HOME | DD

Description

"LIGHTS OUT!"

The already dim cell shut down as the three occupants sat in dreary silence. Night-time routine had long become an ingrained procedure. Lights out. Silence. A lotta time for Bonn to think. To reminisce on the good ol' days. Bonn, Mitt, and Greens had more than enough time behind the bars of some dreg and dread prison. The Golden Dynasty had won and they'd made sure to rub it in their faces for the last twenty years the crew had been stuck within the bottom of the barrel in the ugly heart of the Dynasty. Humiliating, degrading, un-person'd. The three had once been the most powerful people on the continent. Names to be feared, to be respected, to be admired begrudgingly.

Now Bonn, Mitt, and Greens sat in a dark and slightly damp two-man cell that had to be spartanly remodeled to fit three. Being stuck in a more 'permanent cell' after the near hundred attempts the Dynasty went through to try and kill the trio off for good in an increasingly desperate act of 'retribution'. Shooting, fires, ironically bombs twice, acid, suffocating, if it killed someone, it was attempted. Bonn reminisced on those early memories within the Dynasty. He hated it. At first they were genuine- he gave them credit. But as he stubbornly didn't die, they became more about entertainment. Ridicule, mockery, humiliation. Anvils, drowning, being tied to a missile and shot at a mountain- again- credit for creativity. Bonn went from tyrant feared and kowtowed to, to a premiere comedy skit performed by the Dynasty in an effort to get rid of him and slander his good name. Bonn let out a low snarl as he remembered just last month- some blockhead thought it'd be a good idea to try bloodletting! Bloodletting on a bomb, great plan moron.

The three equally hated and despised the prison. Having little to talk about, most days devolved into sitting, staring, and doing nothing within the cell. What could the trio do? Escape had proven impossible- while the Dynasty couldn't kill 'em they sure could annoy them. And given enough of an electric zap or enough kinetic force from having an wrecking ball knock him silly for minutes would inevitably K.O. any of the trio. Conversations these days mostly boiled down to reminiscing about the old days- what they coulda done better, what they woulda done given the foresight, names on the List that Bonn would've whacked sooner, tech Mitt would've pushed for harder, tactics Greens would adopt and innovate on. And Bonn truth be told did miss some of the social life. Not the fancy meetings with suck-up aristocrats or sell-out media moguls- Adams, Ahab, and Camila, Bonn missed them and it only made him more pissed at being stuck in a small cube under the ocean floor for the last twenty years.

But for the first hour of the night, the three sat in silence as the night moved on, each one living out personal fantasies or what-ifs running through their head. Bonn finally perked up beginning the nightly conversation.

". . . Mitt?"

"Yeah? What?"

"What- what'd we do wrong?"

"Likely all the crimes the Dynasty's implicated on us? Or maybe some of the connections we made and didn't break sooner, or connections we didn't make sooner?"

"Crime. Schmime. I want to rule the world, I don't care about the crimes we did or the people I stepped on and over, you're gonna crack a few people, some cultures, and a lotta nations to get to the top. I'll admit, maybe we were a bit too trigger-happy and dumb, but I didn't mean that 'wrong' you moralistic pencil-pusher. I meant what'd we do wrong? What finally tipped the scales so that we were sitting shitty down here in this ugly concrete box fit for some dreggy criminal, not the inevitable ruler of the world!" Bonn slid off his bunk and stood in the darkness, his eyes moving even further up as if he was asking the heavens "Y'know all this time- I don't know how it took nearly 20 years to come to this- but we've been talking about what we would do or how everything was done differently. But what actually led to our downfall? What was it that finally pushed those damn proles over the edge and sold us out to the fat cats here on the West Coast? Y'know, the incident that started all this bullshit prison dealing?"

The other two Bombs eyes lit up in realization as Bonn kept speaking.

"The fresh Fuse we've been doing in here talking about what we'd do or what would've done with foresight when we didn't even see the damn problem right under our metaphorical noses. We- we flew too close to the damned Sun and before you know it some debris struck our rocket and sent us tumbling down to the bottom of the sea- stuck in some awful fuckin' box for the last twenty! Why not talk about the thing that landed us down in the dumps? Was it the debris, the goal, what?"

"Well. . . actually. . ."

'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()

The Problem
The Bombpire collapsed. It collapsed for a reason, though for what reason has been muddled and sullied by years of groveling and what-if scenarios. The real reason the Bombpire collapsed- was it the timeframe of our plan? The simple fact the plan was perhaps a bit too ambitious? The proles getting wise? Or was it something even more sinister? A spy within the ranks? Selling out the Bombpire? Either which way it collapsed and now we gotta understand why it did.
Choose what killed the Bombpire. Likely a multitude of problems downed the first Bombpire, make it 3!

