slightly over, drooling. The pupils in his eyes shrank to tiny atoms, he practically had 20-20 vision, just like the hippies of the "psychedelic" Eisenhower era. Yep. It was all Men in Black up in here!

Gordon how free-minded and fun-loving and sometimes crazy his brother was; appreciated his brothers' boundless joy and simple-minded curiosity, but Gordon was afraid, no, he FEARED a lot about him fully understanding the ugliness of the world - which for all reasons standing, isn't necessary. Waffle tried the whole "Evil Ruler" thing once; it lasted for one day.

"That reminds me..." was the second conversation starter, when Blik turned towards the finely dressed servant standing next to the chair as instructed. "HOVIS! This is your fault!"

"I fail to see any of the responsibility blamed on me for-!"

"Ehh, WRONG answer. Don't you DARE use your typical smugness on me! I know you've been laughing behind my back!"

"Where in the world would you get that kind of impression?"

Blik would've made a sharp reply, given that he could take any kind of tone he wanted with his servant, but he found he had none. Then an excuse came to mind. "That DART BOARD! HAH!"

"You mean Hovis has a dartboard with your face on it!" Gordon tried his best to not burst out laughing. "Oh-ho, man, I've GOT to try that out!"

Nothing enraged Blik more, and since Gordon saw it on his face, pondered where specifically the stress on his brain was hitting, hard enough to make him forget when it was good time to shut his fat mouth. "Uh-uh-I MEAN, bad! Yeah, Bad! kinda. AHEM! But, well, Blik DID give you responsibility over our Alien guest didn't he, Hovis? What's the story on that?"

"I've had my suspicions about this "Aliens" odd nature beforehand when he awoke. Cursing and yelling and raving and all sorts of... unpleasant, ill-mannered innuendo," was Hovis's reply. "The fact is the moment he awoke, he called me a... whiny whore."

Blik stiffened his ears harder, despite the fact that he was overcome with an insane laughing fit that threatened to make his skull burst.

Gordon was completely different. He was stern-faced. "Go on."

"Then, his body started to shake, then he shot out of the guest bed, tearing the room apart in a BLIND RAGE!"

"That explains the crash," said Blik.

"And the Ottoman!"

"... And the broken ottoman," was Blik's input.

"And all this while he spouting out some intelligible bangled garbled gibberish till he stopped with such strain. Oddly enough he turned back to me like he expected me to, and his eyes were twisting into all sorts of odd shapes, as he asked me if I was looking for uh... ah..."

"A what?" Blik asked, now getting anxious.

"... a sword."

Unable to decide if such the alien's behavior was mindless or planned, Gordon thought about bailing. "Wow. Yeah, I've got... nothing."

Blik turned towards Gordon and yelled, "Of course you wouldn't have nuthin, cause NONE of this makes any sense!"

"What I can't put my finger on is, what triggered that insanity."

Blik shook his head. "Gordo, you sound like a cheesy Conspiracy theory movie."

"I sound like a what?"

"You know, Government conspiracy movie. With the aliens, and super-technology and all that junk, Waffle was watching a marathon of it last weekend!"

"Oh shut up, Blik! Maybe he's got DID!"

"I would've believed that, if it wasn't so obvious," was Blik's reply.

Gordon expanded his argument. "First it starts out being completely lifeless, then suddenly burst to life, only to start using ugly language and say it wants to give Hovis a sword. Yep. Sounds insane, like an internet fanfic. But think about it like this; did you notice that afterwards it changed it's behavior, just like that? I mean, for the rest of the next day, it remained a mute!"

"Might I suggest attempting to figure out WHERE this alien came from, before has another opportunity to commit bizzare acts?" Hovis asked, not trying to be interruptive. "Weren't you in some stages of planning how to find out where he came from, Mr. Blik?"

Blik was at a loss for words, because he could only remember the sweet taste of root beer floats down his shrimpy little throat for the last week and a half. "Yeah... uh... I'll get back to you on that."

"So, then, Hovis, why would it ask if you wanted a sword?" Gordon asked him. "That sounds really confusing. No. Actually I've noticed something else."

"Are you just doing this BECAUSE you love hearing yourself talk?" Blik curtly pondered aloud.

"No, Blik, shut up! This is actually important! Did you hear some of the things it said the last time we got into a hassle knocking it out!"

"Trying REALLY hard to forget that actually happened," said Blik, "Why would you want to bring THAT up?"

"Aren't you paying attention? I'm trying to focus your attention on his accent!"

And Blik thought he heard everything, though most the things he was hearing sounded like some deranged fanatics um... fantasy. He slowly and deliberately singled out the words Gordon would've expected him to say. "The alien... has an accent. Aliens have accents?"

Waffle, still sitting with the same empty expression on his face, was gradually beginning to snap out of his memory-wipe-induced trance, attempting really hard to focus on all the voices he was hearing the room.

"Well... yeah," Gordon said. "I mean, I don't know HOW, but it does! I mean it used words like "Wanker", "Pub", and, I don't know, "Trollops"? Okay, fine that's maybe hard to believe, but you'd think that alien was speaking with an upper lip and a higher class!"

"You might as well put a gold necklace and a freaking heavy crown on the top of his head. I mean, do you honestly expect ME to believe that...!"

Waffle broke free out of his trance. He could hear clearly now, his head was clear (about 100% clear most of the time.) The first thing simmering like a hot coal on his mind he burst out yelling with glee, "He's got a funny accent like Hovis!"

