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Johnny lived on a farm with his aunt and uncle. This had been the arrangement since his parents had died a presumably tragic death soon after his birth. You of course knew he was an orphan because he had the word orphan tattooed on his back and made regular reference to the fact his parents had died when he was attempting to get out of doing stuff. Beyond that though he was perfectly normal—well, beyond a hentai obsession and a strong interest in the occult, but you won’t hold that against him, will you?

Well, there was one thing that was a little bit off about Johnny. You see, he had a bit of an ongoing friendship with Hannah, the local elderly hermit. Nobody was quite sure what the go was with her, but everyone knew she was way wiser than most people because she had a totally rockin’, and presumably natural, beard going on. Also, she dressed like she could have been homeless, so that was another point for her, but it was legitimately mostly the beard that made her look wise.

On one of the frequent visits Johnny made to Hannah’s house; a trail of black smoke was rising in the distance. Well, by distance I’m sure we all understand we mean twenty minute’s walking distance away, which is all you really need for it to be a distance by most people’s logic.

“Hey, isn’t that your house going up in smoke?” said Hannah as she sipped another sip of tea.

“Can I finish my tea?” Johnny replied. “If it isn’t my house, it’ll be fine; but if it is, why not have another five minutes before my life turns to absolute shit?”

With a shrug of the shoulders, both said “Fair enough” and finished their tea. Not half an hour later, the pair were standing outside what used to be Johnny’s house, which was now burned to a crisp.

Johnny knew that his aunt and uncle were in there, of course, because there was nothing quite as big and round as his aunt that could have possibly have left such a large amount of remains along the stone floor, and the smell of burned hair was oddly familiar from the time he had accidentally-on-purpose set his uncle’s creepy child molester moustache on fire.

“This is shit,” said Johnny. “Now who am I meant to blame for all my problems?”

“Well, the evil bad guy who’s going to be introduced in the next scene,” said Hannah. “But it’s not as shit as you might think.”

“Oh, and why not?” asked Johnny, who was curious enough to ask but not curious enough to pay loads of attention.

“Because, you see,” Hannah explained, “I’ve been thinking this through and the only logical conclusion I can come up with is that we go on an interstellar journey for no apparent reason other than to advance the plot.”

“Okay, and then what?”

“I teach you magic.” Hannah spread her arms open and added, “I didn’t grow this beard for nothing, you know!”

“Well then, when do we start?” said Johnny, who had always secretly wanted to be a wizard. Well, a wizard with a pair of anime girls in his room.

“Right now obviously,” Hannah said as she started to walk back to town. “Come on, there’s someone we need to meet before we get our crew.”

Two solar systems and an ice cream truck to the left; the evil Comrade Wheeler was in his private office on his brand new spaceship. You knew he was evil by looking at him, of course, because he was bald and wore nothing but black. The fact that by black we mean a black t-shirt which was easily two sizes too small and the baggiest jeans he could find on sale at Rivers should be inconsequential in light of his fascination with kicking puppies.

The queen of the rebellion against the empire happened to be in his office that day. You knew she was a queen because she wore nothing but white and kept her hair in a bun. The fact that by all white we mean a maid’s outfit and by a bun we literally mean she kept her hair in a maid’s bun because she was cleaning her bathroom when she was captured should be inconsequential. This is all in light of the fact she was head maid at the Rebellion Hotel in some insignificant little solar system nobody’s heard of.

“Tell me the secret plan!” Comrade Wheeler demanded, clenching his fist dramatically.

“Secret plan?” the queen said. “I don’t know any plans other than the fire escape plan.”

“Do you know what this ship has?” Wheeler said, leaning in closer. “It has a special boot designed for kicking puppies.” He pointed to the corner where he kept his special boot for kicking puppies. “I wonder, will it be good for kicking people as well?”

“At least it’s not a weapon that can destroy planets,” she said.

“Oh, we have one of those as well,” Comrade Wheeler said. “Admiral! Get in here!”

The admiral walked in. You knew he was an admiral because he had a number of ribbons sewed onto his uniform. You also knew he was an idiot because Comrade Wheeler was onboard and he had too big of an ego to let one of his smart admirals be onboard at the same time.

“Show our guest the secret weapon for destroying planets!” Wheeler said.

“Yes sir!” the admiral shouted, pressing a button.

Looking out the window, a weapon fired on the nearby planet. It exploded with the kind of force usually reserved for pufferfish when they get scared.

“That certainly was dramatic,” the queen said. “But you know nobody actually lives on that planet, right?”

Comrade Wheeler nodded and looked at the admiral. “Fuck,” they both said in unison.