We Flew Too Fast to The Sun- "Thinking about it, we may've crunched the Great Push a bit to much." "You sayin' it was a bad plan?" "No. No. No- not at all Bonn. But only twenty years? We were having to crunch everything on the Bombpire down. You gotta understand- twenty years was too little a timeframe to change everything. We shoulda extended it out- ehh. . . thirty, forty, maybe fifty years. We just were so deadset on that goal we probably forgot that the Bombpire was too fragile."

We Wanted to Fly Close to The Sun- "The problem may've been we tried to eat it whole Bonn, the other 2/3rds of the continent?" "You sayin' we shouldn't try and conquer what we want?" "The problem was trying to make the Bombpire ready to eat what was a 5-course meal in an hour. The massive buildup of a war economy without any prior standards of being at a war economy? The nobles didn't betray us so much as we- I hate to say it- betrayed them. We tried to take away their comfort and they took away our leadership through paralyzing the whole structure as they refused to pay taxes and tribute- the whole thing began to unravel as nothing got done and nothing could get done!"

Debris Shot Us Down- "The plan I'll admit was great Bonn, but the problem was the people. The masses, millions of souls- we didn't consider them a threat and considered them pacified, that was our problem. We didn't crush their spirits enough or bend them to our wills enough and they snapped once word of the plan got out or Fuse forbid the rumor mills got too big to ignore. Hence why we ended up staring down an armed mob in the capitol. The next time we do something like this- we need to get a harder grip on the population." "How?" "That. That'll need to be figured out later."

Intentional Sabotage- "Really Bonn, the plan, the prep, the people- it was nearly ready for the Great Push. Sure we'd crunched it, and had a few rough edges. But I think what doomed us was a mole within our ranks." "A mole? I never employed any stinkin' moles within my Bombpire!" "Not the upright moles you blind bat! I mean someone leaked the plan to the public and that allowed them to key to what was going on and took us out!"

International Sabotage- "Someone on the inside sold our plans to the Dynasty! Think about it. How else are we in a Dynasty prison?" "So not only did we have some rat, we had a rat that worked for the Goldies?" "Likely one of our agents within the Dynasty or some little businessman who we didn't properly take hold of and sold us out, wars tend to be bad for business- well- everyone elses."

'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()

"So thats that, the problem was something within our control but we were just blind or arrogant to it." Mitt explained as his glasses drooped in the dark.

"Well. It's a stinging lesson, but we'll simply need to account for that next time."

"I hate to ask boys, but the Fuse are we gonna have a "next time". It's nice we got our little feel-dump session for the night and all- but we're stuck here!" Greens spouted out, only to realize after he finished shouting nobody could see him gesturing in his anger. "Apologies. But the problem is gentlemen, we can make the perfect strategy for running a country; but we're stuck in a concrete box beneath the ocean!"

A thug from across the hall yelled out a slur towards the cell the Bombs were in- which prompted Bonn to respond with a simple 'Bite me!' towards the vagrant before settling back down.

"Look. Greens you do have a point. But Mitt is at least on a right track. We gotta get our shit sorted out before we run back out on the world. We'll inevitably get back outside- I swear on my Fuse. But Greens- how'd you suggest we get out of here? We've tried plenty, it's not worked. Smashing. Dashing. Bashing."

"Prison riot, prison confidants, and multiple disguises." Mitt listed.

"Listing our failures isn't gonna help us at all." Greens spat back.

"Swimming out, digging out, prison capitalism." Mitt listed off more failed attempts as Greens and Bonn both looked at Mitt in annoyance. "Greens. Dopeslap." Mitt was too busy listing the various schemes to get out of prison to notice Greens getting off his hammock and interrupting Mitt with a quick 'THWACK'. "Ow." "Yeah well don't be such a pointdexter." "Look- Mitt, we get it, we failed. A lot."

Another pair of thugs on the other side of the wall from the Bombs got riled enough to politely ask them to shut up with extra obscenities involved. Bonn retorted back with similar obscenities claiming that 'our business none-ya yours!'

"Classless assholes, the lotta them." Bonn said as he shrugged in the total darkness. "Have we tried reigning them in?" "Prison riot number two or cross-prison Ponzi scheme to get the warden's pockets?" "Okay so yes, and it hasn't worked." "Correct." "Busting outta here would be so much better if we could BLOW UP!" Bonn yelled angrily. Bonn motioned to his fuse in the darkness. Constantly kept damp and covered in wet rags- Bonn always figured he could explode whenever he wanted. All it took to keep him down and de-powered was a little bit of water constantly being on his head. Mitt was in a similar situation- though more akin to damp bandages. Greens- being fuseless was rendered inert through a simple locked ring holding the pin in place. It was humiliating.