"Lad..." Gordon said, "You're conscious now?"

"Yeah... I think..." said he.

"Funny accent like Hovis! What is that supposed to MEAN?" Blik demanded.

Waffle bobbed up and down. "He's got a funny accent, Hovis has a funny accent! Like they both came from England!"

"What is he jibbering about?" Blik shouted at all within earshot.

"What I was trying to say, Blik. Waffle's right. This alien sounds like he came from England... and I haven't the faintest clue why I said that or how it makes sense, but it does, so..."

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't chalk up this whole stupid conversation to my file of Grade-A Baloney! For the record, the last time I checked, Hovis has been under whats-her-faces' service since his childhood!"

"Sir, while that may have been true," Hovis began. "I would like to point that it is also true that past generations of my lineage actually DID come from England. I lived there as well before coming here to be a servant to Mrs. Cramdilly."

"Yeah, does it sound like we actually care about that?"

"BLIK!" Gordon yelled at his brother, now accompanied by Waffle.

"What! What are you getting your knickers all KNOTTED up about! YOU'RE the ones who dug up that Stupid LOVE Jackal and turned our clean-cut butler into some sewer-mouthed spandex-wearing badly-singing unsuccessful barfbag!" Blik screamed.

Hovis was in agreement, and somewhat happy to know that nothing of his embarrassing history out of that particular event wouldn't be brought up again. However, Gordon was not someone wanting to be shot down by Blik's typical unbelief and disapproval and defiant foolishness. He tried making another attempt to calm his brother down, "Blik. Listen..."

"No. YOU," Blik interrupted, with a strange calmness. "... This whole thing has been ONE confusing craziness after another. AND STUPID! FINE. You guys expect me to believe that this CRAZY-AS-BEANS "Alien" could be British or something stupid. FINE. You expect me to believe that he might have picked up on this simply from making some kind of "Genetical" contact with Hovis. Gross, but FINE. That he could have DID, FINE. That out of all the people he could be following around, it had to be this poor slob. FINE. Anything else we've left out!"

There was a long, awkward silence that was yet again broken by Waffle's simple-minded reply, "Well, how about a name?"

"A NAME HE SAYS! NAMES, NAMES, NAMES, oh WOW how could we forget a NAME!"

"Well, I mean, we know he's an alien, so why not? Identity is important. Cause you know, my name is Waffle!"

"I can see that," Gordon agreed.

Blik was going to rage more, then bailed when he saw, to his displeasure, the lack of flaws in logic in Waffle's argument. "Fine. Me too."

"I was thinking Trevor! No, Johnny! Uh, wait, TINA!, How about CORN!"

"Uh, laddie?" Gordon gently interrupted. "I'm not sure those are good names."

"You're A MADMAN! CORN is a good name! You're just jealous!"

"It's just that they're... good names. For pets. Yeah!" Gordon assured him. "You already named one of your Newts Corn, didn't you? Y-yeah! Corn the Newt!"

"I always said that Newt looked like corn. That's why I gave him that name!" said Waffle.

"That's because it WAS an actual EAR of Corn, you idiot," said Mr. Blik. "From the trash can. Of the last barbecue. That aside, your list of names are lame. They sound like names for pets."

"But I thought the alien... was a pet," Waffle said. "With a green hair mop."

"Green hair does NOT make it Corn!" Blik shouted.

"oooooh..." came Waffle's answer when he realized the obvious. "Well, I did have this other idea."

Blik was getting tired of the antics and prepared to grab a bag with bees in it. "Waffle, if this has ANYTHING to with NEWTS I'm gonna..."

"Take 9 pieces of paper and write down names on them and then just pick a random one that comes up and settle with the one that gets picked."

Both the black and the fat cats sat in stunned silence, mulling over the idea.

Blik sank back into his seat. "... Actually yeah, that could work."

(Present)

"If I offered you a sword during those times, why can't I remember it?" Kennedy asked him.

"That's what I'm wondering myself, among other things," Hovis said. "But... the stranger question is, how can you do that?"

Kennedy shook his head. "I haven't the... faintest... clue. I don't... know. But the they need help, they're important."

There were many problems with what was happening in front of him. An alien, who just happened to be given the name "Kennedy", with an accent vaguely familiar with his own, who came out of large meteor, was offering him a sword; but was really safe let alone sensible to accept it? Was there any point. Sure, fine, Waffle was told to stay behind and guard Kimberly. The laser system was down, and somehow the 43-year-old had a lot of doubt that a couple of cats could handle a couple thousand zombies. Add this to a whole year's experience with servitude to a trio of idiot cats who have in the past indirectly caused him harm in their insane escapades and brought up his embarrassing history, got mixed up with hillbillies and less-human-looking beings from other planets, and elements of the supernatural that would've made H.P. Lovecraft's head implode. Maybe, Hovis thought, that underneath the shelled facade of smug reservedness, he'd gone insane. That as the hand rubbing up and down his face was his own, he discovered he felt nothing left of the pragmatic 41-year-old man who'd been forced to watch his kindly fomer mistress's corpse be lowered into her grave. And that everything mentioned before he felt stupid for thinking about.

And that maybe he'd overreacted a little, when he thought that those complete imbeciles were out to abuse him, not just Blik. They were important. Sort of. If not for the paychecks to be signed, then what else? Without them, he had no job. Hovis needed them.

