Cherry’s phone was buzzing again. Taking it from her hip, she looked at the screen and saw the familiar photo she’d taken of Beatrix Kiddo some months back. Once upon a time, it was an image she’d looked upon fondly, a reminder of happier days when Cherry and Trixie (as Cherry liked to call her) would go bowling or miniature golfing. Sometimes, they’d stay in and watch Flavor of Love or The Hills marathons on a lazy Saturday, still dressed in their PJs from the night before.

These days, though, that picture just meant that it was yet another call from “The Bride.” Whining. Self-centered. Easily upset. Cherry could barely stand the thought of hanging with her former BFF, much less stomach the idea of calling her “The Bride,” something Beatrix had insisted upon ever since Bill and the DVAS had turned on her. So annoying.

Cherry rejected the call yet again. It seemed like the 50^th time she’d done so in the last week, but it was in fact just the 8^th. Still, she wished nothing more than to just have Trixie out of her life for good. Trixie, meanwhile, was lonely and scared that her lone friend in the world was ditching her as well. It was time to escalate the situation.

Trixie hopped in the Pussy Wagon and headed for the Pussy Ranch (Cherry’s house of employment). No dice though, as the diminutive dancer was nowhere to be found. So she roamed, hitting up every burger joint, dive bar and drive-in in a three county radius. Still nothing. Searching for hours, she couldn’t help that she had cooled down some by now, her fire and growing ire towards Cherry waning. It was time to head home, and possibly pick up this fight another day.

But there the bitch was. Trixie didn’t notice her at first - how could she? But there Cherry was, in front of a Dairy Queen, riding the mechanical toy horse (and El Wray as well). The nerve of those two – that thing’s for kids, yet here they were defiling it, all for the low, low price of two bits while downing their Peanut Buster Parfaits and Butterfinger Blizzards.

The P Wagon came to a screeching halt as Trixie practically flew out of it and onto the DQ parking lot.

“Bitch!” she screamed at Cherry. “Why have you forsaken me like all the others, and for toy horses and desserts, no less?”

“What pipe are you smokin’, Trixie?” Cherry snarled. “Just ‘cause I’m on a date with my man doesn’t mean I’m ‘forsaking you.’ Could you be a bigger drama queen?”

“Enough lies!” The Bride screamed, tears nearly bursting forth. “You don’t answer my calls or text messages, my emails get returned with that annoying MAILER DAEMON thing, and did I get even a thank you for the singing telegram? You’re gonna tell me a hippo belting out ‘Happy Birthday’ wasn’t the shiznit? How dare you treat me like this!”

“Uh, creepy,” Cherry said, as she inched away from Beatrix.

“What’s creepy about friendship?” blurted the Bride.

At this point, tears were streaming from Beatrix’s face, her makeup turning her into a Tammy Faye clone. Cherry couldn’t take much more of this. The toy horse was bothering her as well, so she promptly hopped off and confronted her former friend.

“Look, Bea, I know you’ve gone through some tough times, but I just don’t think we should see each other anymore. It’s not you, though, it’s me.”

“You’re using the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ routine?!? I invented ‘it’s not you, it’s me!’” shouted the Bride.

“There you go again with the drama queen business. You’re a bald-faced liar. Everyone knows George Costanza invented that line – I was just trying to spare your feelings. You know what, though – fine, it’s me. I – me – just can’t stand you anymore.”

Beatrix fell to the ground, a crumpled mess and a shell of her former self. Despite her blubbering, she managed to make a half-assed attempt at lunging towards Cherry with her Hanzo, but her emotional state had left her impotent in her assassinly ways. Cherry, being the hunter that she was, knew a wounded animal when she saw one, though, and sought to put her old friend out of her misery.

“Who brings a knife to a gun fight, anyway,” she mustered, as she put the Bride down with a single shot to the head.

“Say hi to Budd for me. I always liked that crazy Texan.”

——————-

The Bride was riding on Kyra’s dead body as they were both falling down her apartment building. As they were approaching the ground, Beatrix jumped off and while Kyra’s body landed with a wet THUD, The Bride landed on her feet.

Beatrix caught her breath and started to head back up when she saw that guy Jason walking out, holding a cell phone. He was covered in blood.

“It’s for you,” Jason said.

“What happened to you?” Beatrix asked.

“That Riddick guy came out and I asked him to spell a five letter word. One thing led to another and his head exploded.”

“Oh,” was all The Bride could say as she took the cell phone. “Beatrix Kiddo.”

“Hey, uh, it’s me. Q. We, uh, have a…situation here. We need your help.”

“I’m on my way.”

Beatrix hung up the phone.

“I gotta go. Good luck with your story,” Beatrix said, as she headed to her super cool car.

“Thanks. I’m gonna need it.”

Twenty minutes later, Beatrix arrived and she heard a whole lot of screaming and shooting. Beatrix got out of her car and headed towards the chaos. She saw “Q” and some Mexican fellow she remembers meeting once or twice. They were backing away from some black-haired chick missing a leg and-is this right?-in place of the missing leg was a machine gun?

“Cool”, Beatrix said.

“WHY DIDN’T MY MOVIE DO BETTER!” the machine gun legged chick was screaming out, as she shot some more people around her.

“I don’t know,” said the Mexican man, with fear in his eyes and voice.

“Look, if you just settle down-”

“What’s going on here?” Beatrix asked. Everyone, including the machine gun legged chick, looked at her.

“Oh thank God!” Q yelled out.

“WHAT IS SHE DOING HERE?!”

“She saw that our movie didn’t do so good, so she just went NUTS!” explained the Mexican fellow.

“I WANT YOU OUT OF HERE!!” the machine gun legged chick screamed as she aimed her leg-gun at Beatrix. Before the first 30 or so shots were fired, Beatrix jumped out of the way.

Beatrix landed nearby and ran for cover.

“Cherry, no!” said Q.

“Cherry?” Beatrix asked. “The hell kinda name is Cherry?”

“She’s a stripper. With a special talent,” the Mexican fellow said.

