Madness Combat 5.5 is the tenth installment in the Madness Combat series and the third episode of the Tricky saga. Chronologically, the episode begins at the end of Madness Combat 5: Depredation. It is supposed to give the two protagonists of Madness Combat 9: Aggregation, Sanford and Deimos, some backstory within the series. The main antagonist is Tricky. It was released on November 19th, 2009.
Plot
The episode begins with Sanford and Deimos driving towards Hank in a convertible, as seen in Madness Combat 5. Before they reach him the scene cuts to a tent much further away with two grunts tracking the pair.
The camera switches back to Sanford and Deimos, backing up after giving Hank a katana and being crushed by a Flying Party. The scene switches to the inside of the building, and shows the two inside of the wrecked car, with wounds on their heads, unconscious. Sanford recovers first, and soon after Deimos wakes up. Deimos takes the lead as they walk into the first room of the building.
The two walk into a room with three 1337 agents drinking. The agents stop drinking and gang up on them, but Deimos retaliates and beats them all to death or unconsciousness. As Deimos fights, Sanford opens a first aid kit and bandages his head, covering his wound. As more agents come in, Sanford joins the fight, killing an agent and stealing his nightstick that he uses to kill more enemies, while Deimos covers his back. As Deimos kills the last agent in the room with a sword, Sanford takes a sip from a cup on the table. (Note that his lip seen in Aggregation is visible here) Moving into the next room, Sanford takes the lead, equipped with his baton and the cup, with Deimos taking the rear with his sword. Sanford uses his drink as a weapon, throwing it at an agent before beating him to death with his nightstick. The two proceed to the next room, Deimos in the lead.
As Deimos racks up kills with his sword, Sanford quickly grabs some bandages from a table and puts them around Deimos' head for him. He then takes an agent's iron pipe and kills him with it, while Deimos continues using his sword. The two proceed to the next room, Deimos in the lead once again.
The protagonists then see two 1337 agents upward on a ledge, so Sanford throws Deimos up, where he gets two midair kills. He kills a few more agents before Sanford can get to the top floor, where he picks up a KRISS Vector. The two fight back to back once more, as agents run in through two doors. After they are all eliminated and Deimos picks up a billy club, the two proceed to the next room, Sanford in the lead. Sanford enters and kills an agent, then turns around and kills 3 more while Deimos flips across the room and picks up a shotgun, tearing enemies apart with it and quickly depleting its ammunition. (On a non-important note, he flashes the metal sign to one of his victims, hinting that he has more of a sense of humor than Sanford.) Meanwhile, Sanford finds a locker with a black piece of cloth inside that he takes and puts it on his head as a bandana. He also takes a Spectre M4, as Deimos beats an agent to death with his shotgun. Deimos then picks up a M-10 and leads the way into the next room.
Deimos kills 3 agents quickly before Sanford even gets into the room. Sanford then kills an agent and shows us his quick reflexes by dodging a shotgun fire and kills more agents. Deimos takes a nightstick from a victim and follows Sanford into the next room. Sanford then kills almost all the agents in the room and after using all of his ammo, he kills another agent while Deimos kills a few more with his M-10. Afterward, the screen shows red static, the walls crack, and a red beam (similar to Jesus' and the Auditor's) pours in through the cracks and lifts 2 dead agents into the air. Their heads glow red and explode. This warns the two of the possible hazards the red matter hides. Sanford and Deimos rush to the next room, Sanford in the lead. Soon after, Tricky (finished with Hank now) enters with Jesus' severed head on top of his own. Apparently he thinks that putting Jesus' head on his own will grant him new powers, whereas it is actually the halo that functioned as Jesus' supernatural power source. He angrily grabs Jesus' cranium from atop his head and inspects it;
HOW COME THIS DOES NOT WORK?!?? ... WHAT??!?
Some unknown and weird letters are shown too, which could be the Improbability Drive driving him crazy. Tricky then tosses away Jesus' head in frustration and continues to follow Sanford and Deimos into the next room.
The two have already killed 3 agents by now, and they quickly kill 5 more. The walls are still cracking and falling apart. Sanford then goes to the elevator and pushes the down button, only to see that the elevator doors leads to the red static. The two turn around to start going back, and the deadly clown enters the room. Deimos points a knife at Tricky, as if challenging him, at which point Tricky points back and starts bouncing on the ceiling and floor towards them, leaving large cracks in an M formation.
He delivers two quick punches knocking Deimos back to the wall. Sanford then charges, only to get his nightstick stolen and sent flying back from a few more punches. Deimos gets back up and charges with a megachette, only to get it blocked by Tricky's newly acquired baton, and gets send through the wall into the static red abyss by Tricky's strong attack. The clown then picks up a club and walks towards Sanford, who backs in his knowledge of not being able to defeat Tricky and falls into the red static where Deimos crashed.
The Train from Madness Antipathy
It is revealed that the red static is nothing more than the warped sky, as Sanford and Deimos landed on the ground. Tricky pokes his head out of the building (which is now only about a foot wide), before it shoots into the sky, showing that Tricky left. Sanford wakes Deimos, who was unconscious, before 1337 agents begin to appear from seemingly nowhere. Sanford kills the majority with an amazing display of swordsmanship, using a L337 sword, while Deimos kills 3 agents using a megachette and then decides to light up a cigarette while Sanford deals with another group of 1337 agents. The two appear to be separating without anything in sight before the Nevada Supermall crashes behind Deimos, almost hitting and killing him.
The two hop into the mall and Deimos stabs the first of three 1337s with his machete, and picks up a FAMAS. He kills the next two with it while Sanford climbs in. They move forward towards the doorway, and the screen starts to turn static once more. Train tracks begin to form under the two's feet, and a light can be seen through the door. Deimos drops his machete and empties his entire clip at the light source to no avail. The train from Madness Combat 6 smashes through the back wall and mows over the 1337 agent corpses. Sanford and Deimos are then seen safe against the wall; the train barely missing them.
It should be noted that the sky turns black again now, meaning Tricky might think he killed Sanford and Deimos and has calmed down. They begin to walk forward only for an A.T.P. engineer to walk out with a revolver. The screen goes black as the engineer shoots, and a blood splat goes across it as the episode ends.
Chronologically, this is the first time a character meets an A.T.P. engineer.
This is the first episode in which we actually find concrete evidence of some sort of agency associated with the three protagonists.
Hank gets a record for the least amount of screen time of any character ever at approximately a quarter of a second.
Although Tricky is the main antagonist, his streetsign is never seen.
During the movie some new posters appear with the text: Anyone caught posting paraphernalia in regards to that god damn clown will be shot to death. Do not test me. This may indicate a conflict between the Auditor and Tricky.
It is the first episode since Madness Combat 3: Avenger to be released in the same year as another one.
The preview for this episode was released on September 22nd, 2009 (Madness Day).
Sanford's lip is first seen, temporarily, in the second room where he sips from a cup.
This is the first animation to feature a smoker who isn't killed.
Errors
During the scene where the train passes by, the sky can be seen changing from static red to black.
At approximately 1:22 into the movie, when Sanford and Deimos are surrounded, a goof can be seen where Sanford has the same amount of bandages as Deimos, despite the fact that Sanford had more bandages.
Another goof appears at approximately 3:20, when Deimos is off-screen for a mere quarter of a second, he suddenly has a lit cigarette when he reappears.
The 1337 agent submerged into the floor at the end does not have feet, this is fixed in Madness Combat 6.5
