Season 8 Play-Offs Week 2: Real Man's Rabble Rousers vs. George Washington's Slaves

The Real Men are: Zombie Optimus Prime, Artemis (DC), Beast Wars (Optimus Primal, Rhinox, Cheetor, Rattrap, Dinobot, Tigatron, Airazor, Silverbolt, Savage/Noble, Nightscream, Depth Charge, Scuba, Big Horn, Big Convoy, and Blackarachnia), Vehicle Voltron Air Team (Commander Jeff, Rocky, Wolo, Chip, and Ginger), Vehicle Voltron Sea Team (Commander Kirk, Lisa, Tangor, Shannon, and Zandee), Vehicle Voltron Land Team (Commander Cliff, Cinda, Modok, Marvin, and Hutch), Vampire Galactus, The Female Furies (Granny Goodness, Gilotina, Lashina (w/Atlas Axe), Stompa (w/ Heat Axe), Bernadeth (w/ Halberd), and Mad Harriett) Vampire Count Dooku, Darth Krayt, The Anti-Monitor, Autobots #1-3, and Hammer Bros.

The Slaves are: Amazo, Fernus, Batgirl (Cassandra Cain w/black lightsaber), Superman, Jor-El, Loki, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Aunt May, Sharkskin, Eel, Undertow, Wedge Antilles, Ki Adi Mundi, Saruman (w/The One Ring), Boromir (w/Anduril), Movie Bumblebee, Santa Claus (w/ M202A1 FLASH Rocket Launcher), Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Patriclus (w/Atlas Axe and Halberd), The Hydra, Trojan Man (w/Ferengi Energy Whip), Captain Crunch (w/ Trident), Tony the Tiger, Rocky Balboa, Crocodile Dundee (w/ Darth Nihilus's Lightsaber), Maverick, Goose, The Wicked Witch of the West (w/ Devil Lance), and Spongebob Squarepants.

The summer heat on the Play-Off Planet can get intense. Heat like that seems to drive people a little crazy, brains baking in their skulls and all. The temperature in the city was 85 degrees and rising steadily, and poor Aunt May was just trying to buy some ice for the lemonade she was whipping up back at the Slaves' Embassy on the planet. Helping her lift and transport the ice were her good friends Tony The Tiger, and Captain Crunch. At the register, Aunt May was slowly counting out change while Hammer Bros. #17, Darth Krayt, and Vampire Dooku were held up behind her in line. The Hammer Bro was on a short fuse that finally burnt down, and he finally burst. "Let's move it, grandma! It's not enough for you to buy up ALL the ice, no! Now you're going to let it melt onto the floor while you rummage through your coin purse." Trident in hand, Captain Crunch spun around to face the brash little turtle man. "Now listen here, if you think you can speak to... oh my." His confident tone cracked down to a concerned one as he and Count Dooku came eye to eye. Dooku turned towards Krayt with a grin. "Well, it appears The Slaves have sent up a tribute to pay for our ice." Crunch speared the Hammer Bro on his trident as quickly as he could before Dooku's lightsaber split down through his silly hat. Tony the Tiger tried to ready his claws, but his reflexes weren't cat-like enough to evade Krayt. Aunt May was afraid but she stood her ground. "Just you wait," she warned, "when the Slaves don't get their lemonade ice-cold there'll be Hell to pay." Dooku held his blade to her throat. "We are the Hell to pay."

Back at the Slaves' Embassy, a new clip rolled detailing the May's gruesome murder at the hands of two ice-thieving Sith. On a normal day the news would leave Peter Parker morose, but the heat had gotten to him as well, and he was out for blood. "I wasn't enough for them to kill Aunt May, no! They had to go and steal her ice so we can't make the lemonade ourselves! Wolverine, Loki, let's go teach these sons of b****es who the better Disney franchise is." Dooku and Krayt were on their way back to the Real Man Cave with their dripping bags of ice when the trio of Marvel characters strode up in front of them. "Hey Sh** Lords, I think you found something of ours" Spidey quipped as he shot web at the bags of ice, but Dooku's saw the attack coming thanks to Spider-Man's lengthy quips. What he didn't see was Wolverine rushing claws-first at him, and as he sliced through Dooku he tore through the bags of ice as well, spilling their frozen prize onto the scorching hot pavement. Spider-Man and Loki stared horrified at their ally's mistake, while Krayt screamed in rage. He cut down Wolverine and blasted force lightning at Spider-Man, who seized violently from the shock. Loki intervened and magically manipulated the lightning, arcing it back at Krayt and frying him with his own power. Loki looked down at Peter Parker's smoking body and the puddle of meltwater next to him. "This... doesn't bode well today."

In The Real Man Cave, all Hell was breaking loose as Vehicle Voltron's Land Team and Air Team caught the latest breaking development in the Icegate scandal on the news. "Good God," Commander Jeff wailed, "it wasn't enough for them to kill three of our men over some ice, no! They had to go and spill it on the ground so NOBODY can have some god damn ice-cold lemonade today! That's it, we're showing them what happens when you cross the mighty Voltron!" As they raced by land and air to the Slaves' Embassy, they called out for the Sea Team. There was no response, however, as the Sea Team was torn apart in a turf war with SURF long before the Lemonade Conflict began that day. "No response from Sea Team! I put a call out for the rest of the Rabble Rousers. Looks like we're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way." One by one the Vehicle Force smashed into the tremendous abandoned warehouse that is the Slaves' Embassy. They rolled around mowing down the unsuspecting Slaves. Santa and his Reindeer were among the first to go down, the deer due to the headlights and Santa due to an inability to run while morbidly obese. As they commotion went down, The Slaves' powerhouses Superman, Jor-El, and Fernus joined from their patrol of space around the same time the remaining Real Men were arriving on the scene. The Lemonade Conflict had gone full-Baltimore and metastasized into The Great Lemonade Riot of 2015. Hundreds of bystanding citizens dead, dozens of combatants killed or driven insane as the combined heat of the planet's sun and Fernus's wrath overwhelmed them.

Outside the planet, The Anti-Monitor and Vampire Galactus watched the surface burn. "Look how easily they're manipulated. Increase the power of their sun just slightly and they tear themselves apart for us." Vampire Galactus's hunger grew more powerful the longer he watched the chaos. "The Planet is teeming with energy... boiling over with life." He stared mesmerized. "Not yet, Galactus. Just a bit hotter..." As he further fueled the burning sun, Galactus felt his control slip as it burnt brightly with more and more energy. "Just a bite to tide me over" As he sank his gigantic fangs into the star, the unnatural and unstable power the Anti-Monitor had forced in to it erupted, vaporizing all but the core of the planet and blinking the sun out. With no yellow sun, even the Kryptonians couldn't survive, but Fernus was burning more powerfully than ever. As he attempted to rush the remaining Real Men, Anti-Monitor took hold of Fernus's molecular structure and burst him, forming a new sun where the last one had been. Galactus extended his power through space and found the scattered bits of the planet, drawing them back in, recreating the planet and its native inhabitants just as they had stood before. "Good as new."