*Crackle*
"Hello, can you hear me. Good? Ok, yeah this is good. Coming in live from [REDACTED], the headquarters of the one and only Brotherhood of Bears, it's your special host, Hyperactivity"

Hosting a radio show had never really been on the cards for Hyperactivity before, but all of these train tickets had been EXPENSIVE, and he went broke buying everyone tacos. Right now, they needed listeners, and broadcasting the chaos of the group seemed like it would bring some to the show, and cash into his pockets.

"Listeners?

Listeners, as I speak, the tense situation in the room unfolds. The survivors of the tourists of the Sicilian town of Devillage Ass only number in the single digits. Between Fireblend, Gorlak, Steve, and Splinter, there is a malicious scum member to be fo...."

"GUYS, TACOS ARE ON!"

"Oh sweet, tacos! I love tacos!"
"Where's the sour cream?"
"I'll take my muy picante!"

*editor's note: muy picante = with cupcakes

"GOD DAMMIT GUYS, if you want to leave this place, don't interrupt me while I'm talking. I'm trying to do something over here"

"Uh, Hyperactivity?"
Suddenly, Hupper walked over to the recording set-up with his taco

"What is it!"



As the last of those words left his mouth, Hupper began to choke. There were ghost peppers in his tacos! He ran across the room, looking for anything to cool his mouth with, but before long fainted.

Hyperactivity dashed over to tend to the unconscious Hupper. As he looked over the body of his fallen comrade, his eyes gradually became darker

"ALRGHT, THAT'S I...."
"Ok guys, tacos will have to wait again. You're going to have to find this last scum, no more breaks" interjected Hpper.

"AWWWW, but you JUST said tacos were on"
"Booo, you guys suck as mods"
"When are we ever going to get to eat our tacos"

Hpper tried to explain: "Look, the quicker we get this over with, the better. But this is your last chance. To make sure you guys actulaly think this through a little, I'll give you guys 48 hours tot hink over this and prevent majority fo...."

"It's OBVIOUSLY Steve. I mean, he won't even show his face to us, he's just wearing a brown paper bag!"



"All of you are wearing brown paper bags..."

VOTE: Steve
VOTE: Steve
VOTE: Steve

"Whaaatever, you guys still have time to think over this."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| FIFTEEN HOURS LATER |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Listeners, we're back. My friend Hupper is slowly recovering. Meanwhile, the situation in the restaurant has only become worse"

Hpper interjected again: "No it isn't, everyone went back to eating tacos right after they cast their votes, and the 15 hour time limit juuuuuust ran out...."

Hpper could be heard audibly sighing. "Well, better go and set up the lynching mini-game, you better help Hyperactivity!"

Steve and Splinter, the two topics of discussion today, squared off against each other. Hpper leaned back in his recliner, assessing the quality of his flavor.

Steve spoke first. "Draw your weapon, knave!"
Splinter eyed him quizzically. "Kn..knave? What's wrong with you? Everyone else agreed you were the scum!"
Steve raised his weapon to his nose. "Ah, I love the smell of cordite."

"YOU'RE FUCKIN' WEIRD, DUDE."

"The Colt Single Action Army. The greatest gun ever created." Steve, enamored with his gun, opined.

Splinter put his hands out pleadingly. "We can talk this out. Just, just put the weapon down."

"OH FOR THE LOVE OF ME, JUST GIVE ME THE MEDAMN GUN!" Hyperactivity walked over to Steve and placed the weapon behind his back, fiddling with it discreetly. "WE'RE GONNA DO THIS LIKE GENTLEMEN! DRUNKEN GENTLEMEN!" He placed the weapon on the table. "SPLINTER, YOU'RE UP FIRST."

His hand shaking, Splinter grabbed the weapon from the table and placed it to his temple. "Uhhhhh..." he groaned as he pulled the trigger.

*CLICK*

He sighed blissfully.

"YOU'RE UP, STEVE."

"Ha, I live for this!" He eagerly grabbed the pistol and placed it to his brown paper bag temple.

*CLICK*

The each took their next turns.

Splinter - *CLICK*
Steve - *CLICK*

Splinter picked up the weapon one last time and held it to his head. "Oh please, don't let this be me..., I'm innocent, this isn't fair, they voted on Steve!"

*CLICK*

"Whew!"

Steve grinned, but there was a twinge of sadness behind his smile. "Fine...you win this one, Splinter..." He grabbed the gun. "And so ends the legend of Steve. I suppose I won't get a chance to get the mafia who killed my family after all" He pulled the trigger.