“And a, uh, machine gun for a leg,” Q added.

“Nice characteristic,” Beatrix added, pulling out her sword.

Cherry finally ran out of bullets and she hobbled over to where Beatrix was, who stood up with the sword.

“I don’t want you around!” Cherry bellowed.

“You’re just jealous that my movieSSS did better than yours!”

“You bitch!”

“Well, it’s not my fault your movie was directed by the guy who gave us ‘Sharkboy and Lavagirl’”.

“Yeah well…your guy…produced Hostel! And Hostel Part 2!”

“Ooh, that wasn’t necessary.”

Beatrix raised her sword and chopped off Cherry’s left arm, who looked at it, not at horror but with glee.

“Oh good! I can put a bazooka there!”

Cherry kicked her machine gun leg and kicked Beatrix in the side with it, causing her to fall. Cherry grabbed the sword and looked at it.

“Or this will do instead!” Cherry said, who then went and shoved the sword into the bloody stump. Cherry then made it move around.

“Nice.”

“You better, uh, run!” Q yelled out.

Beatrix got up and started running, with Cherry doing a sort of a half run-half stomp towards her. Beatrix thought and thought as she looked around. Then she saw the one thing that’ll take care of this deformed bitch.

Right in front of her was the Killer Car from “Death Proof,” with the skull painted on the hood and everything. Cherry stopped as Beatrix got in.

“Hold on to your remaining limbs,” Beatrix said, while she revved up the car. Cherry turned around and started running the other way. Beatrix continued revving the engine until it was nice and ready. Before Cherry could make it out the door, Beatrix put the death car into drive and immediately was going about damn near 80 MPH.

She was slowly catching up to Cherry, who was praying for more bullets to magically appear in her leg gun but it wasn’t happening. Beatrix then swerved off to the right and headed for a ramp that was suddenly there. She jumped the ramp and the car flew into the air, heading towards Cherry. Before Cherry knew it, the car landed right on top of her, crushing her entire body. Beatrix, for good measure, ran over the little stump that remained of Cherry, before getting out.

“That’s what I call a race car in the red.”

After winning Survivor and stabbing Suzanne Maretto in the face, Kyra was unfortunately sent to prison for her murderous deed. While in the joint, however, she heard a crazy rumor about this rogue assassin who had killed all of her ex-teammates in order to get to her boss and kill him, as well. Intrigued by the ruthlessness, Kyra knew she had to meet this woman, for she seemed dastardly enough to know where a person like Riddick could be.

So she researched and researched until she finally pinpointed a location on this lone assassin. Kyra then, quite easily, broke out of the pathetic excuse for a prison (she’d been confined to much, much worse) and made her way to where her research pointed her to.

Upon reaching said locale, a very small town in the middle of nowhere, Kyra easily found the woman, Beatrix Kiddo. The town looked like it had come out of a western movie, and it didn’t help that Beatrix was walking down the end of an old, dusty road when she found her.

“Beatrix Kiddo,” Kyra called out.

The woman turned.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I need to talk to you. I heard about what you did.”

Kyra had gotten her full attention now. Beatrix faced her fully, hand on the sword she always carried with her in paranoia.

“Who sent you?”

“Nobody. I’ve need to know if you’ve heard of a Richard B. Riddick.”

“Riddick? Never.”

“You’re not lying to me, are you?”

“Are you lying to me?”

The two women stared at each other in a death glance. Then, for no apparent reason, they charged each other, Beatrix with her sword unsheathed. The blonde woman swiped with her sword, but Kyra easily dodged. Kyra then pulled out her vicious-looking dagger, taking a swipe at Beatrix, but missing. There was an animalistic glare in Kyra’s eyes. She knew exactly how to take this woman down easily: Left of the spine, fourth lumbar down, the abdominal aorta. The Sweet Spot, Kyra thought.

Kyra jumped, doing a spinning corkscrew in the air to slice at Beatrix with the blades in the backs of her boots, but Beatrix simply barred them with her Hanzo sword.

As Kyra landed, Beatrix jabbed with her sword, scratching Kyra’s arm, but it didn’t matter. Kyra had spun and jammed her dagger into the sweet spot. It was over before it had barely begun.

——————-

By Jason from Invasion of the B Movies.

The Bride aka Beatrix is relaxing in her apartment. It’s about time she got to relax. She’s been through a lot. So much that if it was all to be turned into a movie, it’d have to split into two parts. Beatrix goes to settle down with some tea and is about to watch an old Kung-Fu movie on TV when there’s a knock on the door.

Beatrix looks at it oddly and quietly goes and looks in the peephole. She saw a man, in his 20’s, with short black hair and glasses. He looked nervous. Realizing a nervous nerdy guy is no threat, she opened the door.

“Can I help you?” Beatrix asked.

“Uh, yeah. Hi. My name is Jason. And I need your help.”

“With what?”

“Well…you’re gonna find this hard to understand-”

“Try me.”

“Ok. I’ve been tasked with writing a short story about you.”

“Really? Come on in.”

Beatrix gave Jason room to walk in. He slips through the door and looks around.

“Nice place,” Jason said, still looking nervous.

“So what’s this story about?” Beatrix asked, closing the door behind her.

“Well, it’s a hypothetical story about what would happen if you fought some other women that kick ass.”

“I see. And you need what exactly?”

“Well, the person you’re suppose to be fighting, I have no clue who she is. So I thought maybe if we both watch this-” Jason pulls out a “Chronicles of Riddick” DVD “-together, then we’d find out who she is and if maybe you could beat her.”

Beatrix thought about it. She looked at the DVD and read the description. It was some sci-fi movie. She wasn’t a fan of sci-fi; action and kung-fu was more her thing. But if she was to help this geek out, she’d have to study her opponent.

“Alright. I’ll put it in.”

After two hours, Jason looks as if his eyes were going to melt.

“I forgot to mention I really don’t like Vin Diesel,” Jason said, rubbing his eyes.