Johnny and Hannah sat across from a transvestite in a seedy little bar in the backstreets of a rather criminal-infested city. You knew he was a transvestite because he was wearing a corset and fishnets and had some rather heavy makeup on. The fact that his corset may have just been some tin foil held together by duct tape should be irrelevant in light of the fact that he was obviously male.

“Call me Rocky,” he said. “And I have a ship.”

“Okay, the voices in my head are telling me there’s a ship a few systems away,” Hannah said.

“They’re also telling me that you’ll get loads of money if you take us there. Do you have a ship and crew?”

“Babe, it doesn’t matter what I say here,” Rocky said. “It’s gonna cause loads of fans to come up with fucking wild-ass theories anyway. Point being, I did some special run really quickly this one time. Also, yeah, I have a ship and crew, let me show them to you.”

So the three walked out onto the landing bay and into Rocky'd ship. The crew of six stood in a line and waited. Trans walked along the line and pointed at them one by one.

“This is Jeb,” he said. “We’re not really sure whose side he’s on. But trust me, he’s a pretty good scientist; it’s just that you can’t trust me.”

“Isn’t Jeb that—” Johnny started.

“Scientist from another story that someone else wrote?” Jeb said. “Yeah, but the powers that be informed me that I didn’t get enough on-page time to be a total mindfuck in that series so I came here.”

“He recently defected from the empire,” Rocky said. “You can trust him. He’s one of the good guys for now, but people will probably ignore him because there’s going to be another love story at the forefront at some point which is going—”

“—to derail my character? Are you fucking serious? Didn’t I get enough of this in Maximum Ride? Jesus, you guys…”

“Moving on,” said Rocky, stepping forward to the next person in the line. “This is Vernon. He’s new as well.”

“Aren’t you from another story as well?”

“Yeah,” said Vernon. “Turns out $31,000 isn’t as much now as it was back in 1984…and I might have been fired for being unprofessional. Who’d have guessed that one, right?”

A groan of annoyance went across the entire crew. “This is why we don’t let you talk, Vernon,” Jeb said. “It’s always about how that Bender kid got you fired in 1986.”

“This is Sirius Black,” said Rocky, as he stepped on more step further down the line. “He’s from another story, too.”

“This is where I came when I fell through the veil,” Sirius said. “I asked if I could go back to Grimwald Place, but JK Rowling told me I was dead so I guess I’m stuck here for good now, right?”

“Alright, this is Edward Jellico,” said Trans.

“Now if we find we’re in combat, I want the engineering deck sealed and guarded,” he began.

“Jesus, Jellico, this isn’t your ship,” said Rocky. “I almost wish I had sent you back to the Cairo now.” He moved to the next person. “This is Jud Elliot.”

“But weren’t you, like, a non-event in the end or something?” Johnny said.

“Hush,” Jud said. “Obviously this is before I screwed the timeline completely. Oh, have you seen any of my ancestors around lately? I could use some action, if you get my drift.”

Hannah through her head into her face. “Really, Judd? Did you have to bring the incest vibe in so early?”

“Oh, and the powers that be told me I had to have at least one character who was actually an alien,” said Rocky. “Meet Darth Maul.”

“Hi,” said Maul. “I like bunnies.”

"And this is why you didn’t get lines in your movie,” said Rocky, swinging his arm. "You just weren't scary enough!"

Maul's eyes went sad. "I'm not scary? But I could get a real good bunny."

"Alright, repeat after me," Rocky said. "When you meet someone for the first time, I need you to be tough as nails. So I want you to tell them that you'll rip them apart if they cross us."

"Bust a deal, face the wheel!" Maul shouted at Hannah and Johnny. "You cross us, I'll rip you apart! With bunnies and rainbows and sunshine and candy!"

“Alright, this’ll do,” said Hannah, throwing Rocky some money. “Oh, and Johnny, there is one more thing. Here’s your wand.”

Johnny took the wand and immediately pointed it towards his face.

“Really? This is what you do?” said Hannah, disgust obvious in her eyes. “I give you one of the most dangerous weapons in the entire universe and instantly point it towards your face…I see why your parents died now. Alright, go off and learn how to use it.” She turned to Rocky. “Take two systems and an ice cream truck to the left, yeah?”

Comrade Wheeler’s ship waited silently in position as Rocky's ship came into the system. Wheeler looked at the admiral and said, “Have you found the planet that actually has people on it yet?”

“No,” said the admiral. “Are you sure this is an inhabited system?”

“Of course I’m sure,” snapped Wheeler. “What kind of fucked up space opera doesn’t have several billion people living in every star system?”

One of the crew pointed at the ship that had just popped into the system. “Holy shit, what is that?”

“That would be a spaceship in the shape of a jumping chicken,” said Comrade Wheeler. “Nothing important. Just get them into the shuttlebay and we can pretend they don’t exist for a while, yeah?”

