Mystery Octagon Theater: Episode 106 "Street Fighter: Warrior's Legacy" "Battle 02: Detente" Original by Benjamin "Gryphon" Hutchins and Eyrie Productions MiSTed by the Scott Faulkner Blues Explosion: James Howard, the Multimediocre Knight TV's Gavok the Black Snotling Geson "Racewing" Hatchett the man known only as W4 Zeek Silverfire Arlieth Tralare Scott "Falconer" Faulkner Thomas "Wanderer" Wilde Aided and abetted by Quanah Harjo, Anthony Jennings, Michael Autrey, Shane Hoover, Robert Daniel Conway, and Tiffa Edited by Thomas Wilde Dedicated to Krystal Anna Faye "Shortbow" Conway ======== Obligatory Disclaimer Crap: This is a MiSTing with a non-standard cast. Hopefully, it's a good enough cast that you can just enjoy the MiSTing. The cast grew out of the message board and chatroom the lot of us hang out on, and the characters in the theater are there representing the online personas of members of the writing staff. In other words, it's Mystery Self-Insertion Theater 3000. How revolutionary. We're well aware of the irony of using author avatars to mock an author avatar, by the way. Y'know, just so it doesn't come up. This is our sixth MiSTing, but the previous episodes were a bit too in-joke-ridden to consider submitting to SVAM. (*This* one might be a little too in-joke-ridden, but Tim McLees asked if he could use it.) If you'd like to read them, please visit our archive site at: http://www.dimfuture.net/elsewhere/mot.html Please leave feedback on this MiSTing at: http://network54.com/Hide/Forum/15388 It would be helpful if you had read Part One of this MiSTing before you read this. This 'fic is rated PG for violence; the commentary is rated R for language and blatant sexual innuendo. Shake before opening. Batteries not included. Don't point that thing at me. You just wait 'til your father gets home. ======== In the not-too-distant future, At the OR message place, James Howard and his teammate 'Vok got stuck in outerspace. In a theater now Hoolegon-run, They're here for money now, no more fun. They thought a little torture would do the trick, But they got stuck with Nere as their sidekick (they hate you!] They'll send them cheesy fanfics. The worst that they can find! (Garcias!] They'll have to sit and read them all as he monitors their minds! Now keep in mind Knight can't control when the fanfics begin or end, (MMK!] He'll lose more of his sanity with the help of his OR friends! Octagoner Roll Call! Wanderer! (Here we fucking go again.] Tiffa! (Kill. Maim. Destroy.] Arlieth! (No good can come of this.] Racewing! (Roll-chan, take me away!] Snoooooot! (I'm still shoooooooooort!] If you're wondering *how* they stand this crap And other science facts, (Wowsers!] Next time we'll just stick *you* up here, So shut up and relax! It's MYSTERY OCTAGON THEATER 3000! *FWANG* ======== [ALL file into the theater: GAVOK, TBS, MMK, ARL, TIFF, WAND, RW. The Z-BOT is in the back row.] ARL: Coo suhnn got... [TIFF and WAND pry RW off of ARL's head with a crowbar.] ARL: *Thank* you. Ow. TIFF: That's gonna scar, dude. ARL: Probably. RW: Mmm. Herbal Essences. [They all wait a good five minutes. The screen stays black.] TBS: Well, this is a lovable turn the 'fic's taken. GAVOK: Maybe Gryphon's asleep. He does like to describe things. [A muffled explosion is heard from outside the theater. WAND opens another newspaper.] TIFF: You got the sports section there? WAND: Here you go. [passes it over] [A burst of machine-gun fire is audible. Someone screams.] TIFF: Subreality won the hockey game last night. MMK: Yeah, Dream City hasn't been its best since Gretzsky retired. Did you see it? TIFF: No, I was out that night. MMK: It was brutal. Somehow, Jason got into the goalie's spot. TIFF: Jason? Like from the movies? MMK: No, from the game, so he was a gimp. It sucked. WAND: You hear Haggar's running for mayor? ARL: Again? WAND: Well, you know. Some people... [The high-pitched whistling of a mortal shell terminates in a shallow boom. Someone has apparently shattered a metric ton of glass.] TBS: Who do you like for football? GAVOK: Real football, or soccer? TBS: Soccer. GAVOK: Hmm... is Mega Man playing again this year? RW: Nope. GAVOK: ...then I'm not sure. I'd need to look at the schedule. TIFF: It hasn't been set up yet. GAVOK: Damn. [A gout of flame shoots into the theater from offstage right, directly in front of the cast's faces. No one looks up.] LITTLE MAC : You little punks! NERE : He's got a gun! EDAN : So do you, Nere! NERE : Oh, yeah... [Something falls into the back row of the theater. A moment later, it explodes, sending charred theater seats flying.] TIFF: Sounds like they're having fun. RW: I wish them the best. [A charred, blackened CROSSBOW gets up from what used to be the back row of the theater and runs off.] EDAN : Oh, yeah. Don't think you're done, Parliament! I'll just send you another chapter of self-abuse, entitled "Detente"! Learn to love the pain! [ALL groan.] ***** > G [MMK stands up and flexes. GAVOK mimes tossing a microphone to MMK.] MMK : G is for [GaRCiaS], that's good enough for me. Z-BOT : G is for [GaRCiaS], that's good enough for me! TBS : G is for [GaRCiaS], that's good enough for me! [MMK mimes handing a microphone to GAVOK.] GAVOK : Ohhhhhh, [GaRCiaS]-iaS]-iaS] starts with Gee! MMK, Z-BOT, TBS, GAVOK : [GaRCiaS]-iaS]-iaS] starts with GEEEEEEEE! [They sit down.] WAND: ...I hate this theater. > It was Thursday, July 7, 1994. It was hot in TBS: ...the city. WAND : Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty... hey now, isn't it a pity, doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city... > Worcester. We were working the day watch out of... > ... forget it... ALL : hnnnnngh... > I was in the back yard of the house in Worcester, > slamming my ARL: Mountain Dew? > fists and feet against the top of a large plank. > Said plank was around twelve feet long, and was > buried for a little less than half its length in TBS: Eww... > the rocky soil of the yard, TBS: Oh. Phew. TIFF: Snot, you are pathetic. TBS: Hey. I try. > leaving a seven-foot expanse jutting up -- just > about the height of the opponent I would soon > face in Russia. MMK : I AM THE MASTER! AND RULER! OF THE WOOOOOOOOOOORLD! RW : AND I HAVE! HALF! THE BRAINS! THAT CHU DO! > The top foot or so was wrapped in > heavy rope, and that was the bit I was > concentrating most of my attention on. > This wasn't a hell of a lot of fun, GAVOK : I mean, hell, I had more fun playing Guess Who. With Al Gore. In a barbed wire chair. On fire. > but I figured it was necessary. After all, the > man I was going to Russia the following week to fight was WAND: ...a twelve-foot-long plank with hemp rope wrapped around him. > one Sergei Zangief, a seven-foot monster of a man TBS : Then there was Haystack Calhoun! He was a *mountain* of a man! TIFF: I'm glad the Big Guy isn't here. He'd hate seeing Zangief lose to a Mary Sue. MMK: Who, Pidge? TIFF : Don't call him Pidge. > whose hobbies, if the word on the circuit was to > be believed, included RW: Stamp collecting. ARL: Golf. MMK: Glass eating. GAVOK: Tattooing people's butts with butt-shaped tattoos which have butt-shaped tattoos on them. Z-BOT: Javelin throwing. TBS: Javelin catching. > wrestling with Siberian bears. RW, ARL, MMK, GAVOK, Z-BOT, TBS: Oh. WAND : You ever come to the frightening realization that you're the sanest person in a room? TIFF : Often. > And usually winning. MMK: Only because he's good friends with Kevin Nash. > He was also reputed to be none too fond > of Americans, thanks mostly to GAVOK: ...how Americans act when they're in Russia. ARL, RW : We won the Cold War, we won the Cold War... > the martial skills and abrasive personality of one Captain > William F. "Bucky" Guile. WAND: Well, shit. Guess we can kiss Guile goodbye. > (Well, OK, I don't know if people call him > "Bucky", actually, but I would.] TIFF : If he wouldn't kick my ass, that is. > I had seen Guile a couple of times; he was an > excruciatingly patriotic and preachy fellow, > rather Captain America-like in his Middle > American conservatism. I can see where he > would easily get on the nerves of a proud Russian > who was still smarting from the near-total > collapse of his motherland. Hell, Guile > gets on -my- nerves, and I'm a fellow American. MMK: Well, surprise. If you're going to describe him as a Proud American Hero, everybody on *Earth*'s going to hate the bastard. WAND: Watch it, maple leaf. GAVOK : I am a TRUE AMERICAN HERO! And perhaps someday, YOU could be as great as I am! If you just follow my simple set of steps, which I like to call the Three "I"s... > I punched the board, turned, kicked it, flipped back, GAVOK : ...shined it up real nice... WAND: Gavok! Stop it! > and then came at it from the other side, ARL: Y'know... if these guys are as rich as they say they are... why's he beating on a wooden board? WAND : Boards don't hit back. [TIFF glares at TBS] TBS: What? TIFF: Don't say a word. > my mind still turning over other things: the > notes of congratulation that had filtered in after I > achieved World Warrior status in Scotland the > month before; the occasional phone call from my > more vocally inclined friends; WAND: "Vocally inclined"? What is this supposed to mean? EVERYBODY on the PLANET is "vocally inclined". Z-Bot: What about mimes? WAND: This man has friends who are mimes? MMK : I hate mimes. [ALL glare at MMK.] MMK <^_^ing>: Oh, come ON, people! > the grudging congratulations from my mother, who > didn't approve of my fighting, and probably never > would; TIFF : Sweetie, don't talk about Fight Club... ARL : Dang, that's two rules I've broken! > the impending phone bill from what > Zoner had laughingly dubbed my ongoing > telepresence experiment with a particular party > in Scotland. RW : I was not amused. I sharpened my knives. My time would come. > Our household could be up for a controlling interest in > AT&T. RW: And then... the world. GAVOK: You know, this would be all worth it to see Gryphon take on David Arquette from the kung fu 1-800-CALL-ATT commercial. If Gryphon terminates him, then everything would be A-okay. > There was a time when, to prepare for a fight > like this one, I would have been sparring with > Rose, my Valdritkar, ALL: Gesundheit. > my teacher, rather than pounding the hell out of a piece of > rope-wrapped wood. Z-BOT: "More fun than soap on a rope," say experts. > That had stopped when she > returned from Thailand in '92, battered and in > pain and unwilling to talk about it. WAND: She'd taken the word "Bangkok" literally. Hilarity ensued. > She hadn't, to my knowledge, lifted a hand in > battle, even mock battle, even solitaire, MMK: Because, y'know, solitaire is so competitive. GAVOK: It is if you do it right. MMK: Huh? > since then, and that bothered me. What bothered me more was that she > wouldn't tell me what happened in Thailand that had changed her outlook > so much. WAND: A quiet night, a wad of money, and a hooker with a very short name... > "I'll tell you when you're ready to know," she said, and I accepted > that, because I always accepted what she told me. GAVOK : Sometimes it led to cruel abuse. > In eighteen years I had only questioned her twice. Z-BOT : Can you imagine a world without any hypothetical situations? TIFF : Well... um... ARL : How would chairs look if our knees bent the other way? TIFF : Look, just go and play, all right? RW : Why do we drive on a parkw-- TIFF : Sorry, only two questions. RW : If pro is the opposite of con, is progress the opposite of Congress? TIFF : Well, I figure... hey! > I accepted it, but that didn't mean I liked it. > I hit the board again. TBS: Dammit, Gryphon! No means no! It isn't ready for that kind of relationship yet! > I knew it had something to do with her renegade > student, my predecessor in her tutelage. She had > told me a little about him, when I got to the age > where I became curious about her life. Maxim Bison was, WAND : ...the only magazine today's single guy needs! > he claimed, his name, RW: ...and he ruined our chance to play "Guess the Weenie Dictator's Name." Z-BOT: The bastard. > though it was most likely an alias. ARL : Well, now how'd he come to that conclusion? MMK: Unlike "MegaZone", which is a proud Anglo-Saxon name. > Not tall, but powerfully built and dark; not > handsome, but with a certain curious undeniability. > Probably Russian; probably a former KGB or NKVD officer. TIFF: Because, y'know, every bad guy these days did a stint with the KGB. It's par for the course. > Rose didn't answer many questions about her > background, so she didn't ask very many either; > all of that was stuff which she strongly > suspected but didn't really know. RW: What you really did not want to know, but really wanted to find out, in episode 2! > What she did know was that GAVOK: You can get ALL COLLECT CALLS UP TO TWENTY MINUTES FOR JUST A BUCK! > he displayed a lot of potential, MMK: Glrrrrrg. TIFF: What? MMK: I just remembered I've already blown my one Obscure Literary Reference per chapter. Damnit, damnit, damnit. GAVOK: I still have mine, MMK! I could do the reference for you! MMK: You'd do that for me, Vokkers? GAVOK: Of course. MMK: You're too good to me. Commence the Gordon Korman reference! GAVOK: Who? [A pause. MMK puts his hand to his forehead and slouches over.] TBS: You okay there, MMK? MMK: Just... nobody talk to me for a couple minutes. > possessed a natural affinity for Ler > manipulation, and had a mean streak a mile wide, > which he was good at concealing if the situation > warranted. ARL : 'Chu got a wharrant fer concealing dat mean streak, sonny? GAVOK : Uhh... yes sir, but I left it in my other pants. > He had concealed it from Rose -- who I would classify as a nearly > preternatural judge of character -- for nearly a decade. > I hit the board again. RW : And it's all your fault, board! > But then, when he started out he probably didn't > intend to go the direction he did. GAVOK: West, specifically. > Power corrupts, they say, and Bison developed > more power faster than any other warrior Rose had > ever known. It had twisted him, she said, and one > day he had informed her that he felt she had > nothing more to teach him and vanished. It hurt, ARL: It did? TBS : Did I mention that I cried? > being abandoned by her brightest pupil, but she > put it behind her. > Until she started hearing about him in > conjunction with a small-time crime syndicate > called Shadolu. WAND: That's the worst spelling of Shadowloo I've ever seen. [MMK sits up again, grinning maniacally.] MMK : Ah, Kosai! Johnny Zoo here. We suspect our top agent Lu of selling Yakuza secrets to the Zaibatsu. This is where you come in, Kosai; we want you to Shadolu. [ALL groan.] TIFF: I see you're feeling better. MMK : Even *death* could not keep me from making Grand Theft Auto 2 references! TIFF : Let's test that, shall we? MMK(^_^ing): We... don't have to. > At least it started out small-time. Then, slowly, it became > not-so-small-time. ARL : Finally, it emerged as sort-of-small-time. WAND: That's probably when they stole that two-point-five million dollars... [He twitches.] [MMK and GAVOK wince.] > I didn't get most of this information from Rose; instead, I > pieced it together from information I gathered on the circuit. > It seemed that Bison had appeared from nowhere, started out as a > lieutenant to the Shadolu boss in Thailand in the early seventies, TBS: ...where he had a huge Afro and bell-bottoms. > and rose meteorically RW : That's another expression that makes no sense. A "meteoric rise". Meteors *don't* rise. They fall. > within that organization, taking complete control of it by > 1975. By '77, Shadolu had either crushed or absorbed most of > the other crime syndicates in Asia, GAVOK: But then he was stopped by Convoy, John Torque, Dave and the rest of the Vigilantes! WAND: You'd think the tongs would've had something to say about that. TBS: Or the yakuza. MMK : Ah, Kosai! Johnny Zoo h-- [MMK just barely escapes his chair before TIFF slices it in half.] > and was well on its way to becoming the most powerful organized > crime organization on the face of the Earth. > Incidentally, that was the year that Rose appeared in my life. > I hit the board again. MMK : OW! GAVOK : BATTERY AND ASSAULT! > Rose very rarely mentioned Bison when she spoke, and then only > for as brief a time as possible to make whatever point she was making. TIFF : Bison's a dick. > She never compared me to him in any respect, as far as I can > remember. > Then again, Rose was never long on any sort of > comparison -- she thought it was an unfair way to motivate, > and anything I did, I should do simply because I wanted to > be better. It worked for me. How else could a young man as > naturally inclined to sloth as I have come so far in such a > demanding field? GAVOK: Training, prayers, and vitamins? WAND: And a disgusting tendency to be a Mary Sue. GAVOK: Y-es... but also training, prayers, and vitamins. > Rose is a... unique... motivator. [MMK, TBS, and WAND glance at each other and grin] TIFF: Ugh. Don't make me saw arms off at random. > I hit the board again, MMK : Stop that! > but this time I was smiling. RW : Shiny happy violence... > I knew what Rose had done in Thailand, even though she > hadn't told me. It was practically legendary on the circuit. [WAND, MMK grimace.] MMK: Must... not... too... easy... WAND: We have to be strong. We have to be strong. We have to be strong. > She had worked her way through the fighting circuit as it > stood in 1991, flattening everybody between herself and > Bison, TBS: With a large anime mallet? [TIFF whips out a large anime mallet from nowhere and crushes TBS into a pancake.] TIFF: Like that? TBS: I'd nod, but my neck's in my right knee. > working her way toward her former pupil with the > single-minded determination so highly prized in Ler Drit. > Then she fought Bison himself. Sadly, here I had heard no > first-hand accounts, so the