“I don’t blame you. His voice is pretty monotonous and he sounds like he should be saying ‘Duh’ before he starts each sentence.”

“So what do you think?”

Before Beatrix could answer, her TV started leaking. Beatrix and Jason looked at it oddly. Soon the screen shattered and crawling from the broken screen was Kyra, the girl they were both studying. She lands on the rug with a THUD, then quickly gets up.

“Who’s talking crap about my movie?!” Kyra said.

“You broke my TV!” Beatrix bellowed.

“Oh boy!” Jason said, doing a good impression of Sam Beckett.

The two women circled each other.

“So, you didn’t like my movie, huh?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Well, we’ll have to change your mind now, huh?”

And before she knew it, Kyra jumped over to Beatrix and slammed her on top of the head with both fists. Beatrix fell on her coffee table, breaking it. Kyra then started pounding on Beatrix, hitting her all over. Jason looked around and saw the infamous sword. He jumped up and grabbed it.

“Beatrix! Here!” Jason yelled as he threw the sword. It landed right in Beatrix’s hand and she did one *swish* and soon Kyra’s left arm was cut clean off. Kyra stood up, screaming. Beatrix jumped up onto her feet, holding the sword. Beatrix runs to Kyra, about to slash again when Kyra picks up her cut-off arm and uses it to hit the sword, knocking it out of her hand.

Kyra then slaps Beatrix silly with the dismembered arm, stunning her. Beatrix, stunned, grabs a couch cushion and hits Kyra with it, which makes her drop the arm. Beatrix then runs up to her and tackles her, and they fly backwards all the way to the window. Did I mention Beatrix’s apartment was on the 37th floor. 37????

Jason runs to the window, furiously taking notes. Before Beatrix and Kyra fell out of sight, he saw Beatrix punch Kyra over and over again until she was unconscious. Then Beatrix stood up on Kyra’s body and used it as some type of windboard while she plummets down to the ground.

Jason lost sight of Beatrix and Kyra. He backed away from the window when he heard something behind him. Jason slowly turned around and before he knew it, a big bald man wearing dark black goggles was standing behind him.

“Duh, you don’t like me, I hear?”

“Ohhh boy…”

Asami, intrigued by the apparent gullibility of Americans after her recent trip to Texas, returns to the United States and this time visits Texas to find it a wasteland and finds herself meeting with a woman named Cherry who has survived whatever catastrophe has struck the state.

Asami is respectful and reserved in the Japanese fashion and earns Cherry’s trust. Eventually, she offers to take Cherry to Japan and offer her lodging until she can get on her feet there, away from all of the mess that is now Texas. Cherry gladly accepts and the two board a JAL flight to Tokyo, first class.

Upon arrival they take a taxi to Asami’s apartment (her victims are carefully hidden in sound-proofed trunks and other, assorted small, but effective devices, leaving outside observers completely ignorant of the horrible torture chamber which they have entered.

Cherry, calmed by the incredible kindness and graciousness of her hostess, calms herself with some tea and sits on the tatami mats which cover the floor of Asami’s apartment. Asami suggests they have some tea and Cherry, calmed by the consideration and care of her hostess, has built up enough trust to allow herself to consume some tea and so she gladly accepts.

Asami, as many may guess has a syringe of GHB hidden in her clothing, suspecting that her new guest may want to switch glasses to assuage whatever left over paranoia she has. She brings out and presents the tea and, just as Asami expected she would, asks for Asami’s cup of tea in exchange for the cup offered to her. Asami feigns slight offense, but acquiesces to the request and waits for an opportunity to pull out her syringe and squirt the GHB into the cup Cherry has accepted.

Unused to unsweetened tea, Cherry requests some sugar and Asami tells her it is in the kitchen on the counter. When Cherry leaves, Asami squirts the GHB into Cherry’s tea quickly and then uses the syringe to quickly stir it in (though since it’s colorless, odorless and tasteless, this may not even be necessary). Cherry returns and the two enjoy their tea until Cherry begins to feel tired and asks to be shown where she will sleep.

Asami brings her to her guest room, pulls out the traditional futon and bed linens and Cherry lies down and falls asleep.

Creeping into the room after the GHB has taken its effect, Asami injects Cherry with a strong sedative that is long-lasting and paralyzes her muscles, but leaves her nerve endings and consciousness in full awareness.

Asami uses the time with the GHB to restrain Cherry on a table with an elaborate series of ropes fashioned from barbed wire, which she tightens enough to leave ligature marks on Cherry. Cherry is now completely immobile and even if she somehow moves, it will only cause her greater pain by the barbed wire digging into her flesh.

Asami prepares her instruments and awaits Cherry’s awakening. After several hours this occurs and Cherry, confused and terrified, exclaims to Asami that there must be an intruder in the apartment and that she must help her!

Asami tells her in a soothing, but malevolent voice that there is no intruder; in fact, she has fallen into an elaborate trap and will now suffer what can only be described as death, literally by torture. “There will be no quick death for you,” she says, “and you will not simply be modified and stored like my slaves; instead I will simply torture you until you pass out from the pain, wait for you to awaken and repeat the process until you are dead.”

The first of the torture devices Asami brings removes the skin from Cherry’s feet, ankles and calves in what can only be described as a peeling and tearing fashion. Cherry screams in agony as the muscle, tendons and bone of her lower legs and feet is exposed to the air. Asami then brings out her belt sander and beginning with the bottoms of Cherry’s feet, begins to sand through the flesh of her feet, removing millimeter by millimeter the raw, exposed flesh until she
reaches Cherry’s knees.

Noting the blood loss, Asami brings in an IV filled with a blood type universally accepted by humans of all types and injects this while using a blowtorch every once in a while to seal off the bleeding areas and ensure not too much blood is lost that Cherry will die. Once the sanders reaches Cherry’s knees, she is long since passed out from the pain, so Asami bides her time and applies tourniquets to the portion of the leg above the knee to prevent any more loss of blood.