"I don't know what sort of nonsense this is, if its magic or the devil's luck or something silly like that," he started to tell Kennedy. "But... BUT... but I'm going to laugh all of this off when its' over. So... I'll take that respectfully."

Whichever of the two were surprised the most, could not be determined. Hovis grabbed the handle of the sword.

Kennedy eyes widened. "I don't have control."

"What...?"

"That sword... I think it belongs with you now."

"I have not the faintest inkling about what you're talking about."

CRASH!

"What... was that?" the asked the expressionless alien.

"That would most likely be the sound of the Zombies about to take over- HEY!" the butler was sorely cut off when Kennedy used his surprising strength to drag pull Hovis towards the door.

Tons of the windows were cracked, with plenty of zombie residue in place. Discarded portions of zombie parts, like fingers, hands, and other unmentionables, made for nasty garnish. Lots of furniture was in disrepair. The wall sheets were torn and looked like the curled aftermath of a cat's rampage.

But none of this seemed to affect Kennedy, who stood staring at the entire scene as he would've coming up to a perfectly normal setting. Echoing against the walls were the unfortunate cries of couple of felines in the distance. Still holding onto his odd trinket like a keepsake, the old butler looked almost completely out of character with the rest of the house.

"I-I'm sure that's probably them. They must be out in the living room."

"Neat."

"You have ANY idea where that is, Kennedy?"

Kennedy's reply was a short, dismal, "No."

So it was up to the butler to actual take charge for this.

(Meanwhile)

Waffle was hanging on the handle of the door of the room where he Kimberly were holding up. It had gone deaf silent outside.

Kimberly suddenly asked, "I think there's nobody outside."

"Uh, I don't think we should probably leave," Waffle told her.

"But what if Gordon's in danger?"

"Uh, I guess he'll be fine? I mean, he's a warrior! Battle Axe! Splee!"

Kimberly saw that leaving would be difficult; that and she was seriously worried about Gordon. He was definitely the closest she'd ever get for having a boy friend. He meant so much to her... and she couldn't bear the thought of leaving when he probably needed help the most. Thus she had an idea.

"Uh... I think Blik said that there was cookies behind the door."

Waffle's eyes popped open with an unbalanced level of wetting joy. "COOKIES? Oh boy! Let's Go!"

(Back to...)

Gordon and Mr. Blik were evenly mismatched in every respect. Both were back-to-back with the large horde of zombies closing in around them, both with the shrinking confidence and growing unpleasant revelation about that they neck deep in real trouble.

"How... DID..." Blik struggled to say, dodging and ducking all of the nasty swings of the zombies terrible arms, and swatting back, with no success. The fact was, he found the idea of his perfect fur getting messed up unpleasant. "WE get... CAUGHT in... the exact sa-... same... situation... like... (WOOSH!)... last time!"

"NO talk... fightning... for lives... important..." Gordon replied, under the same amount of pressure. "CAn't... think of... witty... reply!"

Blik seemed to snatch a free moment to yell, "Well, you're Gordon McQuid of the Fatheaded Quid Clan so I'm NOT surprised! YAAH!" Because one of the zombies swiped at Blik, but all though it missed...

CRACK!

The sword broke. Blik stared at it with dismay, even while the increasing horde of zombies were coming on. Blik stared at the broken portion of the gigantic Mace-sword like he'd lost part of himself somewhere. "Oh. Wow. I feel strangely empty."

Gordon managed swinging down the sword, again taking out 2 more zombies. Gordon was starting to feel unease- the Hammer's face was slowly but steadily chafing and getting clumsier after 295 zombies (He was proud of his ability to keep up with the number of battles). It wouldn't lost another second longer, he realized. Problem. "Well, brother, this is it, we're about to go down like warriors in the glorious onset of battle! I'm not proud that I'm going to die here, but..."

"Yeah, speak for yourself," Blik said, choking up and barely retaining any stableness to his words. "I'm going out like a "wee little girl". I... I never even got a chance to have. ANY. DINNER!'

Not too far away, two of the least likely people in the world were at the scene, with mixed displays of indifference and horror.

"Great," Hovis. "They're doomed."

"Do you actually find this... the word is... "appealing"?"

"I was being sarcastic."

"I don't know what that means."

"Never mind."

Kennedy didn't understand what he meant- nor why he had this feeling that he had to do something. And that feeling was getting stronger. "Do you know how to fight?"

"Given the weird things have happened lately, I don't see any reason to say nothing. I've been instructed to act for any kind of situation."

"Mr. Hovis. So, you're some kind of butler and you've been taught? Like how you teach me? You know how to deal with any situation."

"Yes, yes, the last time this happened, I was fighting with a mace. I am not utterly hopeless."

For the first time, the outrageous traces of a disbelieving smirk ran across Kennedy's face, then opened into a smile. He even amazed himself; he felt almost happy. "You can deal with this."

"I just never actually used a sword," Hovis interrupted him. But then he turned his attention towards the cats, taking calm strides over. "I'd better hurry this up." He didn't admit or say that voice was beginning to quiver.

Just as Kimberly wanted to help Gordon, Kennedy was starting to feel an unnatural urge of need, to help the person in front of him. The feeling alone triggered a number of bizzare ideas in his head that he hadn't known; it started to act like a giant fire. His head was burning up with the fire till he thought he was screaming...

FLASH!

Everything else flew over his head.