particulars of the fight as I > had heard them were suspect, but the long and short of it > is, it was, at best, a draw. To put it less kindly, Rose > lost, but injured Bison severely enough that she escaped > with her life. GAVOK: : So the circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but an apprentice. Now, I am the master... of... the VADER BOMB! IT'S VADER TIME! WAND: Y'know, you could make other kinds of references. GAVOK: Why would I want to? > The rest, I already knew. I hit the board again. MMK : ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?! WAND: Nope. Z-BOT: Negative. ARL: No. TIFF: Get real. GAVOK: What? TBS: What he said. RW: Yeah. Right. MMK Doll: ... MMK : Fine. Bastards. > I was no longer smiling. I got the shock of my life when she > turned up on my doorstep, so to speak, halfway through my > freshman year at Worcester Polytechnic. RW: Is that anything like DeVry? > We hadn't spoken in months; when I left Millinocket for > college, our parting was not exactly an amiable one. I had > been filled with the hubris of youth MMK: As well as rich, creamy nougat! GAVOK: And the taste of peanut butter and sewage! TBS: Add half a pint of squirrel for flavor... RW: And top it off with a healthy smattering of chocolate-covered beetles! GAVOK: Gryphon! The sundae you'll *never*-- MMK, GAVOK: E-e-e-e-e-e-e-EVER! GAVOK: --forget! [TIFF turns green.] > and it had colored my actions and statements. TBS: Hmm. Should we make a Clockwork Orange or a The Hunt For Red October reference here? MMK: We could go for Deep Purple. WAND: Or The Green Mile. Z-BOT: Pitch Black, perhaps. TIFF: I vote for Perfect Blue. > Both of us had been too proud to make any contact > afterward, even when both of us cooled down and > regretted our actions and our words. It took > being thrashed by a former student gone bad to > bring Rose to the point where she would seek me > out for help, ARL : I can't believe I have to go to this goober for help... > and by then I was quite willing to apologize. > And so, my career at WPI ended. I hadn't been > having such a great time there anyway, I must > admit. TIFF : They hated it when I rewrote the exams so I passed. > I hit the board again. MMK : Will you STOP that!? ALL: NO! MMK : Very well! > I would have gone on with this for who-knows-how > long, reminiscing and hitting the board, except > that Zoner leaned out of the back door and hollered, > "GRYPH! PHONE!!" RW : Quick, Gryphman! The mayor's calling on the Gryphphone! The Gryphsignal is shining! TIFF : To the Gryphcave! > So, I took a break, wrapped a towel around my neck, TBS: ...draped the other end around the ceiling, stood on a chair and... > and went inside to answer the phone. > "Hello," was the highly original opening I chose > when I picked up the kitchen phone from the sideboard. WAND: If this guy was talking, he'd be in love with the sound of his own voice. ARL: So what's he in love with? WAND: The silky feel of his fingers as they hit the keys, I guess. > The voice which answered was low, throaty, and > extremely female, the kind of voice which books > are always claiming can cause chills up the spine. RW : Lousy lying *books*... TIFF: So it wasn't Mai, whose voice is high, shrill and can drive a sensible player nuts. > In this case that old cliche held true, and that was even > -with- knowing whose voice it was. > "Hi, honey," the woman on the other end whispered. TBS : What are you wearing? GAVOK : Joe Namath netted slingshot briefs, scuba flippers, a pinwheel beanie-- TBS : ...never mind. > "I hear you beat the big, bad British champion. MMK: Well, Mideon was the champion of Europe, so that's not saying much. > Think that makes you tough enough to take -me- on?" RW : ...if so, that'll be $3.99 for the first minute, and $2.99 for each additional minute... > Brr. I chuckled. "I'll never be man enough to > take -you- on, Mai." TIFF: Well, crap. Bang goes that theory. RW: Gryphon's read Yuri & Friends, I guess. WAND: Never mention that again. > Her voice changed to a more natural, less > seductive register as she replied, "And don't you > forget it, bub!" > "But am I still your Love Rhino?" Z-BOT: That was my favorite Billy and the Boingers song. > I asked, trying to make my voice plaintive around > the smile on my face. > "I dunno," she replied coyly. "Am I still your > Great White Hunter?" TBS: This is just weird. WAND: It says something when both me *and* Snot find this weird. ARL: Gryph, buddy, get fetishistic on your own dime, okay? > "Mai!" I said, trying to sound as wounded as > possible by the mere concept that she might not be. > "You'll always be my Great White Hunter." RW: Mai Shiranui is... Jaws, the Great White Hunter! ARL: Even deadlier than the male... WAND: Hey, wait! I called this one! I WIN! I WIN! ...and no one took the bet. Damn it. > "Mmm... then I guess you can still be my Love > Rhino," she said cheerily. MMK: "Love Rhino". [MMK suddenly grins widely, followed closely by GAVOK and TBS.] MMK: SCENE! [MMK, GAVOK, and TBS stand up. TBS drags a chair over and sits in it. They quickly take their positions: MMK in the front hunching over with a crazed look in his eye and constantly gripping his wrist, TBS beside him in the chair smiling and making V-signs, GAVOK behind MMK hopping up and down and grinning.] MMK : SANDGIEF! I wasn't here when you had your moment... I don't OWE YOU ANYTHING! I don't owe you RESPECT! I don't owe you RECOGNITION! But I will give you one thing... and THAT'S A FUCKIN' ASSKICKING! And NOBODY will be talking about the SANDGIEF anymore... no... they will be talking... about LOVE RHINO! [TBS smiles, nods and makes V-signs. GAVOK jumps up and down.] GAVOK : Hee hee hee hee! That's my monster! That's my monster! That's my nookie monster! Hee hee hee hee hee! MMK: END SCENE! [MMK, GAVOK and TBS sit back in their seats.] TIFF: You wrestling people... ugh. > In the background on her end, a faint, extremely > puzzled voice asked, "Mai, who on Earth are you > talking to??" > I threw back my head and TIFF: ...knocked myself unconscious on the kitchen cabinet. > laughed; on the other end, I could hear that Mai > was doing the same. I recovered, but she didn't, so > there was a bit of a clunk as the phone on her > end was handed off to somebody else. ARL: It was then run forty yards for an easy touchdown. > "Uh," said the second voice, "er, hello... who is this?" > I debated for a moment whether to reply, "I'm Batman," MICHAEL KEATON: No! I'm Batman! AND YOU CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME! ARL: Huh? MMK, GAVOK: Cameo. > "Your worst nightmare," RW: Which would be very, very accurate. > or "I am the Law!" before deciding to put the poor boy out > of his misery with, WAND : I put poison in your drink while you were in the bathroom. You'll be dead in an hour. > "It's just little old me, Underdog." > "Ben!" said Andy, relief flooding his voice. > Andy Bogard and Mai Shiranui are the closest > couple I know. Really. You might not think so to > watch them in action, but they are. > Mai likes to tease Andy, but her heart is in the > right place, TIFF: In her ribcage, under the sternum. TBS: Under her... her... her... [TIFF hits TBS.] TBS: ...bounciness. [TIFF hits TBS again, harder.] > and so, at the risk of being crude, are all of > her other parts. For his part, Andy tries to pretend > that he's completely uninterested in the entire affair, > which is, to put it bluntly, a big fat lie. The truth is that GAVOK : You are the weak, and I am the tyranny of evil men. But I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd. > he would walk through Hell and back for her, and > she would sooner swallow broken glass than be > unfaithful. Not that either of them will > ever admit it. TIFF: Interesting take on it. Interesting in the sense of "that can't be right", but interesting notwithstanding. > "Last time I checked," I replied. "How goes?" > "Fairly well, I suppose," Andy replied. Andy was > never very good at the fine art of phone > conversations. MMK : Hello, Andy, it's me, Gryphon. GAVOK : Gryphon? Where are you? I can't see you! MMK : I'm on the phone. GAVOK : But... you can't fit in there! I'll get you out, buddy! > He always sounded like > he was talking to somebody through a door that > they refused to open, like he thought the only > reason they were talking to him on the > telephone was because they couldn't stand him in > real life. WAND: Good guess, Andy! TIFF: Hey, Andy *did* master the Pimp Slap of Death. WAND: Well, okay. He gets points for that. > "Hey, I heard you made World Warrior, good work." ARL : Oh, I've been meaning to ask... what the hell am I doing in a *Street Fighter* fanfic? > "Thanks. Heard from Terry lately?" > "Not for a month or so. Last I knew he was > someplace in Canada, working the docks and > waiting for something to happen." MMK: Well, if he's in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, he'll be waiting for a long time. [ALL stare at him.] MMK: And don't think I don't know what I'm talking about, either! > I chuckled. "Yeah, that sounds about right." > There was a long silence, in which I could sense > that, as I became more silently amused, Andy > became more uncomfortable. Finally > there was a brief clatter, and Mai returned to > the line: > "Give me that, Andy. My God. You are the most > useless person on the phone." TBS : And that's not the only place... [TIFF cuts off TBS' left arm] GAVOK: Dude. Join the club. TBS: Someone get me a tourniquet and some glue. > Her tone turned from scornful to breezy in a > heartbeat as she continued, "Well, anyway, > darling, we must be going, places to > go and things to do, TBS : The cucumber, the bedpost, the dog, th-- [TIFF slices TBS' left leg off.] TBS: You're being kind of repetiti-- [TIFF slices TBS' right leg off.] GAVOK: Uh-huh-huh. Uh-huh-huh-huh. You said t-- [TIFF slices GAVOK's left leg off.] > but I just couldnt let the day go by without calling you > up and MMK : ...asking whether you had Prince Albert in a can. ARL : Actually, I think I do. Hold on... > congratulating you. So you take care, now, and > well see you soon. You're coming to the Christmas > party, right?" > "Wouldn't miss it," I replied. We played with > each other's mind for a few moments longer as per > procedure, and then Mai hung up. > I stood in the kitchen for a couple of minutes, > looking down at the phone in my hand. WAND : ...what's that, telephone? You want me to kill Zoner? Oh, no, I couldn't! > I had done all the requisite mental math and > figured out what time it was in Scotland (about > six P.M.) before I realized I was doing it; then, > shaking my head, I hung up the phone and went > back out into the yard. GAVOK: Street Fighter: Warrior's Indecision! > Once there, I cleared my mind of all external > distractions ARL: Well, if they're external distractions, how were they in your mind in the first place? > and set about beating the hell out of the board some more. > I kept at it until I noticed I was having trouble seeing the > board, and realized that it was because MMK : ...the board had snuck in a lucky punch. > darkness had fallen. TBS: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... CRUNCH! > I knew then that there must be something heavy on > my mind. GAVOK : Paper or plastic? Paper or plastic? Paper or plastic? Paper or p-- [GAVOK's head explodes] > I never lose track of time that completely, thinking about nothing, > unless I've got something major to think about. ARL: So you think about nothing when you're thinking about something? RW: Well, if you think about it... MMK : THINK ABOUT IT! There must BE HIGHER LOVE! A H-- [TIFF slices MMK in half] MMK <^_^ing>: Meanie. > Eyrie Productions, GAVOK : It's Eyrie. A little... *too* Eyrie. Z-BOT: AKA Buy a Map You Cheap Bastard Productions. RW: Hmph. Schtick thief... WAND: Wasn't this fic written years before your stuff, Racewing? RW: ...I don't care. I'm still gonna get him. WAND: Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now be quiet. The new Fourth Wall won't hold up long with comments like that. TBS: Maybe we shouldn't have made it out of paper mach-- [WAND smacks TBS.] TBS: Owwww. > Unlimited > presents TIFF: ...are just one of the benefits of robbing a toy store. RW: ...a new, *fresh* hell for the twenty-first century! > A Third Universe from the Right Production Z-BOT : ...in its Special Limited Print Collector's Edition form... MMK : ...of the Cranky Monarch Version... ARL : ...of the Rusty Syringe Remix. > of a > Straight On Till Morning Film WAND: Peter, can we really fly? TIFF: Just think happy thoughts! WAND: Summer! TBS: Christmas! RW: A hot night with Mai Shiranui! ARL, GAVOK: WE'RE FLYYYYIIIIIIIIINNNGG! > STREET FIGHTER: WARRIOR'S LEGACY TBS: As opposed to an armacy. TIFF : Street Fighter: Warrior's Armacy. A Third Universe from the Right Production of a Straight On Till The Morning Film in its Special Limited Print Collector's Edition form of the Cranky Monarch Version of the Rusty Syringe Remix. Ask for it by name. > BATTLE 02: DETENTE WAND: Presenting the fighting debut of Henry Kissinger! > Benjamin D. RW: Pompous idiot. > Hutchins RW : Six of one, half a dozen of the other. TBS: Hey, yeah, we can add *that* in, too! TIFF : Now in theaters, the Six of One Half A Dozen of the Other Edit of Street Fighter: Warrior's Armacy, a Third Universe from the Right Production of a Straight On Till The Morning Film in its Special Limited Print Collector's Edition form of the Cranky Monarch Version of the Rusty Syringe Remix. [pauses for breath] ARL: Now *that*'s a title. > MegaZone GAVOK : Hutchins vs. Zoner! Tonight on Celebrity Deathmatch! > with the gracious assistance of The Usual Suspects TIFF: ...and Jerry Mathers, as the Beaver. > Copyright 1996 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited ARL: Oh, yeah. Sure. We were going to steal it and try to sell it. Riiiight. > I went into the house. MMK : YOUR HOUSE. You are inside your house. There is a computer here, displaying on its monitor the words "PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T WRITE ANYTHING ON ME ANYMORE! STOP THE MARY SUING! PLEASE! I BEG YOU!". The walls are wallpapered with pictures of yourself. DIRECTIONS: North, East, South. > Zoner was out someplace, TBS : Trippin' around downtowwwwn... > apparently, and I was still feeling the vague discontention > I'd felt all day. GAVOK : I shouldn't have dialed "0" when I called collect! Damn! MMK : Damnit, I KNEW I forgot to record Smackdown! TIFF : Stupid Zoner and his having a social life. How stupid. Damnit, now I'm mad at him again. MMK: And *that'll* keep him busy for another night. > I didnt know exactly what it meant, but I knew it didn't > bode well -- when I'm feeling like that it usually means I'm > not ready for whatever task I'm about to undertake, GAVOK: Street Fighter: Warrior's Foreshadowing! > and thats not a good thing when I'm ARL: About to bake cookies. TBS: Going to enter a dance contest. TIFF: About to attempt to think. RW: Golfing. > preparing for a fight. ARL, TBS, TIFF, RW: Whatever. > When faced with a problem like this, many martial artists > meditate. TBS : Those pussies. > I suppose, in the strictest sense of the word, that's what I > do too, in that I try to clear my mind of conscious thought. ARL: Yeah, that's meditation. RW: Sounds about right. MMK: Yup. GAVOK: Exactly it. Z-BOT: So what's the difference here? WAND: Rampant wankery. > For some, this state comes from incense and sitting in a > darkened room. Others like to go up mountains or sit under > waterfalls or train as I had been doing all afternoon. TBS : Don't go sit under waterfalls... > During one of our long phone discussions, Cammy told me that TIFF : ...she'd met someone else, and had gotten a restraining order against me. > she likes to go up to the main tower of Castle MacLir and > watch the Northern Lights when she's feeling out of sorts > mentally. TBS : Hi there. Have you ever had that mental "not-so-fresh" feeling? > I wasn't surprised by that; militarily trained or not, she's > an aesthetic. GAVOK: Oh, so doctors use her to put people to sleep. WAND: *Aesthetic*, Gavok. GAVOK: Sure! Do you want me to count backwards from ten, or what? [WAND slices GAVOK's head off.] GAVOK'S HEAD: Oh, great. [GAVOK'S BODY fumbles around on the floor, trying to find GAVOK'S HEAD.] > Me, I like to get out on the highway. ARL : Unnecessarily burning finite resources gives me inner peace! TIFF: Okay, so all we need to do is find said highway. Then one of us can give him a nice, much-needed push into oncoming traffic... ARL: Wow. Who'd have thought it'd be so easy? Z-BOT : Lookin' for adventure... and whatever comes our w-- MMK : LIFE IS A HIGHHHHWAY! I WAN-NA RI-I-DE IT ALL NIGHT LONG! [MMK air guitars.] MMK : If YOU'RE go-ING MY-IY WAY, I WAN-NA DRI-YI-VE IT ALL NIGHT LONG! [Z-BOT stares blankly at MMK, who doesn't notice. GAVOK staples his head back on.] > One shower later, I was in my room getting dressed TBS: Street Fighter: Warrior's Toilette! > when I noted the presence of a nose poking around the edge of my > door, followed shortly by its owner. TIFF: That's when Gryphon realized he had wandered into Dino Crisis. He didn't live much longer after that. > My dog Fury, feeling much better since his brush with > medical care the previous month, ARL : Followed by his comb with the rehabilitation clinic... > trotted into the room, jumped up onto my bed with effort > exaggerated for my benefit, and settled into a sitting > position, leaning his rawboned mass against my shoulder as I > pulled on one of my socks, tail pounding a funky backbeat on > the mattress. GAVOK : Ray rat runky rusic, rite roy... ray rat runky rusic right! > "You silly mutt," RW : Mick, you ignorant mutt. > I told him, and pushed him away so that he toppled over and > sprawled on his side. He looked solemnly up at me, drooping > jowls and ears deceptively framing