When Cherry awakens, Asami says she has always wanted to experiment with her tools in ways that would be too damaging or fatal to her slaves, so she will try them on Cherry instead.

She applies a water-based gelled lubricant to Cherry’s lips, nose and eyes and eyelids and tells her, “Do you know what happens when lye reacts with water?” The movie Fight Club long since engraining this into pop culture knowledge, Cherry is terrified beyond belief and begins praying for death.

Meanwhile, Asami applies enough lye to cover each of the gelled spots while wearing heavy gloves and the horror of chemical burns to some of the most moist and sensitive parts of Cherry’s body begins. Screaming in abject terror Cherry begins to resemble something from Tales from the Crypt or even the tar man from Return of Living Dead, lost without a nose or lips to cover her teeth, she looks like a living, breathing skull.

It is obvious when the lye reaction reaches the eyes and at this point the pain is so unbearable Cherry lets out her most fervent cry for help. The walls of the apartment being thoroughly sound-proofed, this accomplishes nothing and Cherry pours a liquid lye onto the eyeballs, waiting for them to burst open and cause a massive chemical burn which will drill through the eyes, their sockets, the nerves and into the brain matter. While this is happening she decides that she might as well begin getting rid of the evidence, so she douses Cherry with water and then applies vigorous amounts of powdered lye all over the body, which sticks to the water and begins to burn away the flesh.

Screaming and writhing as her eyeballs burst the plan goes into action, Cherry can’t help but wonder if her life would’ve been better off had she died in Texas. She fades on that memory as the lye covering her body produces an unimaginable pain and the lye in her eyes finally reaches into her brain causing her to fall unconscious and when it reaches the brain stem, dead.

Asami reviews her work and then raises the walls of the custom-built table to which Cherry is attached, adding waterproof and corrosion-resistant corners to provide a bathtub of sorts. She fills it with an acid and waits for the remains of this petulant Texan to dissolve. After that, Cherry’s body will be cast away by simply being flushed down the toilet and ending up at one of Tokyo’s many waste treatment plants where the workers think nothing of organic matter and lye flowing into their treatment pits.

Cherry is gone in life and body and Asami has claimed another victim in her sadistic adventures through the world of horror and pain the likes of which have not been seen since the Marquis de Sade’s ventures in France.

————–

Asami thought she had found her next perfect target…

Having grown bored with tending to malformed, tongueless troglodytes in potato sacks, she’d made the decision to take a vacation. Money wasn’t a problem, but boredom was, and America is nothing if not a cure for boredom. So off she went – first Seattle, then San Francisco, San Diego and so on, making her way south and east across the United States. Sure, there were killings here and there (someone’s gotta pay the bills, right?), but it had all grown so mundane.

Traversing across Texas, she was famished, and this was a hunger no vomit could cure. Stopping at a local, podunk truck stop, she found the man she just might have been looking for all these years. Short, dark-haired, troubled and taking nothing from no one, El Wray was, in many ways, just like her. In her broken English, she asked him to pass the hot sauce – after catching the glimmer in his eyes as he passed the Tabasco, they both knew that love was on the menu. The only problem? It was written in English. This proved a minor obstacle as they both soon dove headfirst into Rosetta Stone tapes all about the International Language…

Unfortunately, there was no translation for “another woman” in that language. As they rested after a rousing roll in the hay, El Wray searched for the right way to tell this pixie that his heart already belonged to another. As it turned out, that glimmer in Wray’s eye was just hot sauce.

Asami sat there, broken into a million pieces for the thousandth time. She was emotionally paralyzed, though she knew that that motionless feeling would soon be transferred to someone else. She let Wray leave…for now.

It didn’t take long for her to track him, or to ascertain to whom his heart belonged. A uni-legged stripper. Perfect – half the work was already done for Asami. She knew that the best way to inflict pain on Wray (before turning the screws to him) was to knock that stump-legged stripper down a few pegs.

Cherry was working at a lesbian burlesque bar these days, so Asami strolled in one day to pay a visit to her favorite dancer. Fortunately, having lots of money and speaking little was a winning combination for Asami, as this only made the dancers more curious and interested. Cherry wanted those Benjamins bad (machine gun legs tend to cause a lot of stump infections, leading to numerous doctor visits), so she did her best to draw Asami out of her shell while emptying her coin purse. She had the bartender bring them over some drinks –

Big mistake, and just the one Asami was waiting for. Going straight to her wheelhouse, she slipped a sedative into Cherry’s drink, and in no time had dragged her into a ladies’ room stall for some “aggressive counseling.” She first sliced off three of Cherry’s fingers and her nose. Then a breast. Flush. A couple toes here, an ear there. Flush. Just one problem – over the years, Cherry had built up an immunity to iocane powder. Pained as she was, she awoke and kicked the scrawny Asami clean off her, knocking her out in the process. In no shape to battle and fearful that Asami would wake, she tore out of the bar and headed for her car and home.

It was there that Wray saw what a monster Asami had turned Cherry into. However, where some might have seen a monster, El Wray only saw beauty and opportunity. As Cherry passed out, Wray tended to her wounds…

It was only when Cherry awoke that she realized the genius that was El Wray. Sure, she knew of his philandering ways, but only a brilliant mastermind could take a one-legged, no-nosed, one-eared, one-breasted, seven-fingered, eight-toed beast of a woman and turn her into a machine-gun legged, dagger-fingered, grenade-eared, dynamite-breasted, brass-knuckle-toed superkiller.

Asami didn’t stand a chance…

Kyra wanted badly to kill Suzanne Stone because Kyra had spent many years living in prison without much food or Oxygen — the TV channel and not the element (her prison guards were mean and spiteful but not that mean) — and meanwhile Suzanne Stone (she recently dropped the Maretto) got to seduce young boys and kill off husbands to her heart’s content. This may not sound like a good reason to kill someone to you or me but women in prison have very little to do except fantasize about killing people and maybe building friends out of excess hair and nail clippings.