Am I thinking? What is... that?

Appearing right in front of him were words right out of the thin of the air; for a second, it felt like he was going crazy.

Activated

What?... NO! I was going to help! I'm fading away... !

Begin Battle

Hovis seemed to be the only one who was struck witless when something seemed to... fall out of place.

"What the... devil?"

He looked around him. Everything was still there, the house, the zombies (that for some reason had slowed their movement) and the cats were still there, still very much alive and still only seconds away from being devoured by zombies... but where was Kennedy?

"Hmm... this is unpleasant," was all Hovis could think to say, shaken up, and still holding onto the sword. A sudden and silent step sounded behind him, startling the butler, "Kennedy?"

It was Kennedy. But... something seemed out of place. His face, simple and rounded with eyes as wide as saucepans and without expression, were sharpened and looked wild; exactly like those of a wild man. All that empty black that was gone... the tint that was showing in eyes was an intense, venomous sea green.

"Kennedy...?"

The moment he started talking it was who he was, but it didn't sound like he knew Hovis. Nor did it sound he responded to the name "Kennedy".

"We're going to battle and take out the Zombies," said Kennedy, whose voice had a strange insulated echo to it. "Are you ready?"

None of what the person who wasn't Kennedy said came across clearly to the butler, who burst out yelling, "What the devil is going on! Are still in the house?... What is the matter with your pupils? Why'd they turn green?"

The person paid him no mind. Hovis thought one of them had gone mad, and if not for what happened in the basement earlier, he'd have treated the thought of himself having gone more crazy with better care. Nothing in the back of his mind said anything about whether or not this had anything to do with his "Alien" origins. At least, not until later.

"I'm fightning now. I'm fighting the enemy with you. And that's why I... I... !"

The last thing that happened, all at once, in front of the butler were going to be hard to believe. Kennedy threw out his hand and in materialized out of thin air a gigantic battering tool. Hovis had rubbed his eyes twice before the voice in head could scream,

It's a... KEY!

It was 5 feet long and the handle was golden, the other end was white and proportionally was similar to a skeleton key. It was the all the size of a sword. It even had a keychain at it's handle base!

The butler was now at the point where the confusion was only going to pile on itself. What in the world was going on?

Even as this was happening, Kennedy's actions had definitely garnered the attention of zombies, still an ever-growing mass. Hovis had forgotten all about them- something Blik was going to grill him over about later, for sure. But the zombies were now after him and Kennedy. It became too obvious that Hovis had made the worst mistake of his life.

"Kennedy move! Move! Oh, what the devil are you doing!"

Kennedy didn't bother flinching; he didn't seem to hear Hovis either. He had both feet grounded to the floor just as if they were put in cement.

"Kennedy!!" No use then; Hovis ran over to grab Kennedy and get him away from the insanity. One of the Zombies swiped at Kennedy, just as he swung the gargantuan-sized Key at the zombies- to Hovis' jawdropping surprise, the key cleaved the zombie in two. Kennedy's left leg jumped the gun, leaping in, the whole body following through as the arm swinging the key fell down into another zombie's throat, and smashing it open... and add to the insanity, the butler thought he was seeing something appear in the thin of the air over each of the zombies Kennedy was cleaving through at demonic speed. They were 4-digit numbers.

The left zombie had hollow numbers like a red neon sign hanging over its head for 3 seconds. The second zombie that was just crushed had more numbers above it, only for those to disappear. Kennedy pushed deeper into the wave of undead, more and more of them exploding.

Before thinking about what to do next, a badly shaken up Hovis tried really hard to take inventory of the whole scene in his head: Okay, both my Masters are unconscious so they can't see what's happening: an alien with Green hair and eyes that can change pupil color has caused SOMETHING to happen to reality, and he is now... slicing his way through a gigantic horde of the undead with a gargantuan Key, and numbers are appearing over each head as they get SMASHED. So... apparently I must be going insane. But...

Hovis managed to duck the swing of another large horde of Zombies that he appeared right behind. And the fact that he was still holding onto his ridiculous new trinket was starting to get annoying. But I'm sane enough to know that I might have to actually start fighting back... HAVE I COMPLETELY LOST IT!

He didn't see Kennedy, and whether this whole thing was simply a weariness-induced hallucination didn't seem to matter anymore. He may have had to. Hovis stood up and gripped the sword handle with all fingers. "I'm no better off if I didn't do the sensible thing."

His blood was pounding. But he charged headlong into the same group of zombies near his unconscious masters.

"NAAGH!" SLASH!

"HAAAAH!" SLASH!

"AUG!" SLASH!

Numbers did appear over the heads of the monsters Hovis beheaded.

(309)

(203)

(231)

"That's a bit odd."

"RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGH!"

"GAAH!" all Hovis could do was recoil in fear, but his next actions were dictated through sheer instinct. Without thinking he raised the blade while grabbing both Gordon and blik with the free arm. The left arm swung in a short arc, decapitating two of the zombies. Despite the fact his mouth had fallen wide open, Hovis toughened up and fled to an empty corner. Now he was beginning to appreciate the stupid weapon's long reach; but he did not stop sweating as he deposited the fainted Blik and Gordon.

It took him a few minutes, but he saw a discarded torn curtain blanket near one of the house's broken windows that would've made camouflaging the spoiled cats easier. Once that was over, Hovis gave in to that shaky feeling in his gut.