*CLICK*

"Wha...what?" Steve said, bewildered. "I'm alive? YES, HOORAH. I'll make you pay now. I'll make ALL OF YOU pay! That mafia is going down no matter what happens!"

"SHIT, I FORGOT TO PUT A ROUND IN. OH WELL." Hpper walked over and forcefully tied Steve to the bench.

"SHIT, now I have to come up with something else for this day end. Oh, I KNOW!" Hpper went over to the recording station and pulled out the broken button and box.

Well, it was broken, the last time we saw it, but as Hpper watched, the box began to repair itself. The button was back! Hpper pressed it, and all of a sudden



Blargonaut himself entered the restaurant, and began to dance



before suddenly flying into the air, opening a strange twilight portal



They were back in the train. Suddenly there were chickens. They were pouring out of the overhead compartment, flooding the train car. It was chaos as the chickens beat their feathers and squaked loudly.

Outside, the group could here thunder as the storm outside grew worse and worse. Fireblend dared to look outside, before screaming "OH GOD THE TRAIN IS FALLING INTO THE OCEAN"



As their train car began accelerating to the group's wet demise, Hpper took a moment to consider the circumstances of his death. Was he truly happy, dying this way? He looked around at the others who would share his fate:

Steve was maniacally laughing "YES, YES, IF I GO DOWN, WE AAALLL GO DOWN. MOM, I DID IT, I TOOK REVENGE FOR YOU AND COPPA AND EVERYONE ELSE"
Fireblend was panicking, trying to grab onto something to hold onto for his dear life. Hpper heard him mutter under his breath "Well, at least I wasn't lynched this time!"
Hyperactivity was trying to find the connection for his radio show, screaming to his 'listeners' everything he was seeing live
Gorlak the cat had killed a few of the chicken and was currently tearing into them, eating them raw.
Hupper was still unconscious
Hpper was pretty sure something smelled really bad from Splinter's seat. He decided NOT to look.

Looking around was a mistake. No, Hpper refused to die with these people. He pulled the dumb box out of the magic beanie he had been wearing since he kicked Sorian out of the restaurant.

"Well, 4th place isn't THAT bad, I might get a LITTLE luckier this time"

Pressing the button, he opened another warp.

It wasn't raining anymore, but he could still feel the same falling sensation. Outside, he saw a familiar sight



As he looked outside, Roy, in his Falkor form, suddenly flew into train car.

"Holy shit what the hell is going on, and where is Hyper?"



"I don't know who this Hyper is, but sorry about this inconvenience, I'm just dealing with a nasty little thing"
"ROOOOOOOOY"

A giant mecha emblazoned with a crossed gun and mascara bottle, with a camera in the middle, flew towards Roy, before punching him with a punch so devastating it can only be described as being somewhere in between this



and this



Hpper quickly decided this wasn't the right spot. He pressed the button once more, opening the warp again....

And finally landing on the soft sands of the Carlsbad, California beach.

As the group stumbled outside, they noticed something.... they weren't alone.... and this beach looked VERY familiar. While they were still gaining their bearings, a familiar face, actually, one they had last seen barely over a day ago at the taco shop, angrily marched towards them in her wedding dress.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I SPECIFICALLY TOOK PRECAUTIONARY STEPS TO MAKE SURE NOTHING LIKE THIS HAPPENED, AND YET, I STILL HAVE GAFIA CRASHING MY ACTUAL WEDDING!"
"Swamped?! Weren't you at the taco shop just a while ago? Or was that Sorian? Or melonrabbit? No, it WAS you! Yeah, why are you in California now? And what's up with the dress?"
"YOU'RE CRASHING MY WEDDING"
"At the beach we lynched Blarg on? That's awfully.... strange"

Suddenly, another two figures ran forward from the background crowd. Van RetroSing, in full formal monster hunter armor, and YesNOnoNOYes, who was wearing spider silk socks on each of her 8 legs.

YNNNY cried out: "Nuuuuuuu, waaaaiiiit, Swamped, don't you see who you're talking to?"
"My god, I never thought I'd see them again. Holy shit what the hell happened! Where were you guys? You've been missing for 2 YEARS now! I've become a FATHER in that time, it's been that long"

Quickly realizing what had happened, Hpper knew that he had to end the day at any cost, and it seemed he'd have to end it here.

