"...Kono namida

bakamitai."

"Yes! Excellent, excellent!" As the music trailed off, the smiling man cheered as he stood up and clapped his hands.

Adargon, a vibrant, blue fish man hybrid bowed as he swung the microphone off to the side. His light gland that dangled off of his forehead wobbled around hypnotically as he put his head down.

"This may be one of the strangest things I've ever done." Azrail said as he set his mug down.

A moist tendril fell over his shoulder and settled there. "Then you really must have had quite the boring life."

The tendril was attached to Stoor, a massive worm like creature. It was covered in a hard, purple carapace that sat in rows like dragon scales over its body. From its mouth dozens of pink tendrils spewed out and one was currently resting on Azrail's shoulder.

"He's right you know," The smiling man agreed. "If karaoke is truly so strange to you, your life must have been quite sheltered indeed."

"You know," Abraham murmured as he looked into the empty cup in his hand. "This is strange for me. Not for what's happening, but that you're all clearly in need of redemption, but I have no desire to purge any of you."

"It's the drink of course," gurgled Gzemnid, another strange creature.

At first glance this monstrosity looked like nothing more than a morbidly obese woman. However, a closer look showed how monstrous she was. Her stomach was just one giant eye, her breasts rolled to his sides. However, instead of anything even remotely appealing, on the end of her breasts were wide open eyes the size of baseballs.

Her hands each gripped an eyeball the size of a watermelon. Her face almost looked like it was melting, and her mouth was surrounded with old blood, and neat rows of jagged teeth. The eyes on her head were almost completely obscured by fat, and there wasn't a single hair to be found on her body.

Thank goodness she had what looked like a banner protecting her modesty like a giant diaper. As it waved in the wind, it constantly threatened to move a little too far out of the way and reveal whatever horrors might lie underneath.

"Fighting for pleasure while drinking is all well and good," he continued. "But for work? Well, that's just about impossible if the alcohol is any good."

"And this is some great stuff! Why old Ahabreztril would've loved this...what did you call it?" asked Stoor as he turned towards the smiling man.

"I do believe that is the pine beer." he replied with a knowing smirk.

Stoor wrapped a barrel with one of his tendrils and dumped the entire thing into his mouth. "Delicious," the worm cooed.

"Hey, why isn't A here?" the last newcomer asked.

He was an interesting creature. Not tall, but not short. Not skinny, but definitely not fat or muscular either. He had a white button up shirt with a black tie, and black slacks on. His name was Will, and in every sense of the world he was just an average human. He even looked like he had just gotten off of his desk job to show up.

"Oh, Will," chuckled Gzemnid as she floated towards the plain man. "Don't you remember? Stoor ate him after he tried to stab him with a spear."

"Now, why would A go and do that?" Will asked innocently.

"It may have had something to do with a little accident we had." The worm said with a small cough.

Abraham had fallen into the background as his face contorted as he obviously tried to process everything that was happening and what was said to him. Azrail glanced his way for a moment, and then towards the hollow king, who had a barrel constantly pouring into his mouth. Harold was going through a set routine.

He would clean his glasses, and blink as he put them back on. Then, he would look around at everyone. He would shake his head and take his glasses off. He'd stare at them closely, put them back on and look around again. And, with another shake of his head, he would take off his glasses, and start all over again by cleaning them.

"And what accident was that exactly?" Azrail asked.

"Oh, I may have...eaten a limb or two of his." Stoor admitted. "Accidentally of course! You see, he spent a lot of time in salt water, and there was this salted pork appetizer..."

"Yes, yes," agreed Gzemnid as she floated over towards Stoor with a sympathetic nod. "It's happened to the best of us."

Azrail's eyes focused in on Will as he refilled his stein. "Are there many of these 'end of everything we know' parties?"

"Probably more than you'd like." the smiling man responded. "Then again, you seem like you might welcome not death, but a very abrupt end to it all."

Azrail smiled. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh?" he retorted mockingly. "I thought even someone as small as you could understand how obvious your motivations are. Or are you so dense that you don't even understand them yourself?"

Azrail raised an eyebrow. But, as he started to open his mouth, Will cut him off. "Oh, don't worry about him. He just likes to tease people. He doesn't mean anything by it."

Will smiled genuinely, and Azrail eyes the suspiciously normal human warily. "You don't say," Azrail said calmly.

His eyes turned back to the smiling man, who shrugged with a big, dumb smile on his face.

"HEY!"

Everyone turned towards the booming voice near the impromptu stage.

"I thought this was a karaoke party, not a sit around and look dumb party." Adargon, the fish man said as he balanced the wireless microphone on his finger. "So come on! Who's going to belt their heart out now?"

The microphone was roughly snatched out from the fish man's hand.

To everyone's surprise, it was Harold Wormer.

"I may have had too much to drink," Harold said before he leaned in to Adargon to whisper, "All these normal folk look like monsters to me, you see."

He cleared his throat as he held the microphone in front of himself again. "But that does not mean I cannot, rock. out. as the kids would say. And I may know the perfect song."

"Heck yeah. Knock yourself out man," Adargon said with a toothy grin as he slapped Harold on the back.

Harold looked aghast at the physical touch for a moment before it seemed to pass, and he knelt down to look through the song list.

"So, ending the world...sorry, all worlds for revenge?" Abraham piped up as Adargon walked back to grab a fresh drink.

"Yep. Dumb as hell, but you didn't hear that from me." Ther fish man snorted as he filled his cup.

"Well abomination. Gotta agree with you there." Abraham nodded.

Adargon winked and pointed a finger gun at Abraham. "Right back at you, fellow monster."

Abraham smirked and took another drink without saying anything else.

"I mean, he's got a point. What's worth this sort of wide scale revenge?" Azrail asked. "It's just like this old woman I knew. She had her family killed by a stray bullet from a street fight. At first, she vowed to never let it happen to anyone else. So, she started training. She became a great shot, and when people got too rowdy. Well, she'd kill them."

"But eventually that wasn't enough. She was too frail, so she trained her body, and learned to fight not just with guns, but with her bare fists as well. She was nigh unbeatable. The problem was those small fights weren't enough. Soon, she saw the military as the problem, then government itself. She fought a one-woman war, but even that wasn't enough."

"You see..."

"Dude, could you be any more boring? Seriously." Interrupted Adargon. "Like, that story sounds rad as all get out, but you make it worse than hearing someone seeing how high they can count out loud."

Abraham smiled and patted Adargon's shoulder. "You're not so bad for a twisted form of man's hubris."

"Whoa, don't stroke my ego that much, or I might explode in your hand," Adargon laughed.

"You're actually close to the truth with your little story," the smiling man cut in.

"Oh?" Azrail asked.

He nodded. "But he wasn't one to think so small. See, he thought he could find her still, somewhere else. But when he couldn't why, he figured destroying it all would be better. The just desserts of a cruel series of worlds that would let her die, or worse, not exist at all."

"A fool," Azrail scoffed.

"Exactly," Gzemnid added. "But a dangerous one."

"Yes, with not much to lose." Stoor added.

"Which is why the party moved to here," Will said with a smile. "A loophole to beat a loophole."

Azrail eyed Will suspiciously, "What does that..."

"I've found it!" cheered Harold. "Alright, hush now and let us kick. it. with some Alice Cooper!"

Azrail had no chance to continue his probe, as Harold cranked the karaoke set up to max and started up Alice Cooper's School's out.