They're safe but I've got to track down that insane Alien.

Hovis fled. When he re-entered the hallway, now in disrepair that a simple thousand clams couldn't fix in a week, it was sparsely loose with a fleet of zombies. But what happened to hundreds that were populating the hallway so many minutes ago!

"Oh... never mind!" He started screaming as he tackled two zombies standing aimlessly nearby. A quick swing of the arm and sword flashed through both, cutting them up in less than a second. (320) (233) Just laugh it off in the end, Hovis old boy... J-Just laugh it all off. You might have gone insane, but this will all be over soon. So... think of it as exercise! I-Indeed! You're getting exercise!

"HAAAAARGH!" The butler looked like a deranged badger, thrusting himself and the sword in the loose rotting flesh - only to turn chalk white when the sword got stuck in the zombie. The Zombie floudered both arms, smacking Hovis in the cheek. "DAH! ACKTPH! ACKTPH!" I'm going to die, aren't I?

"Good Lord!" the butler screamed; A minute's struggling, and his new black coat getting tears in it, and he pulled the sword free. "This is ALL INSANE!"

FLASH

Oh. No. The auxilary power's going to go out soon. And he was right, to his own dismay. The flourescent lights above were flickering on and off; The auxiliary power the house was running on at this point would get taxed. It was supposed to be used in emergencies-

Like that was anything surprising. It wasn't going to be very long... his bones and aging limbs had gone numb at the thought.

The zombies howled as their degrading bodies merged like snake, attempting to overwhelm the frightened human.

SLASH - SLASH - SLASH!

(203) - (323) - (100)

Hovis blinked, his mind consumed in a white flash. I'm going to suffer a heart attack after all of this. But overhead, the lights were still flickering on and off, more rapidly than ever now - so once they were off, relying on the stupid sword alone wouldn't save the simple butler from getting flogged - with the increased chance he'd be killed. Lovely.

With that in mind, he ran away and still continued to run like hell in the direction the Zombies were headed. He reasoned that Kennedy was at the center.

But he could see that there were more and more zombies on the way there- and Hovis groaned.

(Meanwhile)

Both Waffle and Kimberly reached the top of the stairs, and both let out a speechless gasp at the scene before them. The house looked like it was in ruins, that and the lights were going out. Most of the furniture had been destroyed, paintings crashed on the floor. Kimberly didn't show that she was panicking on the inside as badly as Waffle.

Suddenly it occured to the dopey white cat that there had to be something bigger going on than just Cookies.

"Lots of corpses... and beards," Waffle said.

(meanwhile)

Tons of zombie heads were littered across the floor, up in piles, and shattered or sliced. literally a path of corpses were paving way into a wider clearing that lead up a set of stairs in the northwest wing of the Cramdilly House. For the very first time fighting for his life like an prisoner of a nuthouse, a certain servant reached a battle-insane high unlike anything he felt before as he reached the top of stairs and opened the door to his destination.

But at least unlike like time, the state of his clothes was clearly nowhere as bad and humiliating like the last time the house had Zombies. Then again, if Kennedy never came and Hovis hadn't been "drafted" into a new exercise routine, and if the electricity was still on allowing for Waffle's "laser light show" to work, he wouldn't even be here. Hovis had lost track of time; but he had to bet that it might have been past midnight. He was dead tired and was prepared to drop.

(meanwhile)

"Blik! Gordon! Wake up!"

Waffle shook Blik away. Blik dribbled in his sleep. Both Blik and Gordon awoke, safe and sound to the face of their younger brother and human girl. "Wow. Why are you guys wearing Curtains?" Waffle asked.

Blik gave his brother a strange look while Gordon stared dead-eyed at their surroundings. "Where are all the zombies!"

Blik was thinking the same thing in shock, but the first thing he did before saying anything was strangling his brother's furry neck. "This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that happens WHEN YOU COOK!"

(meanwhile)

The door opened. Behind it was a lavished, special dining hall area that the Cat's never bothered using. It had all the exquisiteness of a ball room, with a reflective floor, and on either side, a set of stairs that led towards an upper floor where multiple tables would sit, and guarded by a grand railing that ran along each side from one end of the ballroom to the other. The end of the room was a magnificent, grand stained-glass mosaic.

But now the glass was broken looking out on the naked sky. Covered up to its neck in zombies, the room was now surging ocean of walking dead, rippling at the dead center.

"Kennedy...!"

The butler didn't stand there. He ran right into the chaos. Zombies' heads were flying left, right and center, in the center. Every cell in the butler's body felt like it was a match lit on fire as he beat, pushed, and sliced his way into the center.

"Just GET OUT OF MY WAY!"

SLASH - SLASH - SLASH - SLASH - SLASH - SLASH - SLASH

(434) (32) (23) (23) (21) (79) (89)

Hovis just tried ignoring that he saw anything - that was easy part. When he could think of nothing else beyond how badly he wanted to sleep, how he wanted to sleep away the whole crazy experience of the night away, the thought that his lungs were taxed didn't sound so bad after all.

"RRRRRAAAAAAAAH!"

He ducked the swipe of another zombie's bent arm, backing himself against someone else. "Don't start running off anywhere without my guidance from now on!" He yelled at the grass-haired alien.

Kennedy looked positively pristine, completely unfazed and confident. He finally acknowledged him for the first time, swinging that gargantuan weapon of fanatical origin at zombies. More zombies popped up like daisies, forcing him to up his guard. "I had to fight! UUUURGH!" Now the grass-haired alien went on the offensive, punching the zombie in its "jaw".