Of course the utterance of Bonns shouting comment caused the whole cell block to erupt in a chorus of angry screams, slurs, and curses as the enraged explosive had woken them up from their slumber. Bonn had awoken the horde of angry, crazy, and deranged lunatics that'd shared his cell bloc. While Bonn and co. had disturbed them plenty before- none of them got used to Bonn's ramblings late at night. The lack of need to sleep, breathe, or any vital function and an incessant need to prove his ego, Bonn was a constant annoyance to everyone on the floor- and frankly- within the prison itself but the bloc was Bonn's personal stomping grounds. The prisoners continued to make a noisy racket, driving Bonn up a wall. All the noise, these dregs of society- not just any society- the dregs of the dreaded Dynasty! This began the third phase of commotion at night- it started with Bonn, bounced to the bloc, and back to Bonn.

"I'm not gonna be lectured and talked down by a bunch of failed criminals and wannabe gangster tyrants! I may not run a nation, but I'll still run you into the concrete you worthless hellions!" The hecklers continued to jeer in the darkness as Bonn began another one of his big talk-em-up spiels. "I drove criminals and shmucks like you into the dirt either as meat shields or as my own personal secretaries. I figured out how worthless you were on the East- I cannot imagine how useless you sad sacks of bankrupt scum were here, let alone to be caught and thrown down here!"

'Your here too ya whiny boomer!' 'Quit the lecturin'!' 'Sad yappin' from Mr. Tuxedo and his circus!'

Bonn was only further enraged by the hecklers- they were right, but that didn't make it any less angering. He had to rule something, and it didn't matter if it was a nation, a club, a department, or a prison, Bonn had to be running it- he had to. Of course the third phase of prison night life was always followed up with the usual finale. The guards. Enough racket and the guards came down to 'keep the peace' and end whatever 'private discussion' Bonn was having with his 'subjects'.

"WHO'S THE NASTY SPASTIC INTERRUPTIN' QUIET HOURS?"

The bloc fell silent- but Bonn couldn't keep himself down- Mitt and Greens tried to pull him away from the bars. Nothing might've worked to kill 'em, but everything still hurt. Still Bonn left his motor mouth running. "Ah Warden! Glad to see ya, these dregs were busy yammerin' away precious O2." Bonn said in his per usual snark. "Was worried if these wastes of space might be slowly killin' the rest of the bloc-" "Bonn! Shut up!" "Come on, not worth it." "Come on Warden! Instill some discipline in what your sadsack of a nation calls 'criminals'!"

"HOW MANY TIMES I GOTTA REP YA B-01713? NO WASTIN' TALK AFTERHOURS?" "Approximately 10,567 times." "GREAT ALMIGHTY DID I HEAR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION NOBODY ASKED FOR?" "Hey, lay off, Mitt; and you- chunky and punky, lay off Mitt!" The warden frankly didn't have time for this shit- not for apparently the ten-thousandth five-hundred sixty-seventh time. "Git some rest you gutter trash or I'll have ya'll on Bay Duty." The temperamental warden said, both 'cooling off' and threatening Bonn enough to shut him up. 'Bay Duty' involved stripping barnacles off ships. An already awful job- made worse by the single fact that since they didn't need to breathe they could work- and usually did- wholly underwater for hours if not the whole day. Now none of them didn't know what 'drowning' felt like, but he Mitt, and Greens hated the afterwards. Dripping wet clothes, the stench of recycled Golden Dynasty water, and frankly it was one of the most humiliating jobs in prison. Second only to septic tank cleanup. The night passed by with little fanfare barring the occasional insomniac heckler laughing at Bonn or throwing a string of curses at him.

Great Fuse almighty Bonn hated this place. He hated these dregs, the warden, the criminals. He hated the Dynasty, the humiliation, the torment. The traitors who put him here.

Bonn began to shake in anger, twenty fuse-damn years of being stuck in some max-sec dropout bloc. Nearly a hundred-seventy-four years worth of scheming, plotting, conquering, just to lose it all in a single day to be brought from top of the world to the bottom of it. He hated it as his head began to shake. His fists clenched, his feet tapped irrhythmically against the hard, dull, unfitting floor of a tyrant! The life he had, stolen, wasted, and probably spat on by some cheap two-bit ingrates who envied him and his plans. He was mad at himself too. An empire of vagrants, criminals, and low-lifes. The kinda people from here once he saw and interacted with them up close finally made him understand how dumb his mistake was- letting criminals run rampant all over his dreams, his glory, his deserved conquest of the world!

And for a brief second, Bonn felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. At first he thought it some sort of anger-nirvana- but no. A spark. He felt it- red, glowing hot, the smell of lightly-burned rope emanated in the cell. Immediately his anger was lost as he became confused, looking around for the sensation. The shaking of his head caused a small faint red piece of smoldered rope to fall down into his hands. Mitt and Greens had watched the spectacle at first to make sure Bonn didn't make an ass of himself but as he got angrier and angrier- they realized for the first time in twenty years something new had happened.

"Bonn. You- you-" "My great right boot."