First Kyra needed to arm herself. She knew from her pen-pal O-Ren Ishii that the best place to find anything (including extensive shiv collections with matching his and hers bath mats) was Target. Unfortunately, Kyra had very little money because she had been too busy surviving a harsh penal colony filled with murderers and rapists to pay much attention to her stock portfolio. So instead of going to Target, Kyra hung her head in shame and shuffled across the street to Wal-Mart.

Kyra didn’t like Wal-Mart very much because the constant moaning of underpaid workers reminded her of prison, but she knew that some sacrifices had to be made if you wanted to kill somebody, and, besides, Wal-Mart had some good deals on American spears that were much better than those crappy spears made in Singapore that always gave you splinters right when you were about to impale somebody’s genitals. Kyra found the spears in the back next to a box of marked-down Dixie Chicks CDs.

The Dixie Chicks happened to be Kyra’s favorite band (they were played 24/7 over an intercom back in prison to screw with all the inmates who had good taste) so she was flipping through a pile of their CDs marked down to $17.99 from an original price of $19.99 for an incredible $2.00 savings when she noticed that the moaning throughout the store had shifted subtly from the breathless sighs of the downtrodden to the breathless sighs of the aroused. Then Kyra heard a crackling over the store’s PA system.

“Hello, Kyra.” It was that saucy minx Suzanne Stone.

“I have no interest in you, but since you are a crazy, psychotic she-dog who has spent years plotting my death, and this would negatively impact my television career, I must kill you. Because I have the clear upper hand and you are not James Bond, I will tell you how you will die without fear that you will use this knowledge to overcome the odds and defeat me.”

The PA system registered a tinkle of feedback as Suzanne Stone cleared her throat.

“With my expertise in Spanish and Esperanto, I have promised nasty sexual favors to all the male employees at Wal-Mart in exchange for your head. To the women I have promised a fifty-cent raise. Do not bother reasoning with them because they do not know English nor do they have any interest in learning. Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.”

Kyra screamed in rage and snarled like a cornered badger that has banged its knee against a coffee table and is really, really irritable. She was ready to go howler monkey on Suzanne and her minimum-wage cronies.

Within seconds, a ring of panting, mean-looking people circled Kyra. Most of them had cut up their blue Wal-Mart aprons into masks that covered their entire faces except for their eyes but some of the younger men with nicer physiques had taken off their clothes and converted their aprons into make-shift loin cloths. Two such men, their junk nestled in their aprons, broke from the circle and rushed at Kyra. She calmly pulled out two Dixie Chicks CDs from their cases (Top of the World Tour: Live and Wide Open Spaces, in case you were wondering) and sliced off their heads. Blood splattered everywhere and completely soaked their work aprons so that their corpses were sure to get scolded by their supervisor once he saw how unprofessional they looked.

The ring of snarling Wal-Mart employees blinked at the two headless corpses and then looked over to the Girl’s Clothing Department where Suzanne Stone was being carried by a group of hench people on a Human Touch HT-135 Massage Chair (Retail Price: $2,399.00). Suzanne pulled out a roll of quarters with one hand and in the other she licked a chocolate fudge-sickle with lascivious delicacy. Appropriately motivated, the ring of hench persons tightened their circle because they have needs just like you and me.

Kyra killed Suzanne’s minions first with the remaining Dixie Chicks CDs (mostly Taking the Long Way but a few Shouldn’t a Told You That’s were also in the mix) then she switched to the spears with the Made-in-America stickers. She was more than a match for any number of Wal-Mart employees, but this was possibly the first time in history that every employee in the store was not hiding in the corners avoiding the manager and actually participating in a group effort even if the goal was killing Kyra.

Minutes passed and Kyra began sweating heavily because it was very tiring work killing lots and lots of people with golf clubs, desk lamps, and bottles of potpourri. Every so often Suzanne’s underlings would wonder if a naughty act or fifty-cent raise was worth facing the grimy, sweaty howler-monkey-like Kyra. But then they’d glance back at their manager-in-training and she would flash five dollar bills and twist a cherry stem into a knot using only her tongue and they’d hunker down and press forward.

After another hour had passed, Suzanne Stone’s remaining henchmen had entered such a heightened state of sexual arousal that the sweaty, musk-heavy Kyra was turning them on. They pushed forward again and again, rubbing themselves up and down Kyra’s lubricated body and it felt surprisingly good, especially after such a long and tiring fight.

A camera crew showed up a short time later and Suzanne Stone put her five dollar bills back into her wallet, spit out all the cherry stems in her mouth, and got off her Human Touch HT-135 Massage Chair. She grabbed a microphone from one of the tech guys and faced the camera.

“This is Suzanne Stone reporting from a downtown Wal-Mart where a bedraggled woman with horribly thick calves and numerous split ends was found dead in the Electronics Department. According to witnesses she expired due to a mass dry-humping that was equally painful and humiliating.”

Then Suzanne Stone smiled the smile of a woman who has seduced an entire store of Wal-Mart employees with naughty promises and pocket change into killing a hated enemy. It was actually a pretty sexy smile.

————-

By Nick from Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob.

After the annoying and unproductive visit to France, Kyra decided to hop back on her ship and fly back into the unknown. Unfortunately, as she started going up, up, and away, her ship began to run out of fuel, and she was forced to crash land in some place called Idaho. It was awful. She had no idea where to get fuel for her ship on this primitive-technology planet, so she did the only thing any respectable researcher on this lowly planet would do: she got onto a computer and used a mix of Google and Wikipedia.

After her research, Kyra discovered that the only place that she could possibly get the type of fuel she needed would be in Houston, Texas at a place called NASA. But she saw the price-tag on the fuel, as well, and didn’t have nearly that much money (she didn’t have any, really). So using her handy Google and Wikipedia, Kyra did more research to try to find a way to make a quick buck. And then she saw it: They were about to start preparing their next season of Survivor, a reality show where the winner receives a million dollars.

I can do that, Kyra thought. I’ve survived alien monsters, mercenaries, and cold-blooded murderers. I think I can handle myself on an island for a month. So she sent in her audition tape (mostly of herself skimping around in a bikini she stole from a local clothing store and saying how she could kick everybody’s ass) and waited anxiously for the results. And then it came. She was in!