The butler ducked off and yelped, unable to hear anything but the sound of his own breathing. He was staying close to the alien. "What-!" Interrupted by another zombie's swing, which he quickly cut off by sending the blade up. Now all the skill the white-faced man was building up was becoming frightening. He couldn't feel the sword he was holding anymore.

"... is that thing!"

With a powerful swing of the arm, he caused a large light wave to be unleashed, crippling a giant mass of the undead. The butler's mouth dropped open in shock; what kind of thing was this alien?

The alien did turn around to face him. "This is a Keyblade," he told him like it was the simplest thing in the world to know. "I can do things with it."

Clearly I have gone insane. He calls that thing a Keyblade. "I suppose that sounds normal to you. So like what...!" Hovis found himself asking immediately. Not that he was expecting an answer- but the answer came in two segments: the lights had finally gone out. The auxilary power shut down. Hovis could no longer stand and fell to his knees, not caring whatever insanity lay awaiting him next anymore.

The second, Kennedy grabbed the handle of the giant "Key" with both hands, then held up it high. Both zombie armies were still coming; his mouth curved into a grin.

"Like this."

The Key was starting to glow. The room was getting bright. You couldn't look at anything else because the large key became the sword of all light. The walls were painted with the haunting shadows of the large groups of zombies. The Keyblade as Kennedy called it, was causing the space around him to ripple; Hovis was going to scream, but he couldn't do anything.

And he noticed the outlandish weapon was changing shape. Kennedy's hands didn't budge, but the base did. It was shifting in and out of itself, splitting itself. The darkness gave away it's hollow interior- it looked more like it was becoming a doppleganger of itself. The dual keys crossed, fused at the center to form a huge x-shaped insignia. A greater blade emerged from the fused crossed point of the two keys, looking like a mighty claymore; both sides of the sword (Hovis wouldn't bother with trivials anymore) erupted with an angled, diamond-colored lace like a pair of angel's wings.

All Hovis could do was let his numb legs remain fused in the floor.

"O. My. God."

The house was rumbling, like the light expanding from the sword was causing it. It was another miniature earthquake, Hovis realized in horror, just like the one that hit Bakersfield 3 weeks ago. Even now, the 43-year-old butler could stare hopelessly on. The entire room, and his body were consumed in white.

Ironic when Hovis suddenly blacked out.

End battle

You have wake up sometime.

Who are you?

You've been asking me that since day one.

...

Can't remember?

No I can't.

You can't think of another generic identity question?

...

Then wake up, please.

At the voice's command, Kennedy bolted upright from the floor. He didn't scream and he didn't feel consumed by fear. It was just in that solid blackness where he heard the voice, did he feel the world of nothing grip his body.

But now that all subsided. He couldn't remember anything of the last hours. Wide eyed and fully awake, his surroundings were unfamiliar, decorated with no less than dark-colored shards of shiny glass. The loud wind whistled through the gaping hole in the broken pieta behind Kennedy. Lying not too far from the grass-haired, human-looking alien was the unmoving body of Hovis. Kennedy crawled over. He noticed something else as well; in his left hand he was still holding onto the black sword.

Now Kennedy understood- Hovis must have taken out all the zombies. But why was he lying the floor like that? More importantly, how in the world did they both get here?

Neither question could be answered, when a door from far away suddenly opened. In walked the three cats, safe and sound, along with the human girl Kimberly.

All at once, the 3 cats yelled in surprise, "Kennedy! You're all right!"

Hovis woke up, groaning. Waffle and Gordon went over to Kennedy's side while Blik angry inspected the dishevelled servant. "What happened!" Blik yelled in his face. "What were you doing! Why are you holding THAT!"

Hovis blinked confusedly till he took in his surroundings, the cats, Kimberly, and Kennedy, who regarded him with a strange kind of praise in the form of a subtle smile. This especially caught his attention because he could see that Kennedy's eyes had gone from sea green back to his original lucid, empty black colors. The angles and stern wildness in his face- those were gone too!

"I haven't the faintest clue what went on," was Hovis' answer. And it was the only answer he could think of.

Blik stepped back, and relented. He could see there wasn't a lot that Hovis could tell him.

"Um, sure, whatever."

"At least all the zombies are gone," Kimberly noted in relief. And everyone else was thinking the same thing.

"But our house is destroyed!" Waffle piped up. To which Blik responded, "Yeah. By the way, what have we learned?" He asked both Gordon and Waffle sternly.

Gordon sighed, hating it when Blik started acting like this. "Um, that its' always a bad idea to read from the Scottish book of the Dead?"

Waffle had a zombie's disconnected hand around his neck. His answer was, "That zombies' hands makes for the coolest beard?"

Kennedy came out of nowhere with the answer of, "That... I guess I'm glad I didn't taste Waffle's cooking?"

Blik slapped himself on the forehead, then pinched his featureless nose. "Close enough," he sighed.

"Mr. Blik," Mr. Blik heard Hovis say, "I would like to ask what you're going to do about the mess around the house. I suppose I should retrieve a mop at this point?"

Blik's eyes widened and he stared at his servant like he'd never heard him use such language. But he calmed down. "Duh. You're cleaning it up."

Hovis didn't say anything and got up. Kennedy said, "Maybe I can help?"