Bonn immediately checked the fuse- the rags were mostly dried, as if it was remembering a shower from a day ago. Under the rags the fuse was dry. Or at the least it wasn't so unbearably damp up there anymore- some residual dew and wet spots were there- but he felt it. The end of the rope, a small feeling of singed material. Bonn looked back in his hand. The small piece of ashy rope had quickly turned to dust but it was physical proof still.

Bonns wanted to test something to make sure it wasn't a hallucination. If Bonn thought about it enough. . . another spark! Bonn kept putting his 'brainpower' to trying to ignite the fuse. Slowly but surely, minute after minute, attempt after attempt- the sparks became longer-lasting, the scent of smoke and burned rope permeated the cell as Bonn in one of the few moments he allowed himself- smiled. The lit fuse barely illuminated the room and the sounds of a faint hiss sounded throughout the night. Bonn let the feeling of having a lit fuse stay for a moment before putting it out with the now only slightly damp rags, darkening the room and putting out the fuse. "Gentlemen." Bonn stared back at his compatriots in the cell. "I think it's our time once again." Bonn could tell the feeling of optimism spread throughout the cell.

"Greens." The newly re-invigorated Greens stood up and did a full salute in the dark. "Since you were talking about it earlier- why don't you come up with our escape plan tonight?" "Can-" Mitt and Bonn shushed him- his energy a bit too high. "-Do." Greens finished quietly. "Give me a minute will ya?" Greens sat back down on his hammock and rocked it back and forth to try and circulate the flow of ideas, Bonn and Mitt awkwardly stared on in silence as the former Commander planned one more strategy to bust them outta this awful prison. Within the minute- Greens eyes lit up, signaling he got an idea and sat back up facing the other two.

"So, what's the plan?"

'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()

The 99th Bust-Out
Attempts 1-98 have failed. Every attempt to get out of the prison under Imperial Bay has had to be planned using simple wits, creativity, and ingenuity. However- with Bonn's re-found explosive power, we have extra brawn for us Bombs. Of course, blowing up is still risky- it's loud, noisy, and it turns whoever blows up into a mindless and headless dummy for the next day or so. So whatever Bonn needs to do is mostly preliminary actions to start the avenue of escape.
Choose one plan to finally get out!

Prison Riot 4: Electric Boomaloo!- "We could always try another prison riot. It ain't difficult. But with Bonn able to light up and blow up- we could easily 'knock out' the guards when they try and surround us. Buy us plenty more time to get out, hide, and potentially allow for Bonn to regrow his head and do it again." "On one hand, I hate being used as an explosive battering ram, but if it gets us out, I'm in."

'Incapacitate' the Warden- "That chunky warden may be getting better at not losing his marbles, but we just need to aggravate him enough so he comes near us. And Bonn- you're perfect for the job." "I'll take that as a compliment." "We lure the guard close and we blow 'em to smithereens!" "I. I blow him up to the great Kingdom beyond." "Correct. Afterwards, we steal his access cards and use 'em to sneak through and then out the prison."

Try the 39th Plan Again- "The armored truck plan. Genius, real genius. But when we inevitably had to stop at that checkpoint, we were found out in the back. But with Bonn able to explode- we can send a friendly message to the driver to not stop that truck- no matter what everyone else tells 'em. The fact we've got a live bomb in the back able to send him into 'permanent retirement' should help convince him."

Flood It and Leave It!- "We've tried everything against the walls. The problem being its too loud, too slow, or simply unable to make a big enough dent in the concrete. But with Bonn able to blow up, we can get through two of the three requirements to bust open the wall." "Greens I don't think I'm powerful enough to blast solid concrete-" "We don't need to make a giant hole in the wall. Just need to weaken it enough that the sea can do the rest."

'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()

"Sounds incredibly risky." "And lethally stupid."

"Any better ideas pointdexter?"

"Touché."

"Whatever it is- stupid, reckless, or idiotic. Remember it, remember it well, and see you all- in the morning. And by tomorrow evening- may we be free men."

"Hear hear!" "Cheers!"

The other two Bombs fell back onto their bunks and attempted to go to sleep.

". . ."

". . ."

". . ."

Bonn quickly found himself thinking alone as the other two drifted into sleep and filled the room with their snoring. "This plan better work." Bonn quietly muttered before tapping a spot on his chest. The old and skeletal rose had long ago died- time, action, and all the fighting had turned the once vibrant rose into a nearly gray and browned plant. Still- 20 years it'd passed- somehow it sat there even as withered it was. Bonn sighed as he drifted to sleep.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

.

. .

. . .
Sorry about the extended break. But I wanted to branch out a bit.

Voting will end the 13th of April! Vote the wrong way and you'll be shanked at the cafeteria tomorrow.

Concerns, court orders, criminal charges, and all are appreciated in the comments below- as well as questions and statements. Don't worry about the Cookout either. I still plan on roasting a full five-course meal!

Hope you enjoy this episode!

