Suddenly it hits grunk: he doesn't have a soul!

"Wait a minute," duke yells out as he can read grunk's mind. "Then who's soul did I attach to your soul. Or better yet, what thing?" duke sprints back to his lab to pour over his medical and alchemy journal's to see if there has been some mistake...

Eegras spills some Dr. Pepper on duke's papers. He attempts to light them on fire but finds that they're wet.

Nil asks his grunk clone who he will be loyal to. This grunk clone tries to change the subject with "I wonder what happened to the grunk hologram in the galaxy's armpit?"

Unbeknownst to them, the holo-grunk, eaten by the asteroid creature that mutated into a big monster, continues to flicker on and off while making more cell phone calls, causing the monster to increase in size and ferocity even more. The asteroid the monster is on is heading for Evildrome.

Dr. Trowel takes a breather, and the Nots put on their Stetsons to play an instrumental medley of The Tabletop Waltz , The Left Armpit Stroll , and Yellow Rose of Topaz.

mrxak yells "checkmate" over in a corner with his pet.

DE collapses into the acid pit.

Nil's grunk clone faints and falls into the acid pit on top of DE. "Apparently his genetic structure is collapsing. I should've paid more to have him cloned at a more reputable facility," says Nil. A dung beetle crawls out of the clone's sleeve and melts in the acid.

Nil's cell phone rings; the holo-grunk is calling. Nil holds the phone up to his ear (it's a 542nd generation iPhone bought with the extra money Nil saved by giving the grunk DNA to a cheap cloning facility) and answers. "Bwaaaarghhheeeerrrrrp!" "Huh? Who is this?" "Buwaaaaarrrrrrl!"

Nil hangs up. Must have been some new form of telemarketing. At least it sounded more intelligent than regular telemarketers, Nil thought.

A message pops up on the phone's screen. "The Citizen Espionage Bureau believes you may have recently been in contact with a hologram inside a space monster. Please open all hatches on your ship and let us come in and investigate. Once you've opened up the hatches, take your clothes off and stand completely still, or we will open fire. Refusal to comply will be interpreted as a terrorist act."

Nil makes sure his argosy has the auto-defenses turned on and seals all the hatches. It's a bad idea to be standing naked outside when a space monster comes.

The people in the acid pit slowly become aware that the level is falling rapidly. Before they can react it is already less than half full. Scrabbling to find out what's going on, someone catches a glimpse of a lumpy yellow ship outside the window just before it disappears. The acid pit has been completely drained. Outside all that can be found is a tritanium coated hose, some small puddles of acid, and a top hat slowly floating to the ground.

Dr. Trowel returns to the stage with his banjo, and the band performs a quick up-tempo set of folk songs: Püff the Magic Ultrasnail, If I Had a Zeus Class Fusion Pistol, and Where Has All the Acid Gone?

duke, having found that his journal's will take month's to dry (he should have bought holojournals instead of old fashion paper) returns to the bar. As duke returns, ho goes outside for a breath of fresh air and finds the top hat. He puts it on and feels incredibly honest. Perhaps this hat belongs to a clone of Abraham Lincoln. duke rushes to the spaceport and with incredible strength, push starts a Manta. He hops in and guns the clutch. (He likes old fashion manual spaceships, too). duke cruises through the universe and comes to Washington, D.C., the Capital of Sol. He lands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and searches around for anything peculiar. After hours of hard searching, he comes upon a sign that points to the right and says, "Abraham Lincoln's Clone's lair." duke wonders if the clone is so old that it's memory circuits have burnt out. He finds a holoswitch and pulls it to reveal a passage to a deep dark lair. he goes does a staircase with 3,978 steps until he reaches the bottom floor. The first thing he notices is an elevator that goes up and is concealed behind Abraham Lincoln's head. As duke searches for the clone, he sees traces of acid going down a narrow passage. duke heads all the way down and finds Lincoln's clone using the acid to make clone's of himself. duke quickly seizes the clone and throws him in the acid. As the clone (being out of date in every way) melts, he cries out, "It's too late. The war will not be stoooooo..." duke must prepare his grunk army (who still obeys his commands) to prepare for war. duke heads home and quickly tells everyone in that bar what is going to happen. It seems they all ignore him. Only time will tell how that war will fare. But before this post is over, duke recalls the monster on the asteroid that ate the hologrunk and is growing off his worthless Microsoft minutes. This monster could turn the tide of the war if he got to Evildrome in time!

Edit: duke takes his Rebel Cruiser back to the Lincoln Memorial and retrieves the precious acid. He returns to put it back where it belongs. Everyone is happy the acid is back, but that no one will buy anyone free drinks. duke calls for a round of Plutonian Logger (the drink) for everyone.

This post has been edited by duke_juker : 12 September 2007 - 11:51 PM

Eegras is ecstatic that the acid is back, but is still mad that wet paper will not light. He pulls out a hair dryer and starts drying the paper. Just before Eegras can pull out his lighter, duke comes in, sees that the papers are dry, and steals them. Eegras lights duke on fire for stealing the papers he stole.

A little-known quirk of grunk's DNA turns all of his clones against those who egregiously misuse apostrophes. Duke's mutilated body is found floating in the Reflecting Pool.

Though Duke is mutilated, he still has enough blood in his body to move. He takes his paper's to the Evildrome Library (also know as the pawn shop) to read in a somewhat peaceful environment. He fidns that grunk is just a pointless mass of stuff that came off someone's shoe. Therefore, grunk has no soul, but every grunk he creates is the same as the last. With this information, duke goes to clone more grunks for mutilation by others.

A mass of rioting grunks burn down the Evildrome Library.

Eegras curses his 'in-effective-against-paper-but-not-against-flesh lighter' for being ineffective against paper but not flesh. He wonders why he thought it would work.

The band plays The Long and Winding Road to NGC-4812.

duke starts to teach himself how to play the harmonica to have a shot at playing with Dr. Trowels band.

Plexrom walks into the bar after his four-year vacation, and has a cold drink.

DE lays down on the bar and takes a nap.