unexpectedly merry eyes, > the classic bloodhound effect. OK, story time. ALL: NO! NO STORIES! TIFF: This is gonna hurt. > You might expect that "Fury" wasn't his full name -- GAVOK: His name is really Furiwitz, but he's ashamed of his heritage. > that, like most purebred dogs, he had a tremendous long > pompous name MMK: What, like "Fury" isn't freakin' pompous? > (yeah, I know what you're thinking, "Oh, like 'Fury' isn't > pompous?" [MMK blinks. ALL stare blankly at him.] MMK : Hrm... they're on to me. ARL: Actually, I was wondering if you have to use a soothing lotion after you write one of these. > At least it's short] MMK : So's "MegaZone", you goober! That doesn't make it any less of a pompous, goony-ass name! TIFF: Boy, you don't let things faze you for long, do you? > given to him by the breeder as a pup, under which he was > registered with the AKC. Had he come from a conventional > breeder, well, then I'd say you were right; but he didn't > and you're not. TBS : So nyaaaah. > Fury was, in fact, a gift to me from a friend of mine > overseas, one of the most unlikely and yet perfectly suited > people I've ever encountered on the circuit. > How unlikely? Brother Thomas O'Hara -- or "Brother Tommy" as > we always call him -- is a Catholic monk of the Order of St. > Ignatius the Defender (an obscure saint, not to be confused > with St. Ignatius Loyola, TIFF: Not to be confused with Latoya Jackson. > who, although he founded the Jesuits, does not have a proper > monastic order devoted to him). RW: And not to be confused with Father Ted, either. MMK: Although that's who we *really* need to see in this fic. WAND: By the way, this will be on the final. [ALL groan.] > I first met Brother Tommy four years ago in Spain, at a > tournament -- where else? TBS: A bar? Z-BOT: The DMV? TIFF: Prison? > At first, I thought he was just an observer, or perhaps a > brother skilled in medicine RW : YO! He a brother with de MAD skillz in MEDICINE! He the one you need when some foo' BUST A CAP IN YO' ASS! > and borrowed from the local abbey, for there was one, to > attend the fighters injured in combat. He was tall, and > though it couldn't really be told from his voluminous black > habit, he was built like a bull, with a wild, curly tangle > of red hair surrounding his tonsure like a thorn hedge and > eyebrows you could hide a pencil in -- GAVOK: Hey, it's Padre Destino! [A bolt of lightning falls and zaps GAVOK.] > not the sort of man one expects to find in the habit of a > monk. MMK : You're a monk, are you? TIFF : Yes, I am. MMK : You're a monk often, are you? TIFF : Yes, I am. MMK : I see. How'd you get into the habit? [ALL groan. MMK barely ducks a drink thrown by WAND.] > But then, the monks of the Order of St. Ignatius are no > ordinary brothers. MMK: Scene! [GAVOK, MMK, and TBS scramble.] MMK : All tests are negative! Turns out you'll be nothing more than a simple monk! TBS : Tommy, this is Agent Honeydue. We need your help! [GAVOK flies straight up as music plays.] GAVOK : *Squeak squeak*. > According to Brother Tommy, who told me all this some time > later, the Ignatines were founded sometime in the Middle > Ages, whenever it was that the Turks were overrunning half > of Europe, ARL : Father! The Turks hath plundered the abbey's liquor stores at Constantinople! WAND : In God's good name, this is blasphemy! Join me in this holy crusade! TIFF : Hey! We didn't... it wasn't like that! ARL : Shut up, Elena. Z-BOT : ..... > after the example of Brother Ignatius, a Benedictine who had > fought as a knight in the Crusades and taken the cowl late in life. GAVOK : Ha HA! The cowl is MINE! And you'll NEVER get it back! TBS : Stop looking at me! Stop looking at me! > Ignatius was a martial scholar, having studied the fighting > styles of dozens of peoples in his travels all over the > world, and he believed he had adapted and amalgamated the > best and most spiritually meaningful parts of all of them > into a single form, which he taught to some of the younger > brothers at the Benedictine abbey to which he had gone when > he took the cowl. GAVOK : I have returned with the best and most spiritually meaningful parts of all the martial arts all over the world adapted and almagated into a single form! TBS : Uh-huh. RW : Whatever. WAND : Well, whoop-dee-shit. GAVOK : Uhm... and... and the COWL! TBS : Oooooooh! RW : Ahhhhhhh! WAND : Well, whoop-dee-shit. > Apparently Ignatius didn't believe that it was right or > Christian for the monks to flee before the heathen > incursion, but rather thought that they should stand their > ground and fight back. WAND: No way! Fighting back is unChristian! *Starting* the fight, on the other hand... TIFF: 'Course, Ignatius wasn't very bright. > The Church held that this violated the peaceful tenets of > the Rule of Benedict, though Ignatius replied that he had > written his own Rule and wished to establish his own order. GAVOK : New... World... Order. > Still, Ignatius was not eager to be branded a heretic, and > was ready to bow to Rome's wishes and leave. Apparently the > Turks overran the monastery in question TIFF : It's ours now, do you hear? This monastery belongs to the Turks! ARL : Shut up, Elena. Z-BOT : ..... > before the brothers could go, forcing their hand, RW : Dat's RIGHT! Dem brothers had de MAD SKILLZ at FORCIN' DEIR HAND, YO! > and in the ensuing battle Ignatius was martyred, fighting > without a blade, for the abbey had none, to buy his brothers > time enough to flee. TBS: SCENE! [TBS and MMK jump out of their seats.] MMK : The Turks gave the trapped monks the message that all of them would be spared, if they just send out Ignatius. TBS (Bart): Did they send him out? MMK : Oh yeah. TBS (Bart): Did they kill him? MMK : And *how*! And that's why, to this day, this order is called "the Order of St. Expendable". [TBS and MMK sit down.] > The Order of St. Ignatius was founded shortly after Ignatius > the Defender was canonized TBS: Well, that's good. Better to be Canonized than Xeroxed. > for his martyrdom, with the sanction of some obscure > medieval Pope or another, and since then they've kept a > fairly low profile, maintaining Ignatius's unique fighting > style. TIFF : Let us go now and keep a fairly low profile by BEATING THE CRAP OUT OF PEOPLE. > Having watched Brother Tommy fight, near as I can figure, > I'd say it's got elements of Shaolin kung fu and Kabaddi, > that funky Indian monastic style that's becoming more > popular of late, ARL (rolling his eyes): Oh, sure, the Indian style of fighting is *really* trendy nowadays. WAND: For the record, Kabaddi is Dhalsim's style. Bro' Tommy can stretch hisself, apparently. > along with traditional Anglo-European staff and blade-arms > techniques GAVOK: So Brother Tommy is in fact a wasteland mutant? Cool. > and boxing and savate and gods only know what else. They > train with modern weapons, too -- the presence of the > Remington 12-gauge pump-action shotgun in their arsenal led > Zoner to MMK : ...run away, shrieking, when they opened fire. GAVOK : Shop smart! Shop S-Mart! > dub them "The Shotgun-Totin' Monks of St. Ignatius" TIFF: Zoner's got the lightning wit of Jesse Helms. > when we first visited the Ignatine abbey, which didn't amuse > their stiff-necked prior, though old Abbot Heribert and > Brother Tommy found it funny enough. WAND: "Funny enough", of course, does not necessarily mean "amusing". RW : Then they told us to leave, and never to return. That was funny too. > I didn't fight Brother Tommy in that tournament -- he fights > with a quarterstaff and, at the time, I wasn't fighting > freestyle -- but I did get to see him flatten Gilles > Lombard, the reigning savate champion at the time, ARL : ...with a steamroller. I think he was cheating. > in sixty-two furious seconds, culminating with a maneuver > the monks of St. Ignatius call "St. Ignatius's Blessing". I > was most impressed, even if the wording of that blessing put > me on the ground with laughter. (Suffice it to say, it > involves invoking the saint's blessing, in Latin, while > battering one's opponent senseless. The juxtaposition > tickled me then and it tickles me now.] GAVOK : Tickle tickle tickle! MMK : What are y... hee hee hee! Hee hee! Hee hee hee hee! > Later that day, we wound up working together, informally -- > defending a restaurant from the predations of a group of > Antonio de la Vega's Spanish ninja, Z-BOT : We stood outside and tossed buffalo wings at them. It worked. > in what may well have been my first encounter with them. > That event pretty much sealed our friendship, and a year > later, when we met in his native Ireland around > Christmastime for another tournament, he gave me the pup who > would grow up to be Fury. GAVOK : When the pup fastened onto my neck, I began to suspect a double-cross. > Turns out they breed bloodhounds from the old Belgian St. > Hubert stock at the Abbey of St. Ignatius, and when he's not > roaming the world furthering his order's goal of toppling > Shadolu, Brother Tommy, the abbey's assistant precentor, > doubles as kennelmaster. TBS : Holy chew toy! It's the Kennelmaster! GAVOK : I see that, old chum. MMK : You'll never take me alive, Batman! Rover, Spot, Benji! Get them, my henchmen! > He suggested the name; actually, he suggested I preface it > with "Righteous", but I decided against it. That would sound > too much like a computer game. ARL: Or a Steven Seagal movie. WAND : He has a bad taste in his mouth. Now... Steven Seagal *is*... TIFF: BRUSHING HIS TEETH! WAND : He came up to the bar with a taste for booze. Now... Steven Seagal *is*... ARL: DOIN' A SHOT! WAND : His doctor told him to get more exercise. Now... Steven Seagal *is*... RW: TAKING A WALK! WAND : Only in theaters. TBS: The hell you doin', Wandy? WAND: I'll tell you later. > Whenever I got into this kind of contemplative > go-for-a-drive mood, Fury always followed me to the garage, > demanding to be in on everything I was up to. He tended to > get irritated if I did something without him, which > sometimes made traveling an adventure in misdirection (many > countries don't particularly like it if you just fly on in > with your dog). TBS : China does, though. They've got a lot of mouths to feed. [TIFF slices TBS' right arm off.] > Zoner had gotten to the point where he could usually > persuade Fury to do what he wanted if I > wasn't around, but by and large he only listened to me. > I have a theory that dogs like women more than men, WAND: No, Hutchins, dogs like *women* more than *you*. For that matter, *women* like *dogs* more than you. > and one-person dogs often make exceptions based on that > bias. Fury hadn't met Cammy yet, so I hadn't had a chance to > put that theory to the test in his case, but I was confident > of the outcome when the time came. TBS : And I'm gonna get it all on video! Hee, hee, hee, h-- [TIFF slices TBS in half.] GAVOK: Dude. You want to borrow my staple gun? TBS: Thanks. > For that matter, I had been trying valiantly, since the > first time the subject of pets came up in on of our > conversations, to prevail upon her to get a dog of her own; > so far I had been unsuccessful. TIFF: I think I care so little at this point that I'm starting to care a lot. It's worrying me. > "I think I'm wearing her down, though," I told Fury with a > grin, and ruffled his ears a bit in the course of standing. > He favored me with a mournfully speculative look and then > jumped down from the bed with an ungainly galumph. RW: ...and the vorpal dog went snicker-snack, and then it went galumphing back! > I paused by the door to pull on my shoes and shrug into a > light jacket, and then, with Fury meandering at my heels, > went out to my car. > OK, story time. ARL: *Again*? > Like most things which figure prominently in my life, the > car had a story; TIFF : ...and, like most stories in my life, I tell them to anyone who'll sit still long enough. > also like most, I didn't know it all. TBS : But Fury does. ARL: What's on the top of a house? MMK : Roof! ARL: Who's the guy from Honeymooners? MMK : Ralph! ARL: Who's the best baseball player of all time? MMK : Ruth! ARL: Get out of here! MMK : Maybe I should have said DiMaggio? > My father and I had found it rotting in a junkyard in Maine, > while hunting for parts for our regular car, in fact. Dad > was a mechanic, both amateur and professional, all through > high school and college, and had infused in me some of his > gearhead spirit; MMK : Meaning that I'm an expert at blocking the Roaches with my Kangaroos and Bulldozers. [ALL stare blankly at MMK.] MMK: You know... Gearheads? ...forget it. > but where both of us reveled in the hunt for something new > and unusual, the tracking-down of something rare and the > gleeful finality of "the Deal", there our tastes diverged. TBS : You're supposed to eat Campbell's Chunky Soup with a spoon! RW : Bull*shit*! You eat it with a fork! TBS : Spoon! RW : Fork! TBS : Spoon! RW : Fork! > Dad, an inveterate taker-apart of things, liked to buy piles > of shop manuals and ARL : ...take them apart. > and get them greasy tearing his new acquisitions apart and > putting them back together into like-new working order. > Personally, I've always preferred to get behind the wheel > and see what they can do. > This divergence of interest gave us a decent working > arrangement during my high school years, especially the last > two years, during which I had my driver's license. We would > hunt down the vehicles together. GAVOK : Especially the hovering limo driven by Lord Clyde. > With the Deal complete we would drag our latest find home > and Dad would tear it apart. During this phase I would > endure, sometimes with interest but usually bored, and serve > as an assistant, light-holder, and tool-fetcher. [ALL snicker.] WAND : Dammit, Gryphon, go get me a beer! Yeah! > With the Deal complete we would drag our latest find home > and Dad would tear it apart. GAVOK : MY GAWD! MY GAWD! HE'S TEARING IT APART! > During this phase I would endure, sometimes with interest > but usually bored, and serve as an assistant, light-holder, > and tool-fetcher. Then, when everything was back together, > we would strap in and I would test drive it. If all went > well, we'd drive the car for a while, then sell it and find > another project. TIFF : You guessed it; we're really, *really* hurtin' for things to do up here in Maine. > The car I had taken to Worcester with me was our first and > longest-lasting project, a distinction which made it special > enough that we had kept it through the succession to follow. > (Of the eight or so projects we undertook before I moved > away to college, we kept three.] RW : Because nobody would buy them. WAND: *I* wouldn't buy a used car from this wanker, either. > It had been the longest-lasting, mostly because it was in > the worst condition of any of them when we acquired it. ARL: Yeah, *that* makes sense. They don't make 'em like they used to, so the ones made with the best materials don't last as long as the ones made from the *worst* materials. [pause] Riiiight. WAND: It was the longest-lasting *project*, Arly. ARL: Are you actually paying attention? WAND: I'm keeping my sanity by resorting to linguistic miscelleania. [pause] And whiskey. > We found it sitting forlornly in the mud of the Central > Maine Auto Salvage lot behind a heap of squashed AMC > Javelins and seventies-era Impalas, TBS : ....drinking a bottle of paint thinner and bitching that nobody understood it. > where, hidden from view, it had escaped the jaws of the cube > crusher which had come through the area for all cars over > twenty years of age a couple of years before. It crouched in > the mud on disintegrating suspension, four long-flat tires > crumbling away, the interior long since rotted to a tangle > of rusty springs, the engine and transmission stripped away > decades before. TIFF: The car *crouched*, you say. I see. And is the sky purple in your little Mary Sue world? > But the frame was straight, the sheet metal was dingy and > rusty but still strong... there was still a car in there, if > we could strip away the rust, rot and grime and make it live > again. GAVOK : LIVE! LIVE, DAMN YOU! MMK : Get born again... TBS: If Mary Shelley had written _Christine_, I think it would've gone a little... like this. Let's watch. > Never let it be said that we backed down to a challenge. WAND: That's because you don't back down *to* challenges, you back down *from* them. > So we bought it, dragged it home, tore it apart, TBS : Put our right foot in, put our right foot out, put our right foot in, shook it all about... > sanded for what I would conservatively estimate, in > hindsight, to have been just shy of forever, MMK : I made a funny. Guh-huh-huh-huh. > and performed a complete frame-up restoration; and a little > over a year later we rolled out of the garage at the wheel of > a shiny, like-new 1957 Chevrolet 210 sedan. GAVOK : Then we had to replace the garage door. > This car has two strikes against it from a Serious > Collector's point of view: ARL : I worked on it, and my dad worked on it. RW : Fuck *that* shit! I want a car worked on by *intelligent* people! > - It's the mid-range 210 model, not the luxury Bel Air which > is so sought-after, famous, and seen on calendars; and > - It's a sedan (meaning it has metal frames around the > windows), not a hardtop. > But oh, we loved it. TBS : Because oh, Mom was the only woman that would talk to us. [TBS ducks the slice of TIFF's chainsaw that would have decapitated him.] > It has the same magnificent, classic lines as its uptown > brother the Bel Air, GAVOK: But it didn't live with Uncle Phil and Carleton. > the same two little chrome "missiles" on the hood, the same > cleverly hidden gas tank filler that gives full-service gas > attendants (not that there are any of those any more) such > fits (trivia: TIFF: Arthur Conan Doyle actually hated writing Sherlock Holmes! TBS: The fish stick