Description

"LIGHTS OUT!"

The already dim cell shut down as the three occupants sat in dreary silence. Night-time routine had long become an ingrained procedure. Lights out. Silence. A lotta time for Bonn to think. To reminisce on the good ol' days. Bonn, Mitt, and Greens had more than enough time behind the bars of some dreg and dread prison. The Golden Dynasty had won and they'd made sure to rub it in their faces for the last twenty years the crew had been stuck within the bottom of the barrel in the ugly heart of the Dynasty. Humiliating, degrading, un-person'd. The three had once been the most powerful people on the continent. Names to be feared, to be respected, to be admired begrudgingly.

Now Bonn, Mitt, and Greens sat in a dark and slightly damp two-man cell that had to be spartanly remodeled to fit three. Being stuck in a more 'permanent cell' after the near hundred attempts the Dynasty went through to try and kill the trio off for good in an increasingly desperate act of 'retribution'. Shooting, fires, ironically bombs twice, acid, suffocating, if it killed someone, it was attempted. Bonn reminisced on those early memories within the Dynasty. He hated it. At first they were genuine- he gave them credit. But as he stubbornly didn't die, they became more about entertainment. Ridicule, mockery, humiliation. Anvils, drowning, being tied to a missile and shot at a mountain- again- credit for creativity. Bonn went from tyrant feared and kowtowed to, to a premiere comedy skit performed by the Dynasty in an effort to get rid of him and slander his good name. Bonn let out a low snarl as he remembered just last month- some blockhead thought it'd be a good idea to try bloodletting! Bloodletting on a bomb, great plan moron.

The three equally hated and despised the prison. Having little to talk about, most days devolved into sitting, staring, and doing nothing within the cell. What could the trio do? Escape had proven impossible- while the Dynasty couldn't kill 'em they sure could annoy them. And given enough of an electric zap or enough kinetic force from having an wrecking ball knock him silly for minutes would inevitably K.O. any of the trio. Conversations these days mostly boiled down to reminiscing about the old days- what they coulda done better, what they woulda done given the foresight, names on the List that Bonn would've whacked sooner, tech Mitt would've pushed for harder, tactics Greens would adopt and innovate on. And Bonn truth be told did miss some of the social life. Not the fancy meetings with suck-up aristocrats or sell-out media moguls- Adams, Ahab, and Camila, Bonn missed them and it only made him more pissed at being stuck in a small cube under the ocean floor for the last twenty years.

But for the first hour of the night, the three sat in silence as the night moved on, each one living out personal fantasies or what-ifs running through their head. Bonn finally perked up beginning the nightly conversation.

". . . Mitt?"

"Yeah? What?"

"What- what'd we do wrong?"

"Likely all the crimes the Dynasty's implicated on us? Or maybe some of the connections we made and didn't break sooner, or connections we didn't make sooner?"

"Crime. Schmime. I want to rule the world, I don't care about the crimes we did or the people I stepped on and over, you're gonna crack a few people, some cultures, and a lotta nations to get to the top. I'll admit, maybe we were a bit too trigger-happy and dumb, but I didn't mean that 'wrong' you moralistic pencil-pusher. I meant what'd we do wrong? What finally tipped the scales so that we were sitting shitty down here in this ugly concrete box fit for some dreggy criminal, not the inevitable ruler of the world!" Bonn slid off his bunk and stood in the darkness, his eyes moving even further up as if he was asking the heavens "Y'know all this time- I don't know how it took nearly 20 years to come to this- but we've been talking about what we would do or how everything was done differently. But what actually led to our downfall? What was it that finally pushed those damn proles over the edge and sold us out to the fat cats here on the West Coast? Y'know, the incident that started all this bullshit prison dealing?"

The other two Bombs eyes lit up in realization as Bonn kept speaking.

"The fresh Fuse we've been doing in here talking about what we'd do or what would've done with foresight when we didn't even see the damn problem right under our metaphorical noses. We- we flew too close to the damned Sun and before you know it some debris struck our rocket and sent us tumbling down to the bottom of the sea- stuck in some awful fuckin' box for the last twenty! Why not talk about the thing that landed us down in the dumps? Was it the debris, the goal, what?"

"Well. . . actually. . ."

'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()

The Problem
The Bombpire collapsed. It collapsed for a reason, though for what reason has been muddled and sullied by years of groveling and what-if scenarios. The real reason the Bombpire collapsed- was it the timeframe of our plan? The simple fact the plan was perhaps a bit too ambitious? The proles getting wise? Or was it something even more sinister? A spy within the ranks? Selling out the Bombpire? Either which way it collapsed and now we gotta understand why it did.
Choose what killed the Bombpire. Likely a multitude of problems downed the first Bombpire, make it 3!