When the day finally came, Kyra put on her bikini and the clothes over the top, making sure to hide random weaponry/knives within her clothes. She flew in a giant metal thing called an airplane (It seemed twice as big as her ship, which confused her). When she got there, she was greeted by a man named Jeff on a large boat that took them out to sea. After a few more hours of travel, this time by sea, Jeff finally got up to speak to everybody.

“Hello everyone! We’re going to be doing something… a little different this season. As you may have noticed, there are numerous smaller islands around. You will each be partnered up with one other person, and each pairing will be living alone on a separate island. You must rely fully on each other if you want to survive in this game. Welcome to Survivor: Partners!”

The next thing Kyra knew, she was being teamed up with some older blonde lady. She had overheard her talking with some other people on the ship. Her name was Suzanne something-or-other, and she used to be in television. However, she had gotten fired from her job a while back and needed some extra cash. So she pulled a few strings from some network friends and got a spot on the new season of Survivor. Kyra knew she was already going to hate her.

The pairings were split up and shipped off to their respective islands. Once upon their own island, Suzanne immediately started barking orders.

“I think we should start building a place to stay. Once it starts raining, everything will be a mess. You should find the water and…” She kept going on and on, and Kyra simply rolled her eyes, ignoring her. There was no way she would be able to stand a month on this island with this woman. “So remember,” Suzanne was ending, “We have to outwit, outplay, outlast!”

Kyra smiled and nodded.

Day 4

Luckily, Kyra had been able to use her insane agility to get them through the first immunity challenge, so they were able to make it through to the next round. Unfortunately, now all she was hearing was how they were outlasting this and outplaying that. This woman never shut up.

Day 12

“Seriously,” Kyra said to the private camera. “I’m going to kill her. I’d rather be in locked up in Butcher Bay than have to spend another minute with her.”

Day 23

There was a merge! Finally, Kyra can talk to other people besides this fucking woman. Hopefully she can make another alliance.

Day 24 - Night

“That f**king b*tch tried to have me voted off!” Kyra growled at the private cam. “I’m seriously THIS close to killing her… if it wouldn’t screw up my chances of winning the million, I would.”

The Final Tribal Council Votes Revealing

Kyra, by some miracle, had made it to the final 3… unfortunately, so did Suzanne and some guy named Steve. Jeff was standing up. The live audience was cheering and awaiting the votes. Jeff opened the urn-thing and pulled out the first vote.

“Kyra!” Jeff announced. The crowd cheered. “Suzanne! Steve! Kyra! Suzanne! I’m sorry, Steve, that means you’re out of the running. It’s now between Kyra and Suzanne.” Jeff pulled out the next slip. “Kyra!” There was a pause as he pulled out the final vote. “And the winner of Survivor: Partners… Kyra!”

Kyra leapt out of her seat cheering. She had done it! She had beaten the game. But most importantly…

Kyra pulled out a knife from under her shirt and stabbed Suzanne Maretto in the face. “Outlived you, bitch!”

And that’s how Kyra beat Suzanne Maretto at both Survivor and in battle (What, like Suzanne had a chance?).

Seeing an opportunity to do something more unique, I decided to forgo the traditional narrative. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are frequent collaborators, as each has not only worked on one another’s films, but have worked in unison on films such as Four Rooms and Grindhouse. As such, I used several of my connections within the film industry to finagle an interview with not just one, but both of them, with the goal of finding out from the creators of the characters themselves (Cherry Darling of Grindhouse’s Planet Terror and O-Ren Ishii of Kill Bill) just who would win a battle between the two of them. Would it be my little Cherry, or Piper’s darling O-Ren? I flew out to Rodriguez’s Austin compound to meet the two and get the answer…

Dylan Fields: Gentleman, first off let me say that it’s a great honor to meet you both. I’ve loved your films over the years, and look forward to many more.

Quentin Tarantino: Thanks, man…I mean, like, it’s so great to hear that from fans. I mean, that’s what me and Robby are in this business to hear – to get that personal love from folks just like you.

Robert Rodriguez: I couldn’t agree more. I don’t like to call myself just a director or writer or producer, but a storyteller, spinning yarns for not only my kids, but to the kids from all over the world.

DF: Glad to say it. Anyway, the reason I wanted to bring you guys together was to help settle a debate. You see, there’s this little movie blog site I’m a part of (called the LAMB), and we’re having an event called The Sirens of the LAMBs, where we’re pitting foxy ladies from a number of films against each other to see which femme fatale would come out on top. One of my fine chicas, Cherry Darling, is up against O-Ren Ishii, and I wanted to see who you guys thought might win.

RR: Hmm…that’s a great idea but a tough question. On the one hand –

QT: Sorry to interrupt, Bob, but I have to say that that’s a tremendous idea. It reminds me of an episode I’d written of Fox Force Five, where Raven McCoy found out that Sommerset O’Neal was sleeping with her man and challenged her to a battle to the death. I mean, it woulda been fanf*ckingtastic, but obviously, I had to keep them from battling, because then it would have ended up being the Fox Force Four at best, and that just doesn’t sound as cool as Fox Force Five if you know what I mean (laughs).

RR: Anyway, back to his question. Let’s consider the strengths and weaknesses of each character. With Cherry, you obviously have her powers of seduction, being a former stripper and all, and then she shows tremendous intestinal fortitude after losing her leg, and to top it all off, ends up with an M4 attached to replace her pirate-like wooden stump.

QT: But with O-Ren, I mean, you’re talking about a trained assassin who excels in swordplay. Unlike some midget stripper – no offense to Rose McGowan, of course, but she’s tiny – O-Ren is a bad ass with a capital B and a capital A, if you know what I mean.