is neither a fish nor a stick! ARL: Sea horses can voluntarily change their gender! > it's hidden behind one of the pieces of chrome molding down > the back of the driver's-side tail fin). [MMK, GAVOK, TBS stand up.] MMK, GAVOK, TBS : BOOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! > With its multitudes of chrome shined up and its fire-engine > red paint waxed and polished, it was every bit as capable of > turning heads and garnering compliments. RW : That may have been because Mom drove it nude, though. I'm not sure. > And with the running gear we fitted to it, it was faster > than most. TIFF: Would you like to go *faster*? Raise your hands if you'd like to go *faster*... > We realized the instant we found it that it was a > lost cause to try and restore it authentically, so instead > we had fun with it: WAND : When we win Twisted Metal, Sweet Tooth will have to grant our wish! > balanced 327 small-block V8, nice big racing headers, > four-speed manual transmission. Fun, fun, fun. TIFF: Yeah, lot of fun to be had with a four-speed manual transmission when you HAVE NO LIFE. MMK, GAVOK, TBS : BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! > This was the car I learned to drive in. MMK, GAVOK, TBS: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! > When the time came for my split from home, I won't say I won > it easily; my father and I weren't on the best of terms at > the time. RW: It was the best of terms, it was the worst of terms. > But that, as they say, is TIFF : ...why I killed my father and stole his car. > water under the bridge. We're all a little older now... Dad > is a bit mellower, I'd like to think I'm a lot wiser, and > damn, now that I look at it, the Chevy really needs a wash. MMK, GAVOK, TBS : BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! > I held the door for Fury ("After you, sah") and then slid > behind the wheel with the ease of long familiarity. TBS : We may as well sit down. He's never going to learn. [MMK and TBS sit down.] GAVOK : BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! [GAVOK sits down.] > The engine came to life with its usual understated rumble. RW: Ah. The '98 Rumble. > We cruised out of the garage and onto the streets of > Worcester in grand style, me feeling better already to be at > the wheel of my favorite car, Fury at his station leaning > out of the passenger window. WAND: Sadly, Fury didn't see the telephone pole until it was too late. MMK : WURF! WURF! WURF! WURF! WURF! WURF! WUR-*WHUMP* > Our house was right on the corner of Cedar Street (a fairly > minor street) and Russell Street (fairly major), with the > driveway and hence the address on the former, so two right > turns in fairly short order put me on Russell heading toward > WPI with Elm Park on my left. TBS: Well, maybe we *should* still be chanting. > Evening was fully entrenched by now, and Elm Park was lit > along the paths and dark in the thickets, deceptively > peaceful. > But that was somebody else's problem, as I turned right onto > Highland Street and headed downtown RW : I know a town where people are running... away from their lives, it seems always... funny... > toward the Interstate. TBS : Leaving, on a southern train, only yesterday, you lied... > Tonight was a wind-in-the-hair highway night, balmy but not > oppressively hot as Worcester is wont to be in the late > summer, with a peculiarly fragrant feel to the air. GAVOK : Oh, yes, smell that, that's definitely a Chablis '62. What do you think, Fury? MMK : WURF! WURF! WURF! WU-*WHUMP* > One of Tortorelli's searchlight trucks was parked in front > of the New Aud; I missed the reason as I guided the Chevy > through the lights. ARL: Look, if you don't know the reason why it's there, DON'T WRITE IT IN! > Once we were securely Eastbound on Interstate 290, I reached > down to the dash and flipped on the stereo, TBS : On-ly YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU... TIFF : Who put on *that* crap? [TIFF mimes turning TBS off.] > having forgotten what tape I'd left in there the day before. MMK : I love you. You love me. We're a happy family... > Don't tell me about the Answer > 'Cause then another one will come along soon > I don't believe you've got the Answer > I've got ideas too > But if you've got enough naivete > And you've got conviction > Then the Answer is perfect for you WAND : Nobody can be told what the Answer is. You'll have to see for yourself. > I must be crazy, RW : Listening to this crap. > studying the only martial art in the world which DOESN'T > have a Path to Ultimate Enlightenment. ARL: Jeet Kune Do? Tae Kwon Do? Jujitsu? KICKBOXING? TBS: Oh, I dunno. Jeet Kune Do and Kickboxing have got pretty straightforward Greater Purposes. RW: Oh? TBS: Kick the Shit Out of the Other Guy. See? It's perfect. > All right, I exaggerate; but enlightenment isn't what Ler > Drit is about, unlike a lot of other forms. GAVOK : No, Ler Drit is about nothing but the study of ancient popcorn. > The Dritkar TBS : Quick, Fury! To the Dritkar! > isn't concerned with the next life or ephemeral concerns > like enlightenment; TIFF: 'Cause there's no black belt? > he seeks only to come as close as he can to perfecting > himself, in mind, in body, in technique. In practice, > there always compromises, of course, because people are > inherently imperfect. I've accepted that I will RW : ...never get a date in my life. > probably never be as fast as I'd like thanks to my build MMK: Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. He's five-foot-eight and weighs three hundred pounds. And yet he isn't as fast as he'd like to be. What a *yutz*. > and the way my nervous system is wired, WAND : And the fact that, in actuality, I've never gotten up from my computer once in my life... > so I make up for it by building on my natural advantages, TIFF : Mary Suing, boring people, and being a fat bastard. > strength and stamina. (Rose, in contrast, knows that she > will never have really bonecrushing upper body strength, so > she concentrates on speed and accuracy instead, borrowing > some philosophical tidbits and a couple of moves from Wing > Chun kung fu and jeet kune do.] ARL: No, she doesn't! She concentrates on hitting people with her scarf, and borrows a couple moves from *Ryu*, you moron! > The same thing holds for the rigorous mental conditioning; GAVOK : Lather, rinse, and repeat. > identify your strengths and build them as high as you can, > to compensate for the weak areas which you will only be able > to shore up so far. ARL: Which is sound strategy... if you're playing *Monster Rancher*. It's completely useless if you're trying to be a martial artist, though. > This principle explains why I have developed a rather > limited repetoire of Ler powers, but why each of them has a > great deal of force behind it; a strong will does not often > mesh well with an agile mind. Z-BOT: Neither do a weak mind and a computer. This fic is proof. WAND : Tell me when he's done talking out of his ass. TIFF: It could be a while. WAND: I know. > I'm no simpleton [ALL snort.] > and I can think on my feet, but my true talent lies in the > Icon of Stone discipline: resolute and immovable, in > contrast to Rose's Psycho Whirlwind style. GAVOK: SAIKYO WHIRLWIND PAWAA! > We're radically different thinkers and fighters, but the > hallmark of our style is evident in both of us: RW : And so we're much more important than ordinary greeting cards! > the relentless sense of purpose (whatever purpose that may > be); the dogged loyalty to causes and loved ones; the > absolute refusal to give up, ever. > Which is why it disturbed me so that Rose had, apparently, > given up... ARL: ...drinking liquids. > My chariot thundered across the bridge over WAND : ...the Rubicon! Caesar would *pay* for his crimes! > Lake Quinsigamond while I arrived at this conclusion, GAVOK : Soylent Green is PEOPLE! IT'S PEOPLE! > but other than to keep watch for road hazards and keep the > car between the dotted lines, I didn't > really notice. I was on a roll now. [RW begins humming "Let Him Know Through the Wind" to himself.] > I had kept the thought in the back of my mind, ever since > Rose returned to my life, and in doing so started me back > down the warrior's path my mother had so hoped I had > abandoned, that I might have to fight Bison some day. ARL: Can't... read... sentence... brain... hurting... [ARL quietly falls over.] TIFF : Should we, y'know, do something about that? TBS: He'll be fine. He does that a lot. TIFF: ...yeah. Right. RW: Now taking bets on the Bison vs. Mary Sue fight! Now taking bets! GAVOK: Put me down for a hundred for Bison. [ALL look at GAVOK.] WAND: After seeing this crap, you're going to put a hundred bucks on Bison actually beating this guy? GAVOK: Aack! We're taking bets on the winner? Hey, Race, gimme my cash back! RW: Nuts. > After all, he was at the head of Shadolu, and that > organization had its fingers in a lot of pies, TBS : There is apple pie... the Rock is fond of apple pie. There is... pecan pie... the Rock doesn't really like that one. And then... there is poontang pie. [TIFF saws TBS' left arm off.] TBS: Ow! What? That was a DIRECT QUOTATION! [TIFF saws the left arm in half.] GAVOK : That's going to need a lot of staples. > including several which were peripherally, or sometimes > not-so-peripherally, related to the informal street-fighting > circuit I fight on. GAVOK: "Peripherally" related? Does that mean they used the Light Gun and the Robotic Operating Buddy? > (They're also involved with the more or less parallel > circuit the Bogard brothers and Joe "Mr. Subtle" Higashi > fight on, but not to the same extent, probably because their > circuit is a bit more formally organized -- more resistant.] WAND: Not that there's any reason to have Fatal Fury in a Street Fighter fanfic in the first place... > Besides which, there was always the possibility that if I > started making a name for myself, he would recognize me as a > fellow student of Rose and seek me out, to suborn me or to > destroy me. TIFF : Oh, no! Don't let him suborn you! [rolls her eyes] Z-BOT : Taste the power of my Psycho Subpoena! > The fact that his pet ninja had started sending underlings > to test me -- my ego would not permit me to think that those > clowns he sent after me in Scotland were actually supposed > to be a threat -- MMK : After all, I can never be defeated because *I*'m so powerful and *I*'m so great and *I*'m so talented and... > seemed to bear this out. I had definitely caught his > interest, but RW : ...then I dropped it and he made it all the way to third. > whether he intended me good or harm I couldn't tell yet. Nor > did I care, for the day I would ally myself with the man who > crushed the proudest spirit I ever knew would come shortly > after the day Hell froze over. ARL: Damn those Warner siblings. MMK : And *I*'m so clever and *I*'m so humorous and *I*'m so witty and *I*'m so loved by everyone and... > And now I had the source of my misgivings in my hands. GAVOK : Namely, cookies. > I wanted to know why I was fighting: for myself, for Rose, WAND : ...for my picket fence, my long cold glass of lemonade! For my stereo, my VCR, my TV show! > for the stained name of Ler Drit? TBS : For Mom, for Dad, for Gran'pa? For my country, my state, my city, my neighborhood, my street, my house, my kitchen, my oven? What's the fight for? TIFF : Silly Mary Sue. The fight is *all*. > Certainly not for God or country; the US doesn't recognize > street fighting as a particularly patriotic activity (much > as Bucky Guile would like to think otherwise] MMK : BUCKY! Captain Bucky O' Guile! He goes where no ord-i-nary rabbit would... [MMK stops.] MMK: ...what rhymes with Guile? > and the only god I believe in is UNIX (and it's infested > with daemons -- ok, ok, the geeky puns are done now). WAND: Gee, and we thought this boy had no life before... > The answer, when I thought about it, was easy... all of > those things. RW : The fight *is* all! TIFF : See, you dumbass, I told you. > The tougher the challenges I found on the circuit, the > better I would become, and that's what Ler Drit is all > about. The more fame I could gather, as a fighter of honor > and decency, the more I would accomplish toward dispelling > the cloud Bison's cruelty and ruthlessness had gathered over > the name of my art. ARL: Wouldn't you accomplish the same thing by opening some dojos or maybe making a movie or something? > And if my travels on the circuit brought me face to face > with the man himself, I would have an opportunity to redress > both that and the scars he's left, visible and otherwise, on > my teacher. TIFF : I would redress them in some lovely shades of blue, maybe add a bit of eyeliner for effect... > Now there were some causes I could believe in. GAVOK : CHICKENS! Phhhhhh! > "I'm playing in the big leagues now, Fury," I commented. > "It's important that I know why I'm in the game." > The big hound glanced skeptically at me for a moment, Z-BOT : Don't you ever shut up? > then resumed his intent examination of the scenery rolling > past. Z-BOT : You know, I'm really sick of your constant Mary S-- ooh, a squirrel. > We were rapidly running out of I-290 to cruise; within a > couple of miles I would have a decision to make. GAVOK : Fish or cut bait? Fish or cut bait? Fish or cut bait? > With a much lighter heart, I turned north. WAND: Into a wall, killing him instantly. GAVOK: I knew he was going to make a north turn. It was all over the internet. MMK: Y'know, that's obscure enough that non-wrestling folk won't get it. I'm proud of you, my son. [GAVOK cries, true tears of joy] MMK: Okay, okay, you can stop now. [GAVOK keeps crying.] MMK: Gavok... [pulls out a kendo stick and hits him] GAVOK: Thanks. I needed that. > MZ MMK: You see, by abbreviating your name you can save up to 3 seconds! GAVOK: Wow. At first I didn't get this idea about "abrev"ing my words, but now I get it. MMK: Hey now Gavok. Don't turn the "tabes" on me. GAVOK: Airport Shmairport! > Sometimes being a freelance spy can make you feel pretty > silly. How would you feel standing in a phone booth doing > anything but using the phone? WAND: Depends on what I was doing. TBS: And who I was with. > That's what I was doing. Standing in a telephone booth near > the movie theatre Z-BOT: We really need to get out of this theater... WAND: Why? Z-BOT: Read that line again. [WAND reads it again and draws his sword.] Z-BOT: Yes, we have a chance to kill the story before it goes on! GAVOK: Woo hoo! MMK : Hey, you're right! Let's get it on! TIFF : Let's do it! RW : I used to run this theater, remember? I think I know another way out! Follow me! ARL: Well, what the hell are we waiting for? ALL: CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGE! > in Lincoln Square, [Once *again*, ALL stop in mid-dash.] Z-BOT: Damnit! He did it again... ARL: This is getting most annoying. WAND: I hate this story... RW: He's teasing us, that's what it is. [ALL mumble, put away their weapons, and head back to their seats.] TBS : Hey, what was it that Racey was saying about another ex-- WAND: Not now, Snot. I'm very annoyed right now. TBS: But... WAND: Quiet! TBS: Oh-kaaay... > thumbing through the phone book. RW: It apparently doesn't take much to make this guy feel pretty silly. TBS : Excuse me. Some people need to use the phone. > In the G's I found the expected manila envelope; something > small and heavy in one corner shifted as I peeled the > envelope out of the book, so I tilted it and let that object > fall into my hand. TIFF: So what do they do in case someone uses the 'phone book before their agent? GAVOK: There are a lot of bodies in that alleyway next door... > It was a key to the change reservoir. RW: I knew then that I'd be going to the arcade for a very, very long time... > Of all the agencies I do some work for, I like the way this > one gives its mission briefings the best. TBS: They're given by a naked Britney Spears. > I unlocked the reservoir and opened the little chrome door, > revealing a tiny little reel-to-reel tape recorder. I guess > they still use those because the self-destructing tape > doesn't work very well in cassettes. MMK: Aw, swell. How many unnecessary cameos can you fit in one 'fic? TIFF : dadumdadumdum, dumdum, dum dum... > I switched it on and pulled the other item out of the > envelope: it was a slightly grainy black-and-white picture > of a nice-looking dark-haired woman wearing some kind of uniform hat, the sort that peaks in front, Z-BOT: They are technically called dunce hats and are rather silly. ARL: But not as silly as the hats that have those plumes. > like Luftwaffe officers used to wear. > "Good morning, MegaZone," said the familiar voice on the > tape. RW : I told you never to call me here. WAND : As you requested, we've killed your parents for giving you that name. Now, as for your end of the deal... > "The woman you are looking at is Laura Roxanne, one of > Shadolu's top TIFF : ...sitcom stars and talkshow hosts. > field agents. She is reputed to be a student of Lord Bison > himself. TBS: The fact that she flunked doesn't matter. WAND: Whatfuckin'ever. Anyone with a week to kill can apparently be Bison's student. > We have received information that she has been placed in > command of a Shadolu field squad tasked with obtaining the > controller for the former Soviet orbital weapon codenamed > 'GoldenEye'." MMK : That's Unnecessary Cameos #5 and #6! Z-BOT: We've got a date with unspeakable pain! ALL: Yay. > I turned over the photo, and on the back was a diagram of a > thing that looked like a briefcase, with some knobs and > switches on a panel inside surrounding a big ovoid socket. [RW glances at TIFF, who still looks pretty ticked.] RW: Aw, hell. It ain't worth it to touch that one. > Paperclipped to it was a picture of a big amber crystal that > looked like it would fit into that socket nicely. ARL: Insert Plot Token