We Flew Too Fast to The Sun- "Thinking about it, we may've crunched the Great Push a bit to much." "You sayin' it was a bad plan?" "No. No. No- not at all Bonn. But only twenty years? We were having to crunch everything on the Bombpire down. You gotta understand- twenty years was too little a timeframe to change everything. We shoulda extended it out- ehh. . . thirty, forty, maybe fifty years. We just were so deadset on that goal we probably forgot that the Bombpire was too fragile."

We Wanted to Fly Close to The Sun- "The problem may've been we tried to eat it whole Bonn, the other 2/3rds of the continent?" "You sayin' we shouldn't try and conquer what we want?" "The problem was trying to make the Bombpire ready to eat what was a 5-course meal in an hour. The massive buildup of a war economy without any prior standards of being at a war economy? The nobles didn't betray us so much as we- I hate to say it- betrayed them. We tried to take away their comfort and they took away our leadership through paralyzing the whole structure as they refused to pay taxes and tribute- the whole thing began to unravel as nothing got done and nothing could get done!"

Debris Shot Us Down- "The plan I'll admit was great Bonn, but the problem was the people. The masses, millions of souls- we didn't consider them a threat and considered them pacified, that was our problem. We didn't crush their spirits enough or bend them to our wills enough and they snapped once word of the plan got out or Fuse forbid the rumor mills got too big to ignore. Hence why we ended up staring down an armed mob in the capitol. The next time we do something like this- we need to get a harder grip on the population." "How?" "That. That'll need to be figured out later."

Intentional Sabotage- "Really Bonn, the plan, the prep, the people- it was nearly ready for the Great Push. Sure we'd crunched it, and had a few rough edges. But I think what doomed us was a mole within our ranks." "A mole? I never employed any stinkin' moles within my Bombpire!" "Not the upright moles you blind bat! I mean someone leaked the plan to the public and that allowed them to key to what was going on and took us out!"

International Sabotage- "Someone on the inside sold our plans to the Dynasty! Think about it. How else are we in a Dynasty prison?" "So not only did we have some rat, we had a rat that worked for the Goldies?" "Likely one of our agents within the Dynasty or some little businessman who we didn't properly take hold of and sold us out, wars tend to be bad for business- well- everyone elses."

'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()

"So thats that, the problem was something within our control but we were just blind or arrogant to it." Mitt explained as his glasses drooped in the dark.

"Well. It's a stinging lesson, but we'll simply need to account for that next time."

"I hate to ask boys, but the Fuse are we gonna have a "next time". It's nice we got our little feel-dump session for the night and all- but we're stuck here!" Greens spouted out, only to realize after he finished shouting nobody could see him gesturing in his anger. "Apologies. But the problem is gentlemen, we can make the perfect strategy for running a country; but we're stuck in a concrete box beneath the ocean!"

A thug from across the hall yelled out a slur towards the cell the Bombs were in- which prompted Bonn to respond with a simple 'Bite me!' towards the vagrant before settling back down.

"Look. Greens you do have a point. But Mitt is at least on a right track. We gotta get our shit sorted out before we run back out on the world. We'll inevitably get back outside- I swear on my Fuse. But Greens- how'd you suggest we get out of here? We've tried plenty, it's not worked. Smashing. Dashing. Bashing."

"Prison riot, prison confidants, and multiple disguises." Mitt listed.

"Listing our failures isn't gonna help us at all." Greens spat back.

"Swimming out, digging out, prison capitalism." Mitt listed off more failed attempts as Greens and Bonn both looked at Mitt in annoyance. "Greens. Dopeslap." Mitt was too busy listing the various schemes to get out of prison to notice Greens getting off his hammock and interrupting Mitt with a quick 'THWACK'. "Ow." "Yeah well don't be such a pointdexter." "Look- Mitt, we get it, we failed. A lot."

Another pair of thugs on the other side of the wall from the Bombs got riled enough to politely ask them to shut up with extra obscenities involved. Bonn retorted back with similar obscenities claiming that 'our business none-ya yours!'

"Classless assholes, the lotta them." Bonn said as he shrugged in the total darkness. "Have we tried reigning them in?" "Prison riot number two or cross-prison Ponzi scheme to get the warden's pockets?" "Okay so yes, and it hasn't worked." "Correct." "Busting outta here would be so much better if we could BLOW UP!" Bonn yelled angrily. Bonn motioned to his fuse in the darkness. Constantly kept damp and covered in wet rags- Bonn always figured he could explode whenever he wanted. All it took to keep him down and de-powered was a little bit of water constantly being on his head. Mitt was in a similar situation- though more akin to damp bandages. Greens- being fuseless was rendered inert through a simple locked ring holding the pin in place. It was humiliating.