DF: Indeed I do. Now you guys see the conundrum that not only I, but the voters of the Sirens event, have to contend with. We’re talking about two tough ladies –

QT: But really, I mean, like, how could anyone consider Cherry a formidable opponent against a kickass ninja b*tch like O-Ren? I mean, when I first came up with the idea for her –

RR: What do you mean “when you first came up with the idea?” I gave you the idea for not only O-Ren, but all of the Fox Force Five after we watched Shadow Killers Tiger Force at my house in 1992!

QT: What are you talking about?!? I wrote the screenplay for Kill Bill when I was working at Video Archives long before I even met you!

RR: You’re crazy, man. I want proof of this supposed screenplay.

QT: I don’t have to give you proof of sh*t, maaan! I know what I wrote and when I wrote it. Just because you know Cherry would get her butt smacked all the way to Cleveland doesn’t mean you gots to start making up stories here.

DF: Guys, let’s try to get focused on the battle. Quentin, if this were to go down, how do you think it would unfold? Let’s get all the background out of the way and say these two just meet up in an alley – what happens next?

RR: Now wait just a second. [To Tarantino] Don’t give me this b.s. about making up stories. That’s rich coming from the guy that’s been copping mine for the past 15 years.

QT: What?!? I don’t need to quote-unquote [makes finger quotes] copy your crappy stories about Shark-Head and Magma-Boy or anything like that. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been doing pretty damn good for myself. Ever heard of a little film called Pulp Fiction, buddy? If I recall, it set all kinds of records for independent film box office – what’s your biggest earner?

RR: ¡Dios mio! What a pendejo. Your little tale wouldn’t have seen the light of day if it weren’t for El Mariachi, friend. Remember that one? And while we’re at it, you wouldn’t have had a clue how to do all those special effects for your Billy movies if I hadn’t let you use my hardware here.

DF: Guys?

QT: Sh*tcan it, Darren. You know, I’ve had about as much as I can take from my supposed amigo here. I mean, like, he’s been piggybacking off my success for how long now?

RR: Me piggybacking you?!? Please – what’s to piggyback? You make the same movie over and over again. Shit, if it weren’t for this nice guy here, I’d slap you upside the head.

QT: Go for it, brother. I’ll show you that not only would O-Ren dice Cherry up into 50 itty bitty pieces, but that I’d do the same to you.

DF: Thanks for your time, guys – I’m just gonna head out now.

[They proceed to start b*tch-slapping each other.]

Well, so much for that idea. Suffice it to say that I got what I needed, as the flight back home gave me plenty of time to think about the battle between the two ladies. And you know what? It was really simple after all. I didn’t need to go to Austin to talk to those two yahoos or anything to figure out that not only is the pen mightier than the sword, but the M4 carbine with an M203 grenade launcher is one helluva lot mightier than the sword.

Cherry wins.

—————-

A thick cloud of smoke made the bar a constant overcast as a large man with long, curly-black hair took the stage. “How’s everyone doing tonight” he asked. A few audience members randomly answered. “Welcome to open mic night at Lobos” said the man. “First up is Cherry Darling. Don’t forget to tip your help and try the chicken fingers, they were freshly frozen three days ago.” The chubby, dark-haired man walked off the stage as the lights dimmed. A single spotlight appeared and shined brightly on the microphone. There were a few claps as the one machine-gun-legged redhead took the stage. It didn’t seem like much, but tonight was everything for Cherry. All the toxic zombies had been killed, civilization had been restored, and Cherry was able to move on and pursue something she had always wanted: stand-up comedy. A machine-gun-legged woman was not so amazing to the people who had lived through the toxic zombies, but one thing was for sure: they all needed a really good laugh.

Cherry greeted her audience. Her voice shook a bit as she looked over the 30 or so people in the crowd. All looked up at her, waiting. So Cherry began.

Cherry: “I asked my gym instructor if he could teach me to do the splits. He asked how flexible I was. I said that any day of the week is good except Tuesdays.”

Nothing. No response. Cherry’s voice quivered a bit more as she started the next joke.

Cherry: “A guy walks up to me at the bar and says ‘you remind me of Hot Sauce’. And I said ‘I’ll take that as a condiment.’”

You could hear the clock ticking in the building across the street, it was so quiet. There was nothing.

Cherry: “Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road? Because he had no guts.”

Again, there was nothing. It was awful. Everyone had told her she was hilarious. That she should be a stand-up comedian. But they were wrong. They were all wrong. Cherry had never felt like this before. Not all the toxic zombies in the world could make her feel this terrible. What Cherry didn’t know was that O-Ren Ishii had paid everyone in the bar $1,000 each not to laugh at anything. O-Ren was watching Cherry die on stage and it required no effort at all. Hayley Stark was easy, but shit this was proving to be her easiest kill ever. Who could have foreseen this level of brutality. O-Ren, of course. And unfortunately for Cherry, it was only the beginning.

Cherry stood there fumbling for words. A single tear strolled down her face. No one was saying anything. So Cherry tried again with another joke.

Cherry: “A priest, a rabbi, and a vicar walk into a bar. The barman says, ‘Is this some kind of joke?’”

There was a cough in the audience but nothing else. Then the spotlight moved off of Cherry and across the room to reveal Jamie Farr, Arte Johnson, and Rip Taylor. They were all tackling each other to try to reach a large gong that hung from the ceiling. Rip was able to pull himself from the pile, grab the mallet, and, with all the force in the world, bang the gong. The ringing shook the walls. The audience applauded this.

The spotlight moved again across the room to reveal a panel of Olympic Judges from all over the world. They sat with stern faces as they presented their scores. The Chinese judge held up a card that read the number 1. The French judge held up a card that read the number 1. The US judge held up a number 1. And the German judge held up a 0 because, well, he’s a douche. Cherry wanted to fall to her knees, but the machine gun leg prohibited her from doing so. O-Ren laughed so hard that Diet Pepsi almost shot from her nose.