A into Plot Device B... > "The GoldenEye controller is being moved from the old Soviet > research center near Gorovsibirsk to Moscow by a special > train on the Trans-Siberian Line next Monday. WAND: Isn't this a mission in Syphon Filter? > Our intelligence indicates that Laura Roxanne intends to > strike the train and steal the controller somewhere between > Gorovsibirsk and Dnepropovinsk." > Well, that would explain why they were sending me instead of > Jim Phelps and his team. ARL : I'm expendable as all hell. > They'd heard I was going to be in the neighborhood ALL: There goes the neighborhood! > -- Sergei Zangief lives in Dnepropovinsk. > "Your mission, Zoner, should you decide to accept it, is to > stop Laura Roxanne and acquire the GoldenEye controller for > our side, TIFF : Because the game really sucks in one player mode. WAND: This was written in 1996. The Cold War's over. What the hell is going on? > or, failing that, see it destroyed. As always, should you or > any member of your IM Force be caught or killed, TBS: Waitaminute. He works for AOL? ARL: As if I didn't hate him enough already. > the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. > This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, > Zoner." WAND : The tape cut off suddenly, to cover the snickering. > Did any IMF agent -not- accept the mission?? I've always > wondered about that. TBS: No, wait, it's the International Monetary Fund. ARL: So he's going to bankrupt several small countries? TBS: Yup. Fascist. > I put the photo back in the envelope and tucked it away in > the inside pocket of my jacket just as the tape sizzled and > erupted in a billowing cloud of white smoke. WAND : Hey, beauty mist! TIFF : It's gas, you bimbo! > Closing the change reservoir, I pocketed the key and shoved > the booth open, trying to look like a man who's just been > smoking and having an important discussion with someone on a > pay phone. The motorcycle cop over by the theatre wrinkled > his nose and shot me a dirty look -- for some damn reason > the self-destructing tape smoke smells almost exactly like > marijuana smoke -- ARL: Then he should've arrested you, dude. > but decided it wasn't worth his while to hassle me. WAND : Hey, man, I'm too cool to enforce the law. > Prudently, I left the Suburban where it was and headed > across the street to get some food at Denny's. RW: Oh, come on. Spies don't eat at Denny's! Z-BOT: Cockroaches do! > G GAVOK: That's my name, don't wear it out. > Five hours or so after I decided to head north on I-495, Z-BOT: I-495! I-495! TBS, MMK, GAVOK: Okay! What's next? Z-BOT: B-1! B-1! TBS: BINGO! MMK, GAVOK: Damn... > Fury and I were pulling into beautiful, bustling, > oh-so-urban Millinocket, Maine, population 7,000 or so, on a > good day. ARL: On bad days, the Mongols sweep down from the north. > OK, story time. GAVOK : Me Grimlock hate Gryphon's stories. Would rather hear about petro rabbits! TBS : Speaking of all this, did you hear Race say something about a secret ex-- [TIFF revs her chainsaw and brings it ever so close to TBS's face] TIFF: Shut up! Can't you see I'm preparing for the worst here? TBS: Fine, fine... > Millinocket is a town which pretty much sprang out of > nowhere in the early 1900s, near RW: ...an oak tree with the word "Croatoan" carved into it. > (but not quite on) the West Branch of the Penobscot River, > apparently because some hardy settler-types were TBS: ...laying out some hexagonal board pieces and wooden tokens, preparing for some serious pain. > boating up the Penobscot, got a little lost, ended up on > Millinocket Stream and said to themselves, WAND : Hmm... these look like natural resources we could exploit and exhaust! Let's go for it! > "Boy, we're right smack in the middle of a big ol' > coniferous forest here - wouldn't this be a great spot for ARL : ...an inevitable smoky, urban hell? > a paper mill?" > So they built one, and a town sprang up around it in short > order, complete with a fairly major rail hub to carry raw > materials in and finished paper out. The way it sprang up > earned the place the nickname "Magic City of Maine's > Wilderness". GAVOK: It's here that Magic City Mineral Water is created. > Here's the punch line: the place hasn't grown notably since. [A cricket chirps in the theater.] TBS : No! It's funny, damn it! LAUGH! Please, by God, LAUGH! > It's still a paper mill with a small town sprawled out > around it - economically depressed and deadly boring. > "You're not missing anything," I murmured, unconsciously > quoting a movie. "I grew up here, you know." > Fury ignored me, cheerily panting out the window. TIFF: I like him. ARL: Yeah. Fury's my favorite character so far. [TBS produces a deck of cards.] TBS: The game is five-card draw, deuces are wild, ante's a quarter. Who's in? MMK: I am. RW: Set me up. TIFF: I'll play. Z-BOT: Affirmative. GAVOK: Go fish! > I drove on through the town's two traffic lights (one at the > top of Central Street, by the McDonald's; one in the heart > of downtown, the Central Street-Penobscot Avenue > intersection), onto Katahdin Avenue and on out to Bates Street, > the woods highway to Baxter State Park (home of mighty Mount > Katahdin, the state's highest peak), TBS: Any discards? RW: Discard two. TIFF: Give me one. MMK: I'll stand. [He ^_^s.] RW, TBS, TIFF: I fold. MMK: What? Z-BOT: I bet he's bluffing. Two cards. GAVOK: Go fish! > and, incidentally, the road to my old neighborhood. WAND : Vladimir Chekov once said that if there are dueling pistols above the mantel in the first act, they should be fired by the third. ARL: And that's relevant how...? WAND: Unless the proud history of Pissbucket, Maine, becomes an integral part of this story very, very fucking soon, I'm going to find Hutchins and forcibly enroll him at Stanford. > After the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad overpass, left off > Bates Street, across from the newest of the three entrances > to the ever-expanding Rush Trailer Park, [RW deals.] RW : ...recently caused by the third tornado this week... > is a street named Rush Boulevard (despite the fact that the > trailer park is entirely on the other side of Bates). This > curls out into the woods toward the old B&A rail lines, > eventually ending in a largish figure-eight in which two > streets are knotted together, Rush and Morgan Lane. WAND: Any relation to Chasey Lain? TBS: If there was, I might be paying attention. Gin! MMK: We're still playing poker, Snot. TBS: Well, shit. > On the backcurve of the second loop, on the right, stands a > house, unremarkable in this neighborhood, smallish and > brown, with a fenced yard and a nondescript old Chevy Impala > in the driveway. > I got out of the car and crunched up the gravel driveway > with Fury loping at my heels. There was a glowing bell > button next to the door, but for as long as I could remember GAVOK : I've always wanted to be a Mary Sue. > the bell itself had never worked, so I rapped on the door > with my knuckles instead. > There was a pause... the extreme quiet of the neighborhood > pressed in around me, so different after Worcester and yet > so familiar from childhood. For a long moment, nothing > moved, nothing stirred except the branches of the trees in > the wind. TIFF: And the ninjas perched in them. Z-BOT: Spanish ninjas? TIFF: Well, no. Spanish ninjas don't really perch. They sorta hang out. > It was the kind of perfect peace I had sacrificed for the > urban lifestyle I loved. ARL: Dude, if you like the urban lifestyle, shouldn't you be somewhere other than Worcester? TBS: Hey, look. A stirring tale of one man's sacrifice for his dreams. MMK: How inspiring. Threes are wild. [He deals.] [RW, MMK, TBS, TIFF, and Z-BOT look at their cards. Suddenly, TBS' hat flies off of his head.] MMK, RW, Z-BOT, TIFF: I fold. TBS: Huh? GAVOK: Go fish! WAND: Gavok, those are baseball cards... oh, to hell with it. > I missed it only rarely, but the feeling was always keener > when I returned to it for a while. > A click, and the door opened. > "Hello, Ben," said Rose, regarding me with an even gaze from > her violet eyes. Z-BOT: Good. Gazes scare me when they come from anywhere else. GAVOK: Oh, come on. Rose has to drive a cooler car than a Chevy Impala. > "Hello, Rose," I replied. > A beat. ALL: WHAP! WAND : Ben flew across the yard like a shuffleboard weight... > She smiled. "Come in, come in. Hello, Fury." MMK : Hey, Rose. Maybe *you* can shut him up. > Rose's house was finished, GAVOK : Stick a fork in it. It's done. > inside, in a curious and cozy > style; all the walls were paneled with thick > tongue-and-groove TBS: You know, "Tongue-and-Groove" would be a great name for a trance group. > boards of blond softwood, which made the > room look smaller than it really was but also made the > lighting look warmer. RW : This kind of paneling's a little expensive, but you'll make it back on the heating costs... > The floors were all hardwood, and there was a distinct lack > of nicknacks, gimcracks, GAVOK : Knick-knack! WAND : Gim-crack! Z-BOT : Give a dog a bone! ALL : This old man came rolling home! > gewgaws, MMK: Oh, yeah! He was that kobold guy from Suikoden II, right? WAND : MMK... > objets d'art, and other small objects described by > cute, meaningless words. TBS: There's a dick joke there, but I'm not telling it. TIFF: Good thing, too. One-eyed jacks are wild. [She deals.] Z-BOT: Heh. I guess you told it instead. [floats out of chainsaw range] TIFF: Never turn your back to me. > It was also all pretty much one big room, with a narrow > sleeping pad in one corner, a kitchen in another, a couple > of threadbare but comfortable chairs, a radio, and > bookshelves lining all the available wall space RW: ...there are chairs and a radio lining her walls? WAND: This is why you don't see many Dadaist interior decorators. > (except for the spot over the fireplace, which was taken up > by a large painting of ARL: ...dogs, wearing gis, throwing fireballs. TBS: I may not know art... > a mountain in a thunderstorm). GAVOK : ...and happy little trees. > The only interior door led off to the left into the small, > functional bathroom. In the back, a sliding glass door led > out down into the back yard, where Rose kept a modest > vegetable garden. An Oriental throw rug covered the trapdoor > in the floor which led down to the basement. WAND: Hey! She lives in the cabin from _The Evil Dead_! ARL: Where did they *find* this place? A MUD? TIFF: That'd explain the lack of a bathroom. MMK : Rose's house. It is one big room. There is a narrow sleeping pad to your northwest and a kitchen to your southwest. For some reason, chairs and a radio are lining the wall. There is a sliding door leading to the vegetable garden and an Oriental rug on the floor which is *not* in *any* way concealing a trap door, nosiree. Exits: North, South, West. > A small fire was burning in the fireplace, TIFF: Gee. As opposed to? > just enough to take the slight chill off the unseasonably cool > evening; after completing one perimeter patrol of the room, Fury > padded over and plopped himself down with a contented canine > grunt on the warm hearth stones. ARL : Fury! Look what you did! Bad dog! > Rose ushered me to one of the chairs and then curled with > feline grace into the other. MMK: The part of Rose will be played by Eartha Kitt. > She regarded me for a moment with that eerily perceptive > look of hers before she spoke. TIFF : So. Why the hell am I living in Maine? TBS : Two words: Acid Junkie. TIFF : I'll be good. > "You've gotten stronger," she said. She wasn't speaking > simply of physical strength, of course, although that had > increased since she last saw me. MMK : Ah, bullshit. WAND : Do you *mind*? I'm doing an inner monologue here. MMK : The only thing about you that's increased since I last saw you is your *weight*, tubby. WAND : Oh, shut up. [turns as if speaking to audience] I began to worry that the entire cast was turning against me. MMK : I mean, *look* at you! What did you do, swallow a Baskin-Robbins whole? WAND : Shut *up*. MMK : Porky. WAND : Shut UP! > In that momentary examination she had gauged the strength of my > Ler, my life energy, and WAND : ...was telling me I was down a quart. MMK : You haven't been changing your Ler every 3000 miles, have you? WAND : There went *my* insurance. MMK : *Look* at me when I'm talking to you, damnit! > that's what she was really talking about. RW: Yeah. *Duh*. [rolls his eyes] > She smiled again, another of the small, quiet, private smiles > toward which she was given. "That's good, very good. You'll > be needing it, I suspect, sooner than you think." > I cocked an eyebrow, TBS: Heh-heh! [pause] Oh. > inviting her to elaborate. WAND : Three... two... one... [He points at GAVOK.] GAVOK : Do you doubt the strength of the Great One? MMK : Well, don't you think-- GAVOK : IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT I THINK! WAND : And the elaborate dance continues. > As usual, she didn't. TIFF : I don't owe you nothin', punk. > "That's what I love about you, Rose; you're always so > reassuring." She chuckled, a bit indulgently, and silence > descended, warm and comfortable, broken by the popping of > the fire and Fury's snoring. ARL: Where's a tumbleweed when you need one? > This lasted for some time, and I was momentarily tempted to > start casting about for something to say to break this > silence when she said, "What troubles you?" WAND : I was wondering if I could borrow some pants for my girlfriend. TIFF : If I had pants, I wouldn't dress like this. > "Pardon?" I replied. > "What troubles you?" Rose repeated. "You're off to Russia > for your second World Warrior bout in a couple of days. You > wouldn't drop in unexpected for a visit in the middle of the > night unless MMK : ...you were here to steal my radio. Hey, wait a second... TBS : She's on to us! Run! > something was troubling you, something you wanted to talk > about." > "Actually, you're not quite right this time," TBS : Y'see, I don't know your name. So, what, let's get something to talk about? > I replied with a smile. "Something -was- troubling me, but I > figured it out for myself this time." I explained to her the > line of thought I'd been mulling over back in Worcester. GAVOK : ...I can save a buck or two with 1-800-CALL-ATT, but I only spend seven cents a minute with 10-10-321, but 10-10-345 says they can offer me *lower* rates than that, but 1-800-COLLECT says they can offer me *lower* rates than *that*, but... WAND : Zzzzzzzzzzzz... > "If that is the only reason you put yourself at such risk, > both by fighting in the circuit and by making yourself a > thorn in Bison's side, stop now," she told me. TIFF : Leave it to the *skinny* people, eh? Eh? [gives the screen the wink and the gun] > "I can't stop now," I replied. "I'm too far in... MMK : I'll get 'em both. Deany *and* Cummings. > now I have to find out how it's all going to come out. WAND: Ten bucks says it's all going to come out as Gryphon winning over everybody. > Stopping now would be like putting down a book in the middle of > Chapter 10." I grinned. RW: Hey, can we put this 'fic down in the middle of Chapter Two? eDAN : No. Now shut up and read. RW: Damn you. > "Besides, how else will we ever be able to see how far my > potential can take me? I'm at my best when I'm questing." > She said nothing for a few moments, ARL : Which is when I realized she was ignoring me and talking to Fury. TIFF : Who's a good doggy, ooh you're so CUTE yes you are yes you are. GAVOK : Wurf! [TIFF scratches GAVOK behind the ear and GAVOK's leg thumps.] ARL : I wondered if maybe I was spending *too* much time with my inner monologue these days. > gazing at me in silent contemplation, a sad look in her eyes. > "You do not have to do this." > "Don't I?" I replied. "If not me, who? WAND : Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar? TBS: Ida Know, obviously. > Do you have some other student out there who I haven't noticed? TIFF : Yes. ARL : Oh. [A pause.] ARL : Well... who? TIFF : Ooh, who's a good boy, yes you are yes you are... GAVOK : Wurf! Wurf! [GAVOK mimes levitating half a foot above the ground.] TIFF : *Good* boy! ARL : ...hey, *wait* a second. > If you've given up, then I'm all that's left." She stared at me, > somewhere between angry and hurt, but I couldn't stop myself now. WAND: *That*'s an addiction you don't hear about too often. > "What's the matter, you don't -want- the last seventeen years to have > meant anything? Well, sorry, but I don't appreciate having > my time wasted! You started this, Rose, and now I have to finish it." TBS: What the *fuck* is he talking about? MMK: Rose was gonna make Bison a cake, but he beat her up first. TBS: Oh. Right! I see it. Thanks. MMK <^_^ing>: Anytime. > "Don't speak to me like that," she said, but she wouldn't > look at me. > "You'd have a lot more credibility when you say things like > that," I replied, "if you'd make eye contact when you say them." TBS : Hey, Gav, did you hear Ra-- GAVOK: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..... TBS: Forget it. > That got her to look up, with something approaching the old > familiar flash of fire in her dark eyes. > "-There- we are," I said. "That's better. Besides, I'm not > planning on taking him on -tomorrow-." > "You might have to," she replied. > "Nah," I said. "You said it yourself, once - events have a > kind of flow to them. First he'll have his Spanish pal send > some more of his minions after me to see if he can figure > out how far I've come. TBS: Heh heh heh heh heh. [TIFF's eyebrows twitch.] > Then maybe he'll send one of his party boys after me, WAND: That's one... > if I've been a big enough pain in the ass. By the time he gets done > screwing around WAND: ...and two... > I'll be large and in charge, WAND: ...three! He's made the homoerotic sextuple entendre! ALL: Yay! > and it'll be way too late for him to stop me." > I didn't