“Alright, here’s the plan,” said Hannah. “We go in, we get the princess, we come out.”

“Then what?” Johnny said.

“We go to their hidden base,” Hannah said. “Which we all know the location of because obviously it’s only hidden from the empire.”

“Okay, I can dig that,” Johnny said.

“They’re taking us into their shuttlebay,” said Jellico. “Are we meant to be firing shots yet?”

“No, Jellico,” said Rocky. “We’re meant to let them. This is why you were never a fucking diplomat, you trigger happy fool.”

Not five minutes later, the nine crew members were running out, spelling, shooting and stabbing various people to death. Nobody really minded, of course, because the rebellion was ingeniously hard to find, so most of the imperial soldiers actually relished at the chance to do their jobs for once.

“Hey, has anybody noticed that I’m surprisingly better at the whole killing people business than when I was in The Phantom Menace?” said Maul, whose duel ended lightsaber had stabbed two people when he activated it.

“Yeah, we have,” said Jeb. “God only knows you had one job, Maul, one job…and you couldn’t even do that right. Honestly, it was just one Jedi and his student, how hard could it have been?”

"Yeah, and the student was literally telegraphing in his moves when he killed you," Johnny said. "How could you have missed that?"

“Well, you know…I was thinking of bunnies at the time,” said Maul.

Johnny let off a reasonably well aimed spell. “You know, it’s great they cut my training montage out of this and all,” he said, “but wouldn’t it have been convenient to at least establish I can stun people before we got here?”

“Shut up Johnny,” said Sirius. “The only reason I taught you that spell is so I wouldn’t feel so bad about dying on Harry like that.”

Once all the soldiers were dead or dying, Hannah turned to the crew of misfits. “Alright, wait here,” she said. “I have to go do some stuff which is never adequately explained, but have fun anyway.”

Ten minutes later, after hearing for the third time how desperately Sirius wanted redemption for having left his original series, Johnny stood up.

“Fuck this shit,” he said. “I’m gonna go find the princess.”

“Honestly? Didn’t the old bat say to wait here?” said Jeb.

“Yeah, but as if she’s going to find her,” Vernon said. “Obviously the beard’s sent her senile.”

“Bunnies!” said Maul.

“Well, that’s almost a unanimous decision from you lot,” Johnny said. “Come on.”

In the brig, the princess was attempting to clean her cell. That was, of course, until the dramatic rescue attempt resulting the sounds of multiple deaths up the hallway distracted her. What distracted her more, however, was the appearance of Johnny in the cell door.

“You know, I was honestly hoping you’d be an anime girl,” he said. “But come on.”

“Alright,” she said. “Obviously there’s nothing wrong with going off with strangers I’ve never met before just when I was cleaning.”

When the group turned, there was a couple of guards standing out in the hallway. They both put their hands up at once.

"Oh no," one of the guards said. "You can have her. If we had have known she's all you want, we would have let you keep her anyway."

"Yeah," said the other guard. "She's a fucking pain in the ass. She tries to clean everything. Now our superiors expect things to remain that clean for the rest of the fucking voyage, can you believe that?"

Johnny shrugged. "Alright," he said, as he shot them both anyway.

When the eight got back to the ship, Hannah was standing across the bay from Comrade Wheeler. The pair were firing spells at each other with such ease and skill that Maul was becoming convinced that legitimate rabbits would soon grace the story. However, no such thing was occurring.

“Goddamn, Hannah!” Wheeler shouted. “Why do you always have to fuck up my attempts at ruling the universe?”

“Because, you fool,” Hannah said, “the plot absolutely requires me to do so.”

At that moment, she created a cannon which began firing batteries at her opponent. Wheeler deflected them and then pointed his wand directly at her.

“You know what this plot also needs?” he said. “It needs you to die. Avada Kedavra!”

“Dude, wrong story,” she replied. “This is meant to be a bad Star Wars parody, remember?”

“Fuck,” he said. “Well, try this one! I kill you!”

Hannah dropped dead. Johnny let out a dramatic no as he was lead to the ship.

Two hours later, the princess looked at the crew. “You know I’m just a maid, right?” she said.

“Wait, what?” Johnny said. “Aren’t you meant to be a princess?”

“I’m the chief maid at the Rebellion Hotel,” she said. “They just call me the princess as a joke there. Also, I’ve done a blood test and you’re my brother…so, um, how bout an incest vibe for the next story?”

“Oh cool,” said Jud. “Can I watch?”

“So there’s no actual rebellion?” Johnny said.

“That’s right,” the princess said.

“And we came all this way for nothing?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, what the fuck are we meant to do now, guys?” Johnny said, standing up and walking off the command centre.

As he left, the groans of horror at that moment were so immense that only a little old couple in Parramatta didn’t hear them.