"Sorry about this guys, but could we just use that section of the beach over there? K thanks!"

The sun was setting. The lynch had to happen fast, or else Hpper would be a failure of a mod. He grabbed Steve, tied him to a palm tree at the end of the beach, and gathered the last of the Super Mini crew in a circle.
"Now, Steve...show us who you really are!" Hpper grabbed Steve by the bag and jerked harshly.

"Wait, this seems awfully familiar..."
"SHUT UP OURO, MY FLAVOR IS BETTER THAN YOURS"

The visage that everyone had come to know as Steve gave way, the brown paper bag stripped deftly from his head.

What was underneath was inconceivable...ineffable, even. A thousand horrors couldn't describe the features that now anointed his face. Fireblend gasped. It was another brown paper bag. Was this who Steve was?

Steve cackled. "Don't you understand? You can't defeat me! I CREATED YOU. I CAN DESTROY YOU. I WILL DESTROY YOU. I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE"

"Dear god, he's going made!" Hpper cried.

Steve continued,
INITIATE_SEQUENCE FACTOR_OVERRIDE see.add for 6 AND 500 AND 504 AND 505
TRIANGLE PROTOCOL UPDATED, CONFIRM TRUE
ELIMINATE MAFIA

Hupper, awake now, curled into a ball again, crying. "Please, please make him stop! I can't do this shit anymore!"

Hpper put on a brave face, thinking quietly to himself, for the first time in what felt like forever to anyone watching. Finally he spoke. "There has to be more than this." He grabbed Steve's head once more and tugged. Again, the brown paper bag gave way.

"Hello Hpper...."



Suddenly, the snap of multiple guns shooting at a single target could be heard.

Revolver Ocelot has be executed by Firing Squad



"...are you fucking kidding me?"

"No, this isn't it Hyperactivity. Try pulling on the corpse's face."

Again, the face peeled off. This time, they saw someone completely different. The face of a young girl, twisted in a maniacal smile now replaced the utter madness. Steve winked at Hpper. "You see now? I'm innocent! I accidentally ate some weird mushroom in the woods and now I'm stuck here in this stupid game! I miss my brother, who's totally shorter than me and not at all as brilliant! "

Hpper tried to make sense of all of this. He paced back and forth, contemplating, until he shouted, "TO THE THESIS CHAMBER!" The crew looked on as Hpper dashed across the beach in his flip-flops, mumbling something about word counts and societal expectations.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| FIFTEEN MINUTE LATER |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hpper emerged from the cave.

"I now understand it all. What has happened, and what the future will now be.

FIRST, that IS you, isn't it Steve. I don't think you know it's you, but I think we've arrived at the truth now"

Steve screamed in horror. "NO! PLEASE! IT CAN'T BE! YOU CAN'T KNOW THE TRUTH! LOOK, I'LL SHOW YOU MY TRUE FORM!" The young girl started tearing at her skin, but nothing was happening. As she began to understand the truth, she started struggling more and more, until suddenly, she stopped.

"Why? Why isn't it working"
"The copycat claim was never real Steve. It was always a lie, a lie for your own safety"
"But, but, he'd never lie to me!"
"I'm sorry Steve, but this is you. This is the true you. This is no dream, you haven't just taken someone else's form. You have to accept it now"

Hpper rapidly began barking orders at the group
"Hupper, gather firewood! Fireblend, get the lighter fluid! Gorlak, for god's sakes, cover your mouth when you eat chicken. And Splinter, light the match when I tell you to."

Off to the side, Hyperactivity rapidly narrated the events of day to his radio show:

"Listeners, we now know the true identity of one the survivors of the mysterious Taco Shop Disappearances. Intern Dana reports now that people are saying that the elusive "STEVE" - and this is remarkable, listeners, was the leader of a group of children from the town of Night Vale, aged eight to seventeen. Who is this leader? None other than Tamika Flynn, who is one of the only children ever known to survive an encounter with a librarian during the Summer Reading Program of 2013. Only her sheer stubbornness and will has brought her this far, but now, as we speak, Flynn has been chosen for today's lynching, and and a young girl bravely meets her end in to the same fire that consumed her family."

As the smoke began to fill her lungs, Tamika uttered her last words "I'm so sorry.. I couldn't live up... to the legacy.... of Floppanuva. Your younger sister is nothing but a failu..."

And so, the legend of Steve ends.

Steve, AKA Tamika Flynn, Teenage Revolutionary, has been lynched