really believe most of this, at least not with the > sort of arrogant overtones I was putting on, RW : And judging by the look on Rose's face, neither did she. GAVOK : Wurf! RW : Oh, and neither did Fury. GAVOK : Wurf. > but it did > sound like a nice way for things to unfold. I certainly > wouldn't mind being large and in charge, in any event. [ALL snicker to themselves.] TBS: Generic Dick Joke #437. MMK: Ooh, a classic. GAVOK: Definitely. TIFF: Why, you-- [WAND parries TIFF's chainsaw.] WAND: It's really disturbing watching them put themselves back together. Please stop. TIFF: Grrr... > "Overconfidence of that kind is what cost me so dearly three > years ago," Rose reminded me, not entirely kindly. WAND: Well, sure, but she ain't *writing* this story, *is* she? > "If he determines for certain that you're my student he'll hunt you > until he runs you to ground, and then he'll kill you, after > extracting my own whereabouts from you." ARL : And then I'll spank him like a toddler, come to think of it... > "It wounds me that you think so little of my skill -or- my > resolve, Rose," I said. I was baiting her on purpose, I must > confess. MMK : You're a dootyhead, Rose! A washed-up no-good froot-booty! [waggles his tongue] Lehbuhlehbuhlehbuhlehbuhlehbuhlehbuhlehbuuuuuh! TIFF : Oh, shut up. > My grandfather once told me, if you really want to > know what someone's thinking, make him so mad he can't lie > to you. Or did I see that on TV? Probably both, actually. ARL : Because I, y'know, had no life like that. Spent my Wednesday nights watching Telebingo. Tragic, really. > "And it hurts me to think that I trained you so badly you'd > overestimate them!" she snapped. "I did not raise you to be a fool!" > "You raised me? Hmm... I suppose you did, for the most part. TBS: A fictional character raised our author? Interesting... > But that being the case, you sure as hell didn't raise me to > give up on -anything-. MMK : Which is why I'm still on crack! Damn you! > Of late, you haven't been providing the best example in the > world, but hey, your generation is always saying 'do as I > say, not as I do.'" ALL: ...oooooh. TBS: Benjy's gonna get a *spanking*... > "Benjamin," she said slowly, GAVOK : It's all about you. > and I knew I had her. "You are trying my patience." MMK, GAVOK, TBS : Well, why don't you try mine first? WAND: Was that joke *that* obvious? MMK: Well, *yeah*. > "Well, then, we're even," I replied. "You've been trying > mine for two years now." MMK: Holy shit, it *was* that obvious! Even *Porky* got it! > She paused, and for a moment, I thought she was going to > back down even from me. Then she opened her eyes, angrily > meeting my own, and growled, "That's quite enough. WAND: I agree. MMK, Gavok, Snot, never tell that joke again. GAVOK: Aww. > If you won't show me the proper respect, you'll have to be taught > better. TBS : Chain yourself to the wall, scum. I'll deal with you directly. > Outside, now." > A-ha! ALL : Take... on... me! > I must admit, I was remarkably cheery for a man who was > about to get into a fight. TBS : I musta been stoned or something. > The first thing that I noticed about the fight was TIFF : ...that I got stomped like Rodney King. The *second* thing that I noticed was... > how imprecise and sloppy Rose's technique had become in the > time since she last fought -- eroded by months of neglect, her > attacks and defenses had become almost hesitant, as if she > weren't quite sure whether they would work any more. MMK: Well, *duh*. She's been *booked* to *lose* against the *booker*. It's a *little* demoralizing. GAVOK: Benjamin Hutchins *is* Kevin Nash. > She had kept fit -- she had too much pride even beaten to > let her appearance or conditioning slide -- RW : *Especially* her appearance... TIFF: ... RW: A-*hem*. Tiffa, that's your cue. TIFF : Oh, right. Why you. I'll cut you to pieces, you horrible hentai you. RW: Hey, what's wrong? ARL : Isn't it obvious? This fic truly *is* of the spirit-breaking type. TBS: Well, if you'd all listen to me and have Race tell us abo-- RW: Shut up, Snot. We're brooding. [TBS grumbles.] > but she was slow and uncentered, with no rhythm or cadence. > The second thing I noticed was how surely an outsider, > someone who wasn't familiar with the swift, sure, economical > movements she had once displayed in combat, would still find > her dazzlingly graceful and powerful. She might be out of > practice and out of step, but she still hit remarkably hard > for a woman her size, and she was still faster than I. ARL: YOU'RE THREE HUNDRED POUNDS! THREE *HUNDRED*! OPRAH WINFREY COULD MOVE FASTER IN A FIGHT THAN YOU! *MEATLOAF* COULD MOVE FASTER IN A FIGHT THAN YOU! A *GLACIER* COULD MOVE FASTER IN A FIGHT THAN YOU! [A vein in ARL's forehead begins audibly pulsating.] > The third thing I noticed was how easily I was bettering her > anyway, which, I must admit, shocked the hell out of me. WAND : That makes *one* of us... > I mean, I had expected her to be slow, and off form, but gods! GAVOK: They *must* be crazy! Look! > In all my years I had never beaten her, never seriously > challenged her, and now, I was outmaneuvering her easily. > She was still faster than I, but not fast enough to hit me > before I could block her, nor quick enough to have an attack > launched before I could figure out what it was. She wasn't > improvising. MMK : OK, it's time to play a game called Hoe Down. We need a topic from the audience. GAVOK : Mary Suing! MMK : Mary... Suing. All right. > I had her angry enough to make the gesture, RW: And we all know *which* gesture... > but not angry enough to mean it. > Hmph. That wouldn't do. TIFF : I mean, I want her to absolutely *beat* my ass. > I stopped, let my hands fall to my sides, didn't bother > blocking the next combo. TBS, GAVOK, MMK: C-C-C-COMBOOOO!!!! > The blow to my chin stung, and the fist in my gut hurt and > made me cough, WAND: Whether 'tis better to endure the blows and fists of outrageous misfortune... GAVOK: ...or to job against a sea of troubles and, by selling, end them? WAND: Well, so much for Shakespeare. GAVOK: That oughtta larn ya. WAND: Bitch. GAVOK: Ho. > but neither was powerful enough to stagger me, or even move > me appreciably. ARL: Because, you know, it's not like she *knows what she's doing*, or *has kept in shape*, or anything... > Then, no longer caught in the momentum of the attack, she > realized I'd stopped and backed up a > step, looking at me curiously. > "Well?" Rose demanded. "Defend yourself." ALL: NO! DON'T! > "Why should I?" I replied. TIFF : The world... is a dark and lonely place... > "You're not even attacking me. You're just swinging your hands > and feet for something to do, and I happen to be standing in the > wrong place. Now are we going to fight, or are we going to > waste time?" MMK : I've got Mario Party 2. GAVOK : Ooh! Let's go play! > /* Big Country "The Travellers" _The Collection: 1982-1988_ */ WAND : Travellers ain't no country I've ever heard of. Do they speak English in Travellers? RW: Trav-- WAND : Say "Travellers" again. I dare you, motherfucker! > Her eyes flashed with something more than just an echo of > their old fire, she let out a snarl that brought Fury awake > with a consternated bark, and I knew I was really in for it now. TIFF : Gryphon! You got some 'splanin to do! TBS : Wah! RW: Aaaah! Those red eyes! That growl! She's been... ROBOTICIZED! > In our tenure together, Rose and I had only properly fought > twice before, both times not out of disagreement but for testing. ALL: Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. TIFF : Now, look, Gryphon, honey, I really don't like fireballing you, but when I tell you to put the dishes away, *you do it*. TBS : Noooooooooo! TIFF : Now, hold still. This will hurt me a lot more than it hurts you... TBS : Like hell it will! Oops... TIFF : That's it! Soul Spark! TBS : Waaaaahhh... > We used to spar almost constantly, but that was different, > that involved the occasional protective pad and certain > ground rules. MMK : Well, I'm certainly glad you're in the mood to fight tonight, Gryphon. Because tonight... in... that... very... ring-uh... you're going to face Rose in an I Quit match! And if your little pal Zoner even *thinks* of helping you out, HIS ASS IS *FIRED*-UH! > In a fight situation there were none of the former and few of the > latter GAVOK : A little of column A, a little of column B. > -- only the informal etiquette of the ring bound either of > us to any level of conduct. [TBS whistles.] TBS: Level of conduct! Two minutes! > In both of our previous fights, it had been me who woke up > in the brown armchair with a whacking great headache. WAND: There comes a time in every man's life where there simply aren't enough masturbation jokes to go around. Now, for me, is that time. > She came at me, MMK: For what it's worth, Wanderer, you're not alone. WAND: Thanks. > in that initial rush, ARL: ...she had chose the path that's clear. RW: You mean...? ARL: That's right. She has chose free will. > with an ill-timed but well-executed flying kick. I avoided it > with a simple sidestep; she landed lightly next to me and launched > a punch series RW: Fruit punch, lemon punch, grape punch, Hawaiian Punch... > at my head. ARL : At my head... at my head... zombie... zombie... zombie-bie-bie... > We moved a few steps across the yard as > our arms interlocked in a well-remembered pattern GAVOK: Swing your partner round and round! RW : Turn the volume up a notch, stick your face in your partner's crotch! Dirty square dancin'! > of punch and block; WAND : Punch! Block! TIFF : Kick! Block! WAND : Kick! Block! > then she seized one of my arms GAVOK: ...and used it as a trading piece to get Bison to hand over the money... [WAND, MMK and GAVOK twitch.] ARL: I hear I was actually *lucky* to have been in a coma for that one. > and used it as a lever to push herself up and put a whip kick into > the side of my head. TIFF: *Into* the side of his head? Is she trying to plant a chip in his brain with her foot? RW: *I* wouldn't mind trying that... > In the old days, I would have been taken entirely unaware by > this clever trick, standing there like a goof TBS : ...throughout the entire fight, cryin' like a baby whenever I got hit... > with my arm rigid and providing her the balance point she > needed to make the kick work. ARL: Why the hell does she need your arm to make the kick work? Does your version of Rose have two fake hips? GAVOK: You're gonna burst a vein in your head doin' that. ARL: I can't help it. It's my nature... > Not this time, though; WAND : 'Cause this time Capcom ain't writing things. I am. > I recognized the tension and dropped to one knee, disrupting > her arc and spilling her heavily to the turf. She recovered > fast, sweeping my feet from under me, but before she could > plant my face in the grass RW: ...and water it and wait to see what would grow... > with a quick stomp I was up. > This was more like it. She caught me a nasty backfist to the > gut, MMK: Come on! Haymakers! Uppercuts! Jabs, hooks, crosses! Something other than a backfist! ARL: Rose doesn't use backfists anyway! She hits people with her scarf! > driving me back a step, then drove me back two more with a > kick to the sternum; coughing, I swung into my double kick, > a maneuver which turned me completely around, three hundred > sixty degrees, and incorporated a high wheel kick from each > foot in the process. TBS: Wait. He said that last time. TIFF: Aaigh! He's repeating himself! GAVOK: We're doomed! WAND : I'd like to see a five-eight, three-hundred-pound guy doing a double wheel kick. It'd be interesting, in a "complete goddamn train wreck" sort of way. Z-BOT: It'd be like watching E. Honda do a corkscrew moonsault. MMK: Like Big Bear attempting Jeff Hardy's barricade-running spot. RW: Like Fat Albert doing a cartwheel. ARL : Guys... > Rose ducked the first one, but wasn't expecting the second; > as she rose from the duck RW: ...*Darkwing* Duck... MMK : But... Rose, what if Gosling catches us? TBS : Just keep doing what you're doing... > to throw a punch combo RW: ...orange punch, kiwi punch, berry punch, Super Punch-Out!... > at my head, the second caught her > unprepared and sprawled her flat on the ground. > Her timing was improving, and her reflexes smoothing out, > but she was still using fairly generic attacks, all of them > common to the base combat form on which all of the various > Ler Drit styles are built. WAND: The man knows two moves, a double kick and a backfist, and he bitches because his opponent's moves are too generic. ARL: And? WAND: Why, I'm just innocently restating two established facts and letting you draw your own conclusions. TBS: Then you're going to have to wait for a little while. GAVOK: I agree. I can't draw at all. MMK: Well, I certainly don't have that problem. I'm a proven draw! TIFF : Pleeeeeease let me hurt them... WAND: Be strong, young one. Be strong. > I supposed it was up to me to > raise the ante again, GAVOK : ...so I picked her up! Hello! Thanks, folks, I'm here all week... > and launched myself into a semi-levitative MMK : *Semi*-levitative? There are only *two* states a person can *be* in, *levitative* and *unlevitative*! > slide kick, knocking her down just as she got back to her feet. [ALL snort.] ARL: Man, Gryphon's a *scrub*. > Looking up at me, a sly smile creeping onto her elfin face, TIFF: ...she stole my infant child, and left a wooden doll in its place. > she wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, then > leaped to her feet WAND: Instead of, oh, having *leapt* to her feet... MMK: Hee hee! When Arly tries to correct people's syntax like that, his brain implodes. ARL: Oh, shut up. > and launched herself at me, her > long-fingered, slender hands extended before her. They > flared, and blue-white discharges crackled between them. ARL: I'd definitely have a doctor look at that. > In our first fight, she'd finished me with this trick, and > although I was stepping back and raising my hands, it was > too late for me to block her this time either. Z-BOT: You *can't* block that, Hutchins. That's her Fierce Throw. > She seized my head between those hands, whiting out my > vision in a sudden blaze of mind-numbing pain, TIFF: Yay! I found my happy thought! > and whipped completely over me around that point, landing > behind me, her back to mine. Blinded, dazzled and dizzy with > pain, I acted purely on instinct, WAND: Nobody says it. I forbid it. GAVOK: *Killer* Inst-- WAND: Gavok. GAVOK : Yessir. > dropping to a half-crouch and whirling with one foot extended, > and half out of pure luck I caught her legs as she landed. WAND: Y'know, I play Rose, and her throw's a knockdown. MMK : Not for me, 'cause *I*'m so *clever* and so *balanced* and so... > Following the sound of her unceremonious landing, I hopped > forward and drove out a flared fist, and the impact jolted > my arm as I caught her shoulder. Then, keeping my hands > defensively in front of me, I backed off a few paces, shaking > my head to clear it. [GAVOK shakes a maracca.] > This bought me RW: ...time-share property on Daytona Beach. > a respite of a sort, but it also gave her time to get up ALL : Get up! Get up! Get up! ARL : Dreams, they complicate my life... TBS : Dreams they, they complicate my life... > and roll out her shoulder where I'd clipped her; > an even trade, I'd say. WAND: An eye for an eye. TIFF: A tooth for a tooth. GAVOK: My Bulbasaur for your Weezing. TBS: I call. > My vision cleared and my balance steadied, and I realized that > I was really none the worse for wear from an attack which had > leveled me like a poleaxed redwood only three years before. MMK: You Know You're A Mary Sue When... WAND: ...an established character's attacks do not even *hurt* you. > Now it was Rose's turn to see the surprise I had in store > for -her-. TIFF : EWW! Ben... you... put that away! > I built my Ler up as if I intended to throw another flarefist, and, > indeed, my fists did glow a bit. But that was not my intention. ARL: Tough luck. The road to hell is paved with glowing fists. > Rose regarded me, a dozen paces away, with an expression > partway between exultation and annoyance, TBS : He isn't even *hurt*? That's it, that's the last goddamn straw. I'm getting out of this story *now*. > her grievance with me not quite forgiven. > I grinned at her, and we had an understanding. TIFF : Now, you see, I'm gonna hit you, and you're going to die. RW : Sounds reasonable enough -- hey, wait! TIFF : Dammit. > She grinned back, gathered herself, and charged me, fists > flaring, preparing to launch one of her whirlwind attacks, ARL: What whirlwind attacks? She hits people with her scarf! > and I dropped back a half-pace, setting myself. I took a > breath, called my Ler to action, and thrust my hands forward, > palms outward, as if I had a large round object cupped in them. RW: He's going to meet her charge by copping a feel? GAVOK : SWEETO! > I had invented this technique, if it could be called such, ARL: It couldn't. Heavy petting is *not* considered a technique. > by accident while flare training > one afternoon not too long ago, and hadn't been comfortable > enough with its reliability to try it in my bout with Cammy. Z-BOT : I call it the "Begging for Mercy"! > I could just as easily have done it silently, but someplace > in my travels I had picked up the habit of calling the names of > the bigger moves I used -- probably from the Bogard brothers or > Joe Higashi. ARL: Or the U.S. Street Fighter cartoon. WAND: Actually, calling out the names of moves was an old bushido tradition. > So I shouted, little regarding the neighbors, as I knew they > were too far away to hear clearly and too insular to investigate: > "PSYCHO LIGHTNING!" GAVOK : LIGHT-NING WA SU-GO-I! TIFF: GAVOOOOOOOOOOK... GAVOK (hiding behind his chair): eep. > The bolt of lightning flew free as called from my glowing hands, TBS : If you find a bolt of lightning you love, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours forever. GAVOK: Wow. That's beautiful. > leaving me exhilarated and slightly tired at the same time, MMK: Ben Hutchins *is* Isis. > and I noticed with approval that I didn't wobble on my feet as I > had the first few times I'd expended that much energy at once. MMK: Ben Hutchins is *so* Isis. > Rose, dumbfounded, GAVOK : Well, I'll be damned. Ben Hutchins is Isis. > was caught flat-footed, so to speak, in the middle of her takeoff > run -- blown off her stride, off her feet, and several yards back > by the blast. RW : Suddenly I find myself looking very uncool... > She plowed a small furrow in the yard as she landed, skidding to a > halt. Warily, I advanced, but as I drew nearer it became clear to me > that the fight was over; she was conscious, but coughing, sputtering, > and making no significant effort to get up. GAVOK: Well, he won again. [sighs] ARL: I wonder what his home life's like. > It was over and I had won. But had I accomplished my higher > objective? RW : Only half of it. You've got her on her back... now finish the job! [ALL look at RW.] WAND: Dude, I'm seriously beginning to worry about you. RW: Sorry. It's fics like these... really... they bring out the worst in me. ARL: I'm not sure if it's even that... > Still coughing as I reached and knelt at her side, Rose > hitched herself up on her elbows, glared at me, her eyes > luminous in her blackened face, TBS : ...and beat the shit out of me with a shovel she had landed near. > and growled, "WHERE did you learn THAT?!" Z-BOT : This new book I bought: Street Fighting For Idiots. WAND: Page 37: Why do I hurt inside? TIFF: Page 23: What the hell's with Ryu? GAVOK: Page 106: How much money can we get out of Tom Cruise? > I shrugged. "Figured it out myself," I replied. MMK : ...because *I*'m so *talented* and so *skilled* and so *perfect* and... > She sat up and launched a punch at my head; I singularly > failed to flinch. She stopped the blow, millimeters WAND: He's using the metric system. RW: Traitor. GAVOK: Oh, he'll pay. MMK: I don't see what the big deal is here-- WAND: Silence, Canadian. > before it would have clipped my ear, then smiled and opened > her hand, placing it gently over the back of my head. ARL: It's the quivering palm technique! ALL: Yay! > "I really have been insufferable the past couple of years, > haven't I?" she asked with a grin, then leaned a bit closer WAND : ...and whispered... TIFF : How much am I getting paid for this? ARL : Five large, baby. TIFF : Okay. [louder] Oh, yeah. Insufferable! > and kissed me, as she always had, fondly and a little > wistfully, too. TBS: I'm guessing here that Hutchins has issues with his mother. MMK: Didn't you forget something? TBS: Oh, yeah. [TBS coughs.] TBS : Hutchinz haz issuez wit his mudda. MMK: Better. > I drew her tight to me and hugged her properly for the first > time in three years; WAND: How do you hug someone *im*properly? By breaking their spine? > she was a bit sooty, but I didn't care. > I woke the next morning from a dream of being buried alive > and suffocating to discover that the crushing weight on my > chest was MMK : ...six feet of moist brown dirt. TIFF : ..."properly hug" *me*, will you?! > Fury, who, for some bizarre reason understandable only in > the mind of a dog, had decided that my needs as Boss would > best be served if he were to take up station draped straight > across me. RW : My... ribs... GAVOK : You're my new couch. RW : It... burns... ow... > I tried for a moment to shift him, but gave up > the effort as hopeless within a few seconds, subsiding to > the floor. GAVOK: Hey! He just jobbed to Fury! Z-BOT: So the dog's a World Warrior now? [ALL ponder this for a second.] WAND: *I'd* play as Fury. GAVOK: Me too. > After carefully analyzing the situation for a moment, I came > up with my first great witticism of the day: "Urgh." > "You're going to have a tough time against Zangief," Rose's > voice declared from somewhere above me, "if you can't even > outwrestle a sleeping dog." > "Sue me," I grumbled, opening my eyes to see her looming > over me. I feigned fright at her terrifying colossalness, TBS : Look! It's Rosezilla! > which earned me WAND : ...a pot of fresh coffee poured over my head. > rolled eyes as she walked over to the kitchen. Gritting my > teeth, I gave a concerted heave and relocated the dog, GAVOK : All right, you're no longer Fury the dog. You are Ronald Ardichico. MMK : Ronald Ardichico. GAVOK : That's right. Nice to meet you, Mr. Ardichico. And remember, you're from Boston. MMK : Ronald Ardichico. GAVOK : Nice to meet you, Mr. Ardichico. Where are you from? MMK : Boston. GAVOK : Hey! My mother's from Boston! > who opened one sleepy eye and made a half-hearted attempt at > glaring at me before lapsing back into unconsciousness. RW: You know, I'm beginning to *dig* Fury. He's got that whole Silent Bob thing going. > I got to my feet, stretched out the residual stiffness left by > the evening's exercises, WAND: Careful. We're uninitiated, so this could be disconcerting. > and staggered into the kitchen area, where Rose already sat > at the small table, sipping coffee. TBS : What's the name of that one guy you fought in Paris? TBS , MMK : Jean-Luc! > "Rose," I said, taking a seat at the table myself, "I've > been thinking... there's something I would ask of you." > "Name it," she replied. TIFF : Say it and die. WAND: I fully support her on this. MMK: I think we all do. RW: Nuts. > "I'm not worried for myself, we've covered that, but there > are some pretty dangerous people I'll probably be annoying > along this path I'm on. ARL: Like us. > If they were to find out about my background, my family, > there could be trouble here. TBS : *Nobody* is to know that my real name is not Gryphon. TIFF : Right. (snickers] TBS : Hey! I mean it! > I need someone I can trust to > keep an eye on things and make sure nothing goes wrong." > She smiled, nodding. ARL: Smile and nod. Smile and nod. Smile and nod. > "I think between your grandfather and > myself, we can keep things under control." At my look of > surprise she laughed and continued, "Don't count the old man > out just because WAND : ...he's dead... > he's pushing seventy. He may never have had any formal training, > but in his day he was a champion, and he's lost but little of his > form. He's not that much older than I am." TBS: Sounds like Heihachi. > That checked me for a second. GAVOK: Oh, good! He checked himself before he wr-- WAND: Gavok... > I have a habit of forgetting > just how old Rose must be -- I don't know any exact figures, > but given the fact that her meeting with my grandfather reportedly > coincided with the birth of my father in 1952, she must be considerably > older than she looks, which isn't much older than I. GAVOK: Street Fighter: Warrior's Surgery! > Every time I stop to think about it, it gives me a moment's pause, but I > always pass over it well enough. Of all the things we have done together, > the only thing I regret is Z-BOT : ...that time in Vegas that I got really hammered and woke up with her name tattooed on my ass. > the time we spent divided by anger, pride, and foolishness. > "Ah, for a past as checkered and adventurous as his," I said > with a grin. TIFF : Too bad I'm dull as paint on a wall. > "Although, you know, he's never told me very much about > it. I know he rambled around Southeast Asia for a few years > after the Korean War, after Dad was born, and you met him out there..." WAND : Wake me when I care, Hutchins. TBS: Street Fighter: Grandfather's Legacy! > "So I did, so I did. I was but a child in those days, fresh > from the care of my own Valdritkar, but I remember them well." RW : Real well! Yow! MMK : What? RW : Damn, your grandfather was *fine*! Woof! MMK : EEEWWW! > "It surprises me that Gram didn't raise any objections to > him, running around having such a dangerous life with a wife and > child waiting for him at home." TIFF : Not with the size of his life insurance policy... > "Those were different times," Rose replied. "Women, at least > American women, were not so vocal or open about their > objections as they are now. RW : They learned to live with their hidden shame, and cried only in the dark of night. > Who's to say your grandmother did -not- object? But it > was something your grandfather felt he had to do, just as > fighting in the war was something he felt he had to do, and so > she honored him, held her tongue and waited for him to tire of > the life and settle. > And so he did, eventually, and none the worse for his > adventures. Z-BOT: His adventures in 1950s Southeast *Asia*? Gryph, is your grandfather bulletproof? > Roaming the world as a street fighter was surely no more > dangerous than fighting in the war, that one or the next." ARL: Yeah, aside from the whole "being shot at" part... MMK: ...and the "in hostile territory" part... GAVOK: Don't forget the "high explosives" part. ARL: Yeah! Street fighting is *just as dangerous*! MMK: Only if you're fighting D. Dark. ARL: Oh. Yeah. Him. GAVOK: And Rolento, come to think of it. ARL: Shut up. MMK: Heh. > "Gramp didn't go to Vietnam," I reminded her. "He left the > Army because of his objections to that war." Z-BOT: I hope he was court-martialed and jailed like everyone else who did that, Hutchins... > "Mm," said Rose, nodding. "So the story goes today, anyway. > The real truth is far more complicated and sinister, and > it's a tale best left untold for now. WAND: Don't ask, don't tell. TIFF: I really wish that applied to this story... > Will you trust my judgment that these are details best left > to another time and place, that you are, clicheed as the > saying is, not yet ready to know them?" ARL : I mean, hell, do you know what the statute of limitations on high treason is? I shouldn't even be in this country. > My interest was piqued, but I nodded nonetheless. > "Valdritkar Rose," I replied formally, "I have only > questioned your judgment three times in this life, and twice > I was wrong to do so. When the time comes, you or he will > tell me; until then, I can wait." I chuckled, shaking my > head with the irony, GAVOK: He must've borrowed the Sledgehammer of Irony -- MMK: -- TM -- GAVOK: -- from the Murgo Queen. > and observed, "My poor mother... did she -know- she was > marrying into such a strange clan?" ARL: Did she know what rough beast she carried in her womb? WAND: Hutchins did not slouch towards Bethelem to be born, Arly. > Probably not, given subsequent events." > "You must visit her before you leave town," Rose told me, > gazing at me intently. TIFF : She's fixin' to throw out your comic book collection. > "She would never forgive you if you did not." > "There are many things she may never forgive me for," I > replied, Z-BOT : Like that time I killed Aunt Sue. > "but you're right. I'll stop by on my way out of town." > Rose stood, and taking her lead I stood with her; she came > around the table and embraced me, kissed me, and then, her > forehead to mine, said softly, "Thank you, Valdritkar > Gryphon, for teaching me what an ass I've been these past > two years." ALL: Say WHAT?? TBS : Did I say "been?" I meant "had." > Startled, I took a half-step back and looked at her. > "-Val-dritkar? Since when have -I- achieved mastery?" ALL: Say what *again*?? ARL: You haven't. Keep going. > "You defeated me last night, did you not? The title is yours > by right, and well-earned, too." TIFF: "Well-earned"? Didn't you go on at tiresome length about how Rose was horribly out of practice and easily beaten? WAND: I'm gonna go find me a near-dead kung fu teacher and kick his ass so I can get my black belt. > She gave me a last kiss and said with a grin, "Now go on, > you've got too much to do to be hanging around here shooting > the bull with your broken-down old teacher. Z-BOT : Besides, it's stopped twitching. It's not fun anymore. > Go see your father, go see your mother, and get back to Worcester. > If you're going to Siberia, Zoner's going to need your help > putting the skis on the plane." TIFF : After all, he's usually too baked to stand. > I groaned. "Don't remind me." My visit with my father was > cordial, if brief. He was never bitten by the bug that visited > his own father and son, GAVOK: Malaria? > what old-time monks might have called the vagus, that need > to wander and explore and see the world. RW: Yeah, birth defects usually skip generations. TBS: Hey, are they kender? WAND: That'd be *cool*. GAVOK: Street Fighter: Kender's Legacy! > He had settled comfortably in Millinocket out of college, and neither > divorce nor remarriage -- check that, I reminded myself, they're not > married, not yet at least -- had served to shift him yet. As such, he > didn't really quite understand what I did, but he was happy enough that > I was enjoying doing it, and not starving in the process. If he worried > about the fact that I might be injured or killed MMK : ...I didn't know, because of the restraining order. > while about it, TBS : He's 'bout it 'bout it, mah homeys! > he kept it under his hat, probably wisely sensing that he wouldn't be able > to change my mind. > That errand done, I next walked up the steps to my mom's house, which > was closer to the middle of town, across the street from the great brick > bulk of the old George W. Stearns High School building, which had been > the Middle School since the new high school went up in the late sixties. ARL: I know more about his hometown than I do about the plot. This worries me. MMK: Street Fighter: Millinocket's History! > If luck was with me, she wouldn't have the initiative to try and talk me > out of it -again-, and would instead be in her slightly sullen 'grudging > acceptance' mood. GAVOK: She was in neither! She was in V-ism! Get ready, fighters! TIFF: He said "mood", Gavok. GAVOK: I like mine better. TIFF: Who wouldn't? > Anticlimactically, she wasn't home. I left her a note, went > back to the car, and drove south, and felt vaguely > disoriented for the rest of the day. WAND : This isn't a fanfic. It's a webjournal with fight scenes. > Sunday, July 12. MMK: A date that shall live in infamy! > You won't find Dnepropovinsk on any map I know of. Other > than the steel mill, there's nothing there of note; just the > permafrost and a Trans-Siberian Railway station. There was > no airport, but a big flat place just outside of the little > town which had grown up around the steel mill sufficed with > the snow cover and the skis fitted to our Hercules. As soon > as we were down, a small group of people came out of the > mill and started toward us -- we were expected. > "Try not to flash that thing around," I said to Zoner as he > checked the magazine on his Glock .45 and tucked it away > somewhere inhis parka. GAVOK: He was then hit by a chair as a man in a skeleton outfit danced around. > "Yeah, yeah," he replied. "C'mon, let's go meet the > natives." WAND: If they meet the Zappa Yow Yow Boyz, this could get interesting. MMK, GAVOK, TBS : GET OFF OUR ISLAND!! > We stepped down from the main hatch; as Zoner locked it up, > I took in the sight of the group crunching toward us through > the blowing snow. I couldn't tell very much about them, really, > other than the fact that there were four of them; they were all > bundled up in heavy winter gear, just as we were, against the bitter > cold which prevailed here even in June. TIFF: But it's July. Does Zoner keep track of the date for you? Z-BOT : No! I do! I am the MASTER OF TIME!! > None of them was over six feet tall, so apparently the local > champ hadn't come out to greet his challenger personally. > That was OK; not many did, any more. Maybe he was busy > beating up a bear for practice. Fury snuffled at the snow a > bit, found nothing of interest, and regarded our welcoming > committee impassively, indifferent to the cold. ARL : Then I realized he'd just frozen solid. > As they drew nearer, the biggest one, at the front of the > group, pushed back the hood of his parka. He was a big, > fleshy fellow, pushing the wrong side of middle age, with > thinning silver hair, bad teeth but a cheery smile, GAVOK: Huh. He's the Russian equivalent to that "publican". RW: Ben clearly subscribes to the "stock footage" school of minor characters. > and the kind of ruddiness that comes from taking in about > half your daily caloric intake in liquid form. TBS: Or, in layman's terms, "from drinking a lot". MMK: You clever *bastard*, Hutchins! > He greeted me volubly in Russian, speaking fast enough that > I only caught about every fourth word. It seemed to be a > welcome. WAND, RW : Ba na gra na weep nini bong! Ba na gra na weep nini bong! > The smaller figure to his left stepped forward and pushed > back his hood as well, just about startling me out of my > boots, since he was a she, and not only that, but a she that > I knew. RW : Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is Finkle! [mock pukes] > "He says he's Arkady Vonotov, the factory manager, and he > welcomes you on behalf of all his workers, including Zangief. TIFF : He says you're a capitalist pig belonging to the American running dogs and invites you to lick his... ew! > Furthermore, he apologizes that Zangief is not here to greet > you personally, but he is supervising a particularly tricky > process on the floor and cannot get away until it's done," said > Cammy cheerfully. "Hi! Surprised?" I'd've told her I was, but she > had already hopped into my arms and kissed me into submission (which, > admittedly, didn't take much). ARL: Oh, come on! They're in Siberia! If they do that outside, they'll freeze to each other! > "What are you doing here?" WAND : Anything with a penis and a heartbeat! > "Told you I'd come and see your next fight if I could getaway, > didn't I?" > "Yeah, but I figured you'd be busy. Do they know you're here?" > She shrugged. "Probably not. Z-BOT : Sure, it'll cause an international incident... but what the hell! > They can survive without me for a few days, though; they're > big boys." TIFF : I put some water in their dish. > She noted the presence of Fury next to me. "Speaking of big boys. RW : Hello, Fury. Remember what we did in Mexico City? WAND : I'm gonna feed you to Jumpy, man. > I think that's the biggest bloodhound I've ever seen." MMK : It's Frank's 2000 inch TV! > "It's mostly bone, too," I said, scruffling the top of his > head. "Can't be muscle, he's laziness incarnate." TBS: Sounds like he's describing Pidge. [Chainsaw-themed violence ensues.] WAND: Jesus, Tiff, warn us next time, willya? TIFF <^_^ing>: Sorry! [starts handing out towels] > She crouched before him, holding her hands open and inviting him > to check them out, which he did, cursorily, before wading forward > through the snow and landing a couple of licks on her face, which > set her to ARL : ...