Of course the utterance of Bonns shouting comment caused the whole cell block to erupt in a chorus of angry screams, slurs, and curses as the enraged explosive had woken them up from their slumber. Bonn had awoken the horde of angry, crazy, and deranged lunatics that'd shared his cell bloc. While Bonn and co. had disturbed them plenty before- none of them got used to Bonn's ramblings late at night. The lack of need to sleep, breathe, or any vital function and an incessant need to prove his ego, Bonn was a constant annoyance to everyone on the floor- and frankly- within the prison itself but the bloc was Bonn's personal stomping grounds. The prisoners continued to make a noisy racket, driving Bonn up a wall. All the noise, these dregs of society- not just any society- the dregs of the dreaded Dynasty! This began the third phase of commotion at night- it started with Bonn, bounced to the bloc, and back to Bonn.

"I'm not gonna be lectured and talked down by a bunch of failed criminals and wannabe gangster tyrants! I may not run a nation, but I'll still run you into the concrete you worthless hellions!" The hecklers continued to jeer in the darkness as Bonn began another one of his big talk-em-up spiels. "I drove criminals and shmucks like you into the dirt either as meat shields or as my own personal secretaries. I figured out how worthless you were on the East- I cannot imagine how useless you sad sacks of bankrupt scum were here, let alone to be caught and thrown down here!"

'Your here too ya whiny boomer!' 'Quit the lecturin'!' 'Sad yappin' from Mr. Tuxedo and his circus!'

Bonn was only further enraged by the hecklers- they were right, but that didn't make it any less angering. He had to rule something, and it didn't matter if it was a nation, a club, a department, or a prison, Bonn had to be running it- he had to. Of course the third phase of prison night life was always followed up with the usual finale. The guards. Enough racket and the guards came down to 'keep the peace' and end whatever 'private discussion' Bonn was having with his 'subjects'.

"WHO'S THE NASTY SPASTIC INTERRUPTIN' QUIET HOURS?"

The bloc fell silent- but Bonn couldn't keep himself down- Mitt and Greens tried to pull him away from the bars. Nothing might've worked to kill 'em, but everything still hurt. Still Bonn left his motor mouth running. "Ah Warden! Glad to see ya, these dregs were busy yammerin' away precious O2." Bonn said in his per usual snark. "Was worried if these wastes of space might be slowly killin' the rest of the bloc-" "Bonn! Shut up!" "Come on, not worth it." "Come on Warden! Instill some discipline in what your sadsack of a nation calls 'criminals'!"

"HOW MANY TIMES I GOTTA REP YA B-01713? NO WASTIN' TALK AFTERHOURS?" "Approximately 10,567 times." "GREAT ALMIGHTY DID I HEAR THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION NOBODY ASKED FOR?" "Hey, lay off, Mitt; and you- chunky and punky, lay off Mitt!" The warden frankly didn't have time for this shit- not for apparently the ten-thousandth five-hundred sixty-seventh time. "Git some rest you gutter trash or I'll have ya'll on Bay Duty." The temperamental warden said, both 'cooling off' and threatening Bonn enough to shut him up. 'Bay Duty' involved stripping barnacles off ships. An already awful job- made worse by the single fact that since they didn't need to breathe they could work- and usually did- wholly underwater for hours if not the whole day. Now none of them didn't know what 'drowning' felt like, but he Mitt, and Greens hated the afterwards. Dripping wet clothes, the stench of recycled Golden Dynasty water, and frankly it was one of the most humiliating jobs in prison. Second only to septic tank cleanup. The night passed by with little fanfare barring the occasional insomniac heckler laughing at Bonn or throwing a string of curses at him.

Great Fuse almighty Bonn hated this place. He hated these dregs, the warden, the criminals. He hated the Dynasty, the humiliation, the torment. The traitors who put him here.

Bonn began to shake in anger, twenty fuse-damn years of being stuck in some max-sec dropout bloc. Nearly a hundred-seventy-four years worth of scheming, plotting, conquering, just to lose it all in a single day to be brought from top of the world to the bottom of it. He hated it as his head began to shake. His fists clenched, his feet tapped irrhythmically against the hard, dull, unfitting floor of a tyrant! The life he had, stolen, wasted, and probably spat on by some cheap two-bit ingrates who envied him and his plans. He was mad at himself too. An empire of vagrants, criminals, and low-lifes. The kinda people from here once he saw and interacted with them up close finally made him understand how dumb his mistake was- letting criminals run rampant all over his dreams, his glory, his deserved conquest of the world!

And for a brief second, Bonn felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. At first he thought it some sort of anger-nirvana- but no. A spark. He felt it- red, glowing hot, the smell of lightly-burned rope emanated in the cell. Immediately his anger was lost as he became confused, looking around for the sensation. The shaking of his head caused a small faint red piece of smoldered rope to fall down into his hands. Mitt and Greens had watched the spectacle at first to make sure Bonn didn't make an ass of himself but as he got angrier and angrier- they realized for the first time in twenty years something new had happened.

"Bonn. You- you-" "My great right boot."