The servant looked at him strangely, while Gordon and Waffle looked at each other, and Blik scoffed. "If you want bad karma on your head, go ahead. Weirdo."

Kennedy didn't know what it meant, only that he was strangely accepting that he could be helpful.

Blik frowned, didn't look like was worried, and thought it over before talking again. "Tomorrow. You can just clean it up tomorrow. I mean, everyone needs some sleep. Gordon, you can take Human Kimberly home. Waffle, remind me to find that room where you found your little cookbook so I can personally lock it."

"Okay," said Waffle, who was very surprised and happy to see Blik taking the entire situation with such ease and lack of yelling. Gordon didn't waste any time and led Human Kimberly out on the street for the evening.

During all of this, Hovis asked, "I'll get up early after getting some rest. Then I will get a mop."

"Yeah, you do that. But..." the bossy cat motioned for him to lean down. Blik started whispering in his ear. "I'm going to find out what REALLY happened sooner or later. And keep an eye on this kid!"

Kennedy couldn't hear and waited innocently.

"I wouldn't find that to be too difficult," was Hovis answer.

"Yeah... he's starting to creep me out," Blik said, frowning.

The greatest surprise for both that evening was actually discovering that they both agreed on something.

(Scene Change)

It was fairly blunt decision that the guest room where they originally housed Kennedy since the start of the month became Kennedy's permanent guest bed. Lapsing twice out of his original personas, the grass-haired alien didn't think much of his living arrangements. Kennedy was like a lot of humans, not in expression, nor in his latent abilities to whom Hovis was its' only witness, but that like everyone else, he could get tired.

Hovis didn't think about any of the strange things that happened over the whole evening. Nor did he want to try and ask Kennedy, who appeared to have completely forgotten everything.

Now the servant was tucking him into his bed, tired beyond reason. As he turned to drag himself out, he flipped the switch, only to realize that the power was already out. And he'd have a lot of work to do the following day; that was going to be a treat. The worst part, he thought to himself, I don't even have the energy to laugh this whole thing off. Really all I need is some sleep, a change of clothes, and then I can sleep this whole thing off.

"Mr. Hovis?"

The servant turned around and stared blankly at Kennedy's blank face. "What is it now?"

"I don't remember a lot of anything... but... you never told me why my name is Kennedy."

Hovis looked up at him in surprise.

(3 Weeks ago)

"My new friend Conroy, see, he told me that was how his father gave me his name!"

"How could you know something like that?" Blik asked. "More importantly, how did you make a new friend?"

"3 days ago after the alien came. Let's pick a name! PICK A NAME, PICK A NAME!"

"OKAY, OKAY!" Blik yelled. "Gordon you do it, make it quick."

Gordon was already fast underway taking small pieces of paper and writing names on them. "Already doing it, lad."

In the silence that followed, Gordon finished, telling everybody in the room, "Okay, come over here."

Waffle, Mr. Blik and Hovis walked over. Blik who wasn't interested, suddenly became a little estatic. "So what're we gonna name the little bab-bie?"

Gordon dropped all the cards on their written sides on the table. "Okay lads. It works like this. We'll all randomly pick a name out of the pile first. Go!"

Despite all the drama Gordon was putting into it, all 4 members in the room picked up a name card. Then Gordon pulled out a miniature Vaccuum cleaner, sweeping away the remaining cards. "Okay," Gordon said. "Now we have FOUR cards. Lads. What're your selections? My card says "Patrick"."

Blik showed the name on his card. "Johnny. Now THAT'S a manly name. Wait a minute. Gordon, why did YOU have to be the one who writes down the names?"

"You agreed," Gordon pointed out. I wrote whatever came to mind. I, uh, I didn't have anything specific in mind at all."

Blik sneered at his brother, but decided to not do anything. "FINE. Waffle what's the stupid-poopy name you pulled?"

Waffle held up the card. "It says Anti-disestablishmentarianism."

Blik blinked both at the card and his brother. Gordon chuckled embarrassed. "Heh, uh, I really wasn't thinking at the time."

Waffle grimaced at the name. "I think it sounds cool."

"You WOULD. Do you KNOW what that means?" Blik asked him.

"Uh, a librarian? Like the one in the library that burned down last week, I'm not stupid, Blik, so pffft!" Waffle said, sticking his tongue out.

"AAAAAND we're coming down to the bald guy. Hovis! Show the stupid slip," he ordered his servant.

At this point Hovis exposed the name on the card. "Kennedy."

Gordon nodded. "Okay then, everyone throw down the slips. We'll have ONE person draw the final choice, then that'll be our new guests name." Everyone did, but Blik was getting annoyed with the potentially retarded possibility that they were going to have to start referring to their Alien guest as an "Anti-disestablishmentarianism". Gordon then stacked the cards, reshuffled them, and then let all four plop down in a messy pile.

"Now the choice will definitely be random. So... who wants a go?" Gordon asked.

"OH NO!" Blik yelled, pushing Gordon out of the way. "I'm NOT going to get suckered into THIS again, so I won't give you the opportunity and choose the cotton-pickin name MYSELF!"

Gordon had no idea what Blik was getting angry about, but decided to just go with it and let Blik choose.

Blik was about to choose a name but then Waffle piped up with a question. "Wait. I mean is this right?"

"Huh?" said Blik.