*screaming*, because they're *still outside*, in *Siberia*... > backpedaling, trying to fend him off, scratching behind his > ears and laughing all at once. Nothing like a dog to bring > out a person's inner dignity. The Russian delegation began > chattering amusedly among themselves, apparently tickled by > my incredulous reaction, even if they didn't understand what it > was about. Z-BOT: They're Russians, not aliens, dude. > Cammy got up, turned to them and rattled off something > in their language, and I cursed inwardly -- I had no idea I was > this rusty. > I got the general gist of it, though; she was explaining to > them that WAND : ...I was a known terrorist, and had to be shot immediately! ...wait a second... > I hadn't been expecting her, and she hadn't met the dog before. > And off we trudged to the factory, me with Cammy on my arm > and a goofy grin on my face. This was turning out to be a better > day than I had expected. TBS : The world around me was bending to my merest whim! > The factory was about like I expected it to be, hot and > dirty and dark, with the odd river of orange-hot molten metal > running through channels and pouring into the massive crucibles. In > the middle of the process floor, pointing at some equipment and > talking to a couple of guys in dirty work clothes, was a man who > simply -had- to be, Sergei Zangief. GAVOK : Because this guy was 4'10" and 98 pounds. If he wasn't Zangief, I would be screwed. > Vonotov went over to him and had an exchange with him, TBS : BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! ARL : RATATATATATATAT! > and then he turned and lumbered over to us, standing > just a little too close so that I'd have to look up at him. He was > huge, easily the biggest man I'd ever seen, and his shoulders were > nearly as wide as I am tall. Huge muscles bulged under threadbare work > clothes which seemed almost to be begging for mercy. His bushy brows > drew together as he scowled at me momentarily, as if put off by > something inconvenient in the timing of my arrival. > "So," he finally rumbled. "You are Gryphon, little man?" MMK : ...no, actually. He is! [points at GAVOK] GAVOK : Huh? MMK : And he was sayin' bad stuff about your mom! GAVOK : Dude, what? TBS : You say what about Zangief's mother? MMK : He said she was fat! And that she was a slut! GAVOK : Dude, I didn't... TBS : ROOARRR!!! [TBS chases GAVOK around the theater a couple of times.] > "That's me," I replied. > "Well, now you have seen me," said Zangief, spreading his > massive hands and grinning wolfishly. "Want to go home now?" > "Not yet," I replied, grinning back. "You're still standing." WAND: Toss him in the molten steel, Zangief! > He glared down at me for a moment, and I wondered if I might > have precipitated the bout a day early. Then he grinned and > clouted me on the shoulder, rocking me sideways a little bit, TBS: ...dislocating my shoulder... > and laughed a big, expansive, resounding laugh. > "You have big balls, little man!" he declared. GAVOK : I think I'd like to eat them. MMK: Gryphon soon became the webmaster over at Zangief Ate My Balls! RW: I hear you know what that's like, Wandy. WAND: I can kill you five different ways from here, Racewing. RW: Um... > "I like you. TBS: I did not know Zangief swung that way. > We have some fun tomorrow. Excuse right now, I must be back > to supervising. We talk more at dinner!" > As he headed back to the two workers, I turned to Zoner, who > shrugged. Z-BOT : Hey, man, he wants *your* balls. *You* stop him. > "Great," I muttered. "He speaks English, but he talks like > Boris Badenov. ARL : And I talk exactly like Bullwinkle and Zoner talks like Rocky the Squirrel. Isn't that funny? MMK: Whoo! Yet another lame pop-culture reference! RW: I swear, this fic is a compression algorithm in itself for these things. > Not that my Russian would sound any less lame to him." > Zoner was busy snickering into one of his mittens. TIFF: I'll bet he's got that string through the sleeves of his jacket so he doesn't lose 'em. > It was absurdly hot and humid in the factory, so we soon > divested ourselves of our cold-weather gear, hanging it up in > the cloakroom on the other side of the little cafeteria. This was > a smallish factory, employing only a hundred or so men, and its modest > production of steel was placed on rail cars right outside, where the > Trans-Siberian line curled into town from the nearby hills and back out > again toward Moscow to the west. Vonotov basically gave us the run of the > place, with the rather obvious injunction to stay out of the way of the crew > and not get into anything dangerous, although I noticed the plant > manager left it to our discretion what was and wasn't dangerous (I'm > guessing "cafeteria not very, red-hot crucibles extremely"). ARL : I have a gift for the obvious! TBS: Sometimes, guys, not even sarcasm helps. MMK: I know, Snot. I know. > Zoner almost immediately disappeared, which was kind of odd, > but I didn't think much of it at the time. Maybe he went to > find the john. WAND : Suddenly, I realized that Cammy had disappeared too. And that's when it hit me. > I spent the rest of the day catching up with Cammy and > trying to pick up what I could of the way the steel mill > worked. TIFF : You see, they toss political prisoners into the -- oops. > During the lunch hour there was a lull in the action, GAVOK: That "lull" has lasted for all of Chapters One and Two so far... > so I explored the mill a little, trying to get the lay of > the land, and before long I had a looming shadow. "Is not > pretty and shiny like American steel mill," said Zangief, > "but it gets job done." > "Don't kid yourself," I said, "American mills don't look > much different." The main process floor had several small > exits along the sides and in back, but the largest exit was > a pair of big side-hinged doors which opened into a loading > dock where the Trans-Siberian spur cut close to the plant. > The dock itself was closed off from the outside world with a > huge rolling steel door. I opened the small man-door to the > side of it and looked out at the gleaming rail tracks; > Zangief crowded onto the step with me and pointed off into > the distance with one enormous finger. MMK : Run that way while you still can, little boy. > "Rail line comes in from Gorovsibirsk, turns right, and > passes through town." I could see the dark line in the white snow, > curling in from the east to duck through the cluster of low, square > buildings, overhung with a pall of chimney smoke where the afternoon > thermal layer was keeping it from rising. The spur snipped neatly > off at the station, came out to the plant, passed by the loading dock > and rejoined the main track just clear of the tiny town, so > small we could see the whole thing from the dock steps. > "Boy, if that train jumps the tracks on that main turn into > town... " I murmured. Z-BOT: *WHOOP!* *WHOOP!* TBS: Foreshadowing! Foreshadowing! > "Happened once, a couple of years back," Zangief said, > nodding. "Was slowing down for town, but not fast enough. > Didn't quite make it to factory, but was close. At full speed, > freight trains on this part of Trans-Siberian go 135, 140 > kilometers an hour." > I nodded. "Not pretty." RW : Well, sometimes, when mood be right and Zangief be lonely... > Zangief shrugged. "Nobody killed, was freight train, > engineer jumped when he knew train was lost. We put it back on > tracks, no problem." WAND: Okay, he gets bonus points for his Zangief. This is a pretty good one. > He turned and went back into the factory. Intrigued, I > followed, and watched the action back on the process floor, > the huge crucibles coming out of the blast-furnace area, > proceeding in a stately way down the long track, and tipping > at the end to pour out their red-hot molten cargo into the rollers, GAVOK: Then the Coyotes came along and destroyed it all! > which spat it out into the coolers in great flat sheets. I asked > what most of their output was used for. "Tanks," said Zangief. MMK: You're welcome. [ALL groan and hit MMK on the head.] > "For water, gasoline, whatever. Tank trucks, rail cars, > fixed storage." Z-BOT : ...also barrels. To bury bodies in. How tall are you, little man? > He smiled. "You have lot of questions for such a little > man." > "Oh, well, we Americans are insatiably curious," I replied > with a grin, ARL : Please! Let me help you subscribe to stereotypes! > and Zangief laughed, a big, expansive, entirely Russian > laugh, MMK: ...with just a pinch of Polish! For spice. > clapping me on the shoulder with a hand the size of a > serving platter. It didn't, as stereotype would demand it must, GAVOK : You fool! Ignore my demands, and the hostages die! > make me wince or stumble, or knock me over; RW : ...it crushed my skull like an egg. > it was a considerately delivered, friendly clout, by a man who > is fully aware of his own strength. > "You are funny little man," he declared. "I look forward to > fighting you." MMK : Perhaps that will shut you up. > And with that, he ambled off to admonish the men in > blue shirts, who were returning to work the crucibles. > Suppertime came, the night lingered in fully falling -- this > far north, at this time of year, it came only reluctantly, > and dragged its heels about it -- TBS: I don't pretend to be an expert, but doesn't night last like sixteen hours in Siberia in July? > and as we all repaired to the mill cafeteria, I > realized that I hadn't seen Zoner since just after we > arrived. I checked the cloakroom; his coat and boots were gone. > I wondered where the hell he could have decided to go in this > wasteland. Into town, maybe? But what would he want there? ARL: Well, you know. Food? A drink? Maybe a bed? > "Something wrong?" came Cammy's voice from the door to the room. > "Zoner seems to have gone for a walk," I replied thoughtfully. > "Around here?" said Cammy. "Odd, what could there be around > here that would interest him?" WAND : I mean, after what just happened in the coat room... TBS : Huh? WAND : Nothing! TIFF : Did you hear I just got a job at the Department of Redundancy, which gave me a job? > "Beats me," I replied. "Still... " I shrugged. "Maybe he > got bored with the movie scene and went back to the plane." GAVOK: What movie scene? MMK: Don't ask *me*, dude. > I went back to the cafeteria and bummed the use of the plant > phone from Vonotov, and, in his office, I called the mobile number > of the Hercules. > When the answer came, it was Zoner's voice, but not live; > he'd set a new message on the recording machine. > "Thanks for calling Trailing Edge Air Lines. There's nobody > aboard to take your call right now, so leave a message at > the beep. Gryph, if that's you, I've gone camping. I'll be back > tomorrow, and don't worry, I'll -keep warm-." WAND : I worked up a good sweat with your girlfriend just now! ALL: WINK! NUDGE! SUBTLE HINT! > I hung up, not seeing any particular need to leave myself a > message. Camping, eh? He'll keep warm, with that curious > emphasis I hadn't missed. ARL : ...because I'm not deaf as a post. > Well, well... seems this was a working vacation forZoner. RW: Wow. This Zoner guy sure gets around... MMK: Yeah. I think *I'm* Mad At Zoner(tm) now. (grins] > "Well," I said to Cammy after I told her of his message, > "he's a big boy. As long as he shows up to fly me out of here when > I'm done, he can have his camping trip." Z-BOT : After all, I'm the only one that matters! > There was no hotel in Dnepropovinsk; no one ever visited > except the families of the workers, who stayed with them. > Zangief opened his doors to me, and Cammy as well, and expressed his > own concerns that Zoner had apparently decided to go walkabout. > "Gets cold at night," he pointed out unnecessarily. "Maybe > we should look for him?" WAND : Now he make good statue. Put by door. Call him "lawn gnome". > "Nah, he'll be fine," I replied. "Thanks for the offer, but > I'm sure he knows what he's doing." I've -never- been > entirely sure he knows what he's doing, but I wasn't about to > share that with a man I'd known all of twelve hours, and who was > self-admittedly looking forward to taking his best shot at beating > my head in the following day. "We'll see him tomorrow afternoon." > Zangief nodded, apparently satisfied by my confidence. "OK! > Tonight we rest. -Tomorrow- night, no matter -who- win, we > -party-!" > "Absolutely!" I agreed, and I meant it. GAVOK : So, tomorrow night, do you want to be drinking victory toast through straw or IV? MMK : Well, I'd... HEY! TIFF : He'll want the straw so he can take those painkillers after the-- MMK : HEY! Knock it off! ARL : Hey, Zangief, this where tomorrow's "I Just Beat American Fighter Into Hamburger" party going to be? MMK : EXCUSE ME?!? > MZ GAVOK: Pimpin' ain't MZ! > Fuck, it was cold out. > I know what you're thinking. WAND : Urge... to drink... rising... ARL : All... out of... Pocky... TBS : If I was king, dilly dilly, you'd be my queen... GAVOK, MMK : 69, dudes! > "Well, duh, asshole -- you're in Siberia." TBS: Didn't that game kinda suck? WAND: No... that was Cyberia. TBS: Yeah. That's the one. WAND: Nonononono. CYberia. TBS: Yeah. Like I said. Siberia. [WAND picks TBS up and throttles him.] > But still... it was July, I was expecting it to be just a > little warmer. RW : Hot town, summer in the city, back of my neck gettin' dirty an' gritty... > I mean, we weren't -that- far north of the Arctic Circle. TIFF: Which is about equal to hearing "We weren't *that* close to the bottom of the ocean". > But no, it was completely freezing cold, and I was starting > to wonder if coming out here for an evening's scouting was > really worth the intel TBS : BING! Buh-bing-buh-BING! > it might bring in. ARL : I mean, I could always earn my hydroponics merit badge in... other ways... > The line was fairly straight out across the tundra. No > overpasses to drop from, no hard curves to slow the train. RW : Dammit, I was gonna have to earn my ticket to Episode 1 the hard way... > This just wasn't a good place to board. MMK: Oh, I remember the board! [ALL just STARE at MMK.] MMK: You know... the board that Gryphon was beating up on? GAVOK: Oh, yeah! ARL: My favorite character so far. > They'd have to slow down on the way through town... the line > curved out past the mill. And there I had my plan. GAVOK : I'll climb aboard and hypnotize the conductor with a shiny object, then steer it off the cliff and get out before they notice me! And if they catch me, I'll show them my Mentos! Yeah! Perfect! > The train would be by around noon; now it was time ARL : What better time than now? > to go back and get my kit ready. TBS : Pack up all my troubles in an old kit bag... > And get my ass out of the great, barren, frozen, rather dull > outdoors. Along the way I laid a few railway torpedoes in > preparation. [GAVOK covers TBS's eyes. TIFF revs up her chainsaw and glares at the others, silently daring them to even THINK about making a crack about this. No one takes her up on it.] WAND: You're too hostile. You should meditate more. TIFF: I had to give it up. I heard it makes you go blind. > It took a good half an hour to GAVOK : ...catch Carmen Sandiego. But I did it! > trudge back to the Herc. Seeing her was like finding an > oasis in the desert, MMK : We're bigger than the Beatles! GAVOK : Well, we're bigger than Jesus! TBS : Well... um... I'm bigger than Moses! RW : Shut up! > and my fingers were cold enough that I had trouble punching > the release code into the cabin lock. TIFF: The lock went on to get his ass sent to jail for domestic violence. > Ben wasn't aboard, so I figured he'd shacked up with Cammy [ALL snicker.] > - this second World Warrior fight was important to him, and > I didn't want to screw it up by involving him in the mission > if I could help it. ARL : In other words, no way I'm letting that idiot come on another mission with me. > I fired up the APU and cranked up the heat in the living > quarters. Living quarters? GAVOK : Hey, quarters don't live. QUARTERS DON'T LIVE! > Well, yeah, this wasn't your everyday milspec Hercules; WAND: Oh, no. Nothing normal for these guys... MMK: Hey! He cheated! He didn't say "OK, story time"! ARL: ARRRGH! Don't say that! MMK: What, "OK, story time"? ARL: ARRRGH! MMK: Neat. [He ^_^s.] > this was a custom ship I'd received by way of an old job. > Can't say much more than that, sorry. ALL: We should be so lucky... [sigh] > Anyway, at heart it was an L-100-30; TBS: But it always wanted to be a lumberjack! RW: It was a level 100 lumberjack with 30 experience points? WAND: No. It's like "BINGO," but the name was changed to reflect the style of the story. RW: You mean... WAND: Yup. "SWILL." RW: Ah. Gotcha. > a stretched model, designed originally for civilian cargo > use. Military cargo tends to be alot denser than civvie > loads - plate steel, MREs, etc - so space isn't an issue MMK: Yeah? Tell that to Shiro Lhedat. [ALL stare blankly at MMK