Bonn immediately checked the fuse- the rags were mostly dried, as if it was remembering a shower from a day ago. Under the rags the fuse was dry. Or at the least it wasn't so unbearably damp up there anymore- some residual dew and wet spots were there- but he felt it. The end of the rope, a small feeling of singed material. Bonn looked back in his hand. The small piece of ashy rope had quickly turned to dust but it was physical proof still.

Bonns wanted to test something to make sure it wasn't a hallucination. If Bonn thought about it enough. . . another spark! Bonn kept putting his 'brainpower' to trying to ignite the fuse. Slowly but surely, minute after minute, attempt after attempt- the sparks became longer-lasting, the scent of smoke and burned rope permeated the cell as Bonn in one of the few moments he allowed himself- smiled. The lit fuse barely illuminated the room and the sounds of a faint hiss sounded throughout the night. Bonn let the feeling of having a lit fuse stay for a moment before putting it out with the now only slightly damp rags, darkening the room and putting out the fuse. "Gentlemen." Bonn stared back at his compatriots in the cell. "I think it's our time once again." Bonn could tell the feeling of optimism spread throughout the cell.

"Greens." The newly re-invigorated Greens stood up and did a full salute in the dark. "Since you were talking about it earlier- why don't you come up with our escape plan tonight?" "Can-" Mitt and Bonn shushed him- his energy a bit too high. "-Do." Greens finished quietly. "Give me a minute will ya?" Greens sat back down on his hammock and rocked it back and forth to try and circulate the flow of ideas, Bonn and Mitt awkwardly stared on in silence as the former Commander planned one more strategy to bust them outta this awful prison. Within the minute- Greens eyes lit up, signaling he got an idea and sat back up facing the other two.

"So, what's the plan?"

'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()

The 99th Bust-Out
Attempts 1-98 have failed. Every attempt to get out of the prison under Imperial Bay has had to be planned using simple wits, creativity, and ingenuity. However- with Bonn's re-found explosive power, we have extra brawn for us Bombs. Of course, blowing up is still risky- it's loud, noisy, and it turns whoever blows up into a mindless and headless dummy for the next day or so. So whatever Bonn needs to do is mostly preliminary actions to start the avenue of escape.
Choose one plan to finally get out!

Prison Riot 4: Electric Boomaloo!- "We could always try another prison riot. It ain't difficult. But with Bonn able to light up and blow up- we could easily 'knock out' the guards when they try and surround us. Buy us plenty more time to get out, hide, and potentially allow for Bonn to regrow his head and do it again." "On one hand, I hate being used as an explosive battering ram, but if it gets us out, I'm in."

'Incapacitate' the Warden- "That chunky warden may be getting better at not losing his marbles, but we just need to aggravate him enough so he comes near us. And Bonn- you're perfect for the job." "I'll take that as a compliment." "We lure the guard close and we blow 'em to smithereens!" "I. I blow him up to the great Kingdom beyond." "Correct. Afterwards, we steal his access cards and use 'em to sneak through and then out the prison."

Try the 39th Plan Again- "The armored truck plan. Genius, real genius. But when we inevitably had to stop at that checkpoint, we were found out in the back. But with Bonn able to explode- we can send a friendly message to the driver to not stop that truck- no matter what everyone else tells 'em. The fact we've got a live bomb in the back able to send him into 'permanent retirement' should help convince him."

Flood It and Leave It!- "We've tried everything against the walls. The problem being its too loud, too slow, or simply unable to make a big enough dent in the concrete. But with Bonn able to blow up, we can get through two of the three requirements to bust open the wall." "Greens I don't think I'm powerful enough to blast solid concrete-" "We don't need to make a giant hole in the wall. Just need to weaken it enough that the sea can do the rest."

'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()-'O-[]-()

"Sounds incredibly risky." "And lethally stupid."

"Any better ideas pointdexter?"

"Touché."

"Whatever it is- stupid, reckless, or idiotic. Remember it, remember it well, and see you all- in the morning. And by tomorrow evening- may we be free men."

"Hear hear!" "Cheers!"

The other two Bombs fell back onto their bunks and attempted to go to sleep.

". . ."

". . ."

". . ."

Bonn quickly found himself thinking alone as the other two drifted into sleep and filled the room with their snoring. "This plan better work." Bonn quietly muttered before tapping a spot on his chest. The old and skeletal rose had long ago died- time, action, and all the fighting had turned the once vibrant rose into a nearly gray and browned plant. Still- 20 years it'd passed- somehow it sat there even as withered it was. Bonn sighed as he drifted to sleep.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

.

. .

. . .
Sorry about the extended break. But I wanted to branch out a bit.

Voting will end the 13th of April! Vote the wrong way and you'll be shanked at the cafeteria tomorrow.

Concerns, court orders, criminal charges, and all are appreciated in the comments below- as well as questions and statements. Don't worry about the Cookout either. I still plan on roasting a full five-course meal!

Hope you enjoy this episode!