The spotlight moved once again all around the room, searching and searching until it landed on Richard Dawson. He walked up to the hottest woman in the bar, asked her to stand, planted a kiss on her that lasted three seconds too long and then asked her a question… “name one thing that sucks.” The woman thought about it for a few seconds and then yelled out “Cherry Darling.” Again, the audience applauded this. Richard Dawson repeated the question… “one thing that sucks.” He turned to a large Family Feud Board and then yelled “survey says?” The one answer flipped over and revealed the name Cherry Darling. The audience laughed and cheered and Richard Dawson leaned in for another uncomfortable kiss.

Cherry was unable to speak now. She only let out whimpers. She was ready to leave the stage when she heard a voice from the back of the room “you’re not too bad for a stripper.” The crowd quieted down. Cherry protected her eyes from the blazing spotlight that was now back on her. She couldn’t see anyone.

Cherry answered “I’m not a stripper.”

The voice said, “and you’re not a comedian either.” The audience broke out into laughter and Rip Torn couldn’t be contained with giddiness. Even the German judge laughed, and, you know, he’s a douche.

Finally, the spotlight left Cherry again and panned the crowd to the back of the room to reveal O-Ren Ishii. She stood there in a white Kimono, her Target blingy flip flops, and was holding a basket of half-eaten Chicken Fingers that were freshly frozen three days ago. This time she had her Hanzo sword at her side, but Lobos had a strict No Hanzo Swordplay Policy, so she was able to have the Hanzo, but she just wasn’t able to swing it around, and what the crap was that all about?

Once Cherry spotted O-Ren, all her sorrow turned to anger. Cherry yelled, “you bitch, you’re responsible for all this.”

O-Ren stood cool as a cucumber and responded, “of course.”

The Bride was walking into her apartment that she shares with her new boyfriend Eric. It was night, and the apartment was pitch black. Beatrix found this odd, since she saw Eric’s car parked outside. She turned on the living room lights and saw no one there.

“Eric,” Beatrix called out.

She closed the door and looks around the apartment before hearing a noise in the bedroom. Beatrix smiles, thinking Eric is waiting for her as she heads to the bedroom. Then she hears something she didn’t expect to hear: a woman’s voice. Beatrix stops in her tracks, unsure if she did hear what she heard. But no, she hears it again.

He knows better then to fuck around on me, Beatrix thought to herself. Just in case, she went back to the living room and grabbed her Hattori Hanzo that she proudly displays on the wall. She unsheathes it and holds it upright while walking towards the bedroom.

She reaches the door and she pushes it in just a little to see what’s going on. Standing near the bed she sees the back of Eric’s head kissing what looks like a blond woman, who is naked. Eric is almost undressed himself.

“That son of a-”

Before Beatrix can finish her thought, blood comes pouring out of the back of Eric’s head and what appears to be a tongue pops out. The naked blonde chick then lets go of Eric, who falls to the floor, dead. With Eric out of the way, Beatrix can finally see the blonde chick, and she’s got an amazingly long tongue. What is that about…

No time to think about it, she just killed Eric! Beatrix barges into the room, about to strike with her sword, but the blonde woman dives out of the way and Beatrix ends up cutting the bed apart. The blonde woman then does a behind kick, knocking Beatrix over the bed, which now collapses.

The blonde woman looks down at Beatrix.

“You must be the girlfriend,” she says.

“Yes. Who might you be?”

“My name is Sil. I needed your boyfriend to mate with me, but he didn’t turn out to be what I was looking for after all.”

“So you killed him?” Beatrix asked with anger in her voice.

“Yes. Judging by the way he kissed, I did you a favor.”

“YAAAHH!!!!”

Beatrix kicked Sil right in the stomach and she went flying back 50 feet into the wall, knocking down several pictures, some of Beatrix and Eric. Beatrix jumps back to her feet and she grabs her sword. With the sword pointed forward, she runs towards Sil, but Sil jumps up to avoid being pierced. What Sil didn’t count on though, was the dropped ceiling Beatrix and Eric had put in 5 months ago, so her head went through it, making her stuck.

“You bitch! We had a hard time choosing that ceiling!” Beatrix bellowed.

Sil wiggled around and Beatrix saw her feet dangling, so she tickled them, making Sil laugh. Then Sil kicked Beatrix in the face. This stunned Beatrix but only for a moment. Then without hesitation, she chopped off Sil’s feet with the sword.

Sil gave an unearthly scream and Beatrix pulled Sil down from the ceiling where she collapsed in a heap. Beatrix then tries to cut Sil into other parts but Sil keeps rolling around the floor. Then Sil did a hand stand (Remember fellas, she’s naked) and put her bloody leg stump in Beatrix’s mouth.

Beatrix starts choking on blood, dropping her sword. Sil then tries to make a grab for it, but loses her balance so she falls down. Beatrix spits out the blood in her mouth as Sil gets on her knees. Beatrix kicks hers some more, causing her to keep falling to the ground.

After a few kicks, Sil finally jumps up and wraps her legs around Beatrix’s waist. Sil puts her face close to Beatrix, with her lips about 4 inches or so near Sil’s lips, as Sil opens her mouth. The tongue is about to come out and before it can make it’s way into Beatrix’s mouth, Beatrix with lighting reflexes grabs it and with all her might pulls.

Sil is surprised by these turn of events as Beatrix yanks out her tongue. And god damn what a long ass tongue it is. This thing must go down to her feet or something. Finally, she pulls out her entire tongue and Sil falls to the floor. She’s gasping and clawing at her mouth. Beatrix stands over her.

“What’s wrong? Bride got your tongue?”

“UCK!! MUUCCK DEEE MMM”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Here, let me give this back to you.”

Beatrix rolls up her tongue into a big ball and, with great strength, shoves Sil’s tongue back into her mouth, which gets caught in her throat. Sil gasps for breath.

“It appears to be stuck. Let me help,” Beatrix said, grabbing for her sword. She then jabs her sword down into Sil’s mouth, not only causing her tongue to go down deeper, but causing the sword to come back out the back of her neck. With this final act, Sil lays still. Beatrix takes a step back and sits on the bed, which falls apart from being cut in half.

“Fuck. Eric picked this bed too.”