1. Divergent Household Detergent, A Different Kind of Parody, Chapter 3

But before any grand plans could be carried out, it was time to go back to school. For a brief moment it almost seemed as if everything was turning back to normal. But that of course was a feeling of very short duration. The calm before the storm, as it were. A short moment of peace before everything was once again dragged into the abyssal chaos. And those moments of abyssal horror came sooner than the young master cared for. It was one of those unusual times when the young master dutifully tried to complete his homework. Since he had no clue as to how to prepare a decent meal and no one was around to serve him one, he was forced to dine at restaurants. His desire for convenient fast-food drove him to have his dinner at a diner near his school. Cassandra was sitting across from him at the table, both of them were deeply focused on their homework lying before them.

“Servant! Bring me your sweetest milkshake!” I ordered one of the servers of this strange establishment to fulfill my needs. I could hear Cassandra sighing in front of me as soon as I finished speaking.

“Maybe it is better I order next time,” she said.

“Don’t worry, I am used to giving orders,” I tried to put her mind at ease.

“I think you’re missing my point…” she started but was interrupted by an exceptionally annoying voice.

“Your dinner has been served,” the voice stated. It was a raspy voice with a German accent. It made us both look up in search of the source of this annoyance. One of the servers was standing at our table, holding one plate filled with food in each hand. There was a lot of salad in both plates. It exceeded the usual amount for my diet.

“I didn’t order this,” I said.

“We already ate. You must have the wrong table,” Cassandra explained.

“I ordered a milkshake though. You mind bringing me that one?” I added. The waiter however didn’t answer and there was just an extremely confused look on his face. I would have preferred if he had left but he didn’t. After a closer look, I noticed that he was wearing army boots and a camouflage uniform under his white but dirty apron. Then, in a split second he let both plates fall to the ground and pulled out a machine pistol from underneath his apron. My attention was caught by the breaking of the plates on the floor so I didn’t realize it soon enough. Only when he started shooting I became fully aware of the unpleasantness of the situation. Cassandra however was able to react faster. In the very moment the plates broke, she flipped our table, jumped behind it and finally pulled me behind it as well. Somehow we were unharmed. The table though had several holes in it. And our food and homework was all over the place.

“I was almost finished! Do you know how long it took me to get there, you moron? Now you do my homework!” I shouted at this seemingly German perpetrator.

“Like hell I will,” was his answer. “I am here to kill you, Masterfox!” he then shouted, ready to fire again. This time the table broke apart completely. Everyone in the restaurant was screaming and running. They were screaming so loud I almost couldn’t hear what Cassandra was yelling right next to me. Or perhaps it was due to the fact that my ears were ringing and I couldn’t really hear anything, since the gunfire had been extremely loud. But I saw her lips forming the word “Glove,” and all was clear. Pulling the Glove of Contradiction out of my pocket, I had it on my right hand in no time. The attacker was once again aiming his weapon at me but this time I was prepared. Interestingly I couldn’t see any bloodlust in his eyes, just cold determination. I pushed my right hand towards him in an attempt to focus the energy and indeed the shockwave resulting from this, had a greater impact than any I had produced before. He was thrown backwards flying through the room and finally landed on another table. This table, of rather cheap design, of course didn’t last long under the weight and soon the table legs gave in. The man was now lying on the ground covered in cake and coffee, passed out by the looks of it.

“Well that was…interesting,” I said, slowly lowering my hand. It seemed like everyone had left, even the waiters. There was really nothing else to do but to leave as well. But just when we were about to do so, another person entered the restaurant. A man in a dark suit.

“You should try somewhere else. It might be hard getting anything on the table here,” Cassandra informed the man.

“Quite a mess,” he said with a refined British accent. Then he slowly walked towards us, as if unbothered by the destruction around him. Besides his decidedly expensive looking suit, he had a simple haircut, that seemed very efficient to maintain. Despite his elegant appearance however, he somehow didn’t look very healthy as I took a glance at his face.

“I see you have already met Lt. Messerschmidt. You might say he has a hard time reacting to human emotion. Or experiencing it for that matter,” the man friendly explained.

“Tell us something we don’t know. I could already tell by his accent that he is German,” Cassandra answered while brushing the dust off her clothes.

“Yes, but he is not quite as human as you think,” the man further explained.

I apologize for the interruption, but it appears there is a need to further elaborate on this subject. I will at this point try to explicate the basic concept of a cyborg. A combination of the words “Cybernetic” and “Organism”, a cyborg is, as those words imply, a being with both organic and cybernetic or biomechatronic body parts. It is a somewhat enhanced human being, that with the help of its non-human body parts can perform actions a normal human being couldn’t possibly be able to perform. Are they able to think for themselves? Yes. Do they think they are better than normal human beings? In most cases yes. But are they really better? That is another question entirely.

“Anyway, I defeated him. It doesn’t matter now. Who are you anyway?” I continued impatiently.

“Let’s just say I am simply a concerned member of society. I belong to a certain Committee, a committee bound to make the world a better place. And you, Masterfox, are a threat to that very idea. So we decided in the Committee that it would be best if we were to kill you. Of course, we are very well aware of your cunning and we therefore expected it might prove difficult to just kill you. Hence I proposed a different idea. You might think of it as a fox hunt. You and all your friends shall all play along. You’ll soon find out more. There will be ice cream. So long,” the man said and then just immediately vanished. I don’t know what kind of trick he used. There was no smoke or anything, he just vanished. It wasn’t the most confusing thing I had ever seen, but combined with the man’s threatening words, there was something sinister about it.