"I mean giving an Alien a human Earth-bound name and identity? Wouldn't that sort of cripple him psychologically when he wakes up, possibly under the persona that wouldn't be able to fully recall the past self that used bad words and stuff? And if he finds out, wouldn't he be emotionally scarred or something?"

"Waffle this whole stupid idea was yours."

"No! Conroy gave it to me! Stop trying to blame me! Blamer!"

"You know what? Screw it," Blik said, ignoring Waffle. "We're already neck deep in this, so let's do it anyway."

Blik slowly reached for first card he saw in front of him. Now he was beginning to sweat. So was Gordon. Hovis, not at all interested, stared at his watch. Waffle made a fart with his armpits.

Blik sweat harder; now that he thought about it, Name choosing was a difficult process. He didn't understand why he didn't see it until now.

Oh well, he thought. We're no better if we didn't do this. Yeah. That totally makes sense. Cause we're rich cats! We have money!... but then... does Money really matter in this case? GAH! Get it together, Blik Cramdilly! MONEY and fame always matters!

He thought thinking that would calm him down, but all it accomplished was making his arm shake badly. Blik still managed to grab the first card he saw. No one knew what name it would be. The air suddenly became so tense you could slice through it. Now all Blik was hoping was that whatever the name choice would be it had to be something other than "Anti-disestablishmentarianism".

"W-what is it?" Gordon choked out. "Show us!"

Blik pulled up the name, "Kennedy".

Both cats breathed a collective sigh of relief. Blik snapped back into his usual, braggart self. "Ha! "Anti-Disestablishmentarianism" my crook'd little tail! Our new guests name is Kennedy. End of story!"

"Eh," Waffle sighed detachedly. "KInda lame though. Corn would've been a lot better!"

" "Kennedy" has class, style, and distinction. It's also rich sounding."

"Kennedy was the last name of the president that'd been shot in the head by an unknown assassin," Hovis stated factually. "It's also a very uncommon name. Kennedy happens to actually pose a bit of irony actually. It means "Armoured Head". Only JFK never had his head covered the day he got shot."

Gordon stared at his butler impressed, while Waffle hadn't a clue what was going on. "Wow," said Gordon. "Dark humour."

Blik sneered up at the butler and yelled, "Who asked you! Oh, and by the way, THAT doesn't apply! You want to know why? Cause in that scenario, Kennedy Is the last name of JFK, whereas our Kennedy has it as a FIRST name, STUPID! So PFFFT!"

"Blik!" Gordon yelled at him. "What?" Blik yelled back. "Who cares what he says?"

"Well he's right on most accounts," Gordon said. "Come to think of it, "Kennedy" also means Deformed Head."

"Deformed Head! Splee!"

"And come to think of it, you are extremely boring," Blik snapped at him. "Who cares about meaning as long as it gives him identity? And Shut up, WAFFLE!"

Somehow Blik's last sentence had a large dosage of irony behind it, Gordon noticed.

"It was chosen to be your name," Hovis finished explaining to Kennedy. But Kennedy hadn't followed much of what he said.

"My name is unique," Kennedy said. "I'm Kennedy."

"Yes," Hovis said stoically. "Yes, that's the case. Nothing more to it. Your name is Kennedy."

Kennedy didn't look like he was in any deep thought. But a small smile formed. "But If it could've been a name different, I could have had another?"

Hovis was getting tired of answering questions, and getting tired period, but simply pushed Kennedy's head down onto the pillow and tucking him in. "Well, we certainly would have a lengthened debate over that, wouldn't we? Good night then, I need to get my own sleep."

Kennedy watched him go, then focused on the ceiling. "Mr. Hovis?"

Hovis didn't turn around but responded with, "Yes, what is it?"

"... Thank you for giving me the name, "Kennedy"."

Kennedy couldn't see the servant's face, which had melted to one of comical annoyance and dead surprise. "All right, enough of that, go to sleep." With that the servant was gone as he closed the door.

Kennedy spent the many minutes still thinking over all the things Hovis said as he drifted off.

As usual the attic was cold, but Hovis didn't seem to mind it anymore as slipped into a long-sleeve red shirt and red pants. Then he sat down on his bed bunker, he slipped on his night-mask to shut out the horrors of the evening. Now he could finally sleep it off.

But he decided that no matter what he did there was no point in trying to sleep the whole thing off; he wouldn't forget the insanity that happened in front of his eyes, and was no way he could disprove it happened- His right eye was still uncovered, eyeing the absurdly sharp blade sitting in the corner.

Hovis gave it bit of thought.

It was black as onyx, stained by zombie skin with dried blood, and dirt grit coating the tip. From his position it looked like the ugly brother he never knew nor wanted had now come to stay, a bothersome, annoying thing which he held responsibility over.

Just one unnatural trait it and Kennedy seemed to share.

NC: House Problems (Personal Gas)

Hiya. Where have I been? I've been to slay the jabberwocky and went on to save Narnia.

But the best feeling is getting this chapter done. So What HAVE we established so far in this chapter? Let's take some inventory.

- How Kennedy gets his name.

- Waffle's new Friend.

- "RETURN OF THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: REANIMATED STYLE"

- How Hovis gets roped into this.

- Kennedy's reaction to pain.

- Kennedy's bizzare and unpredictable changes.

- The Keyblade thing - That and I decided to throw in a little something something that relates to something that just recently came out in Japan.

Apologies all around to Xegrot for letting me use one of HIS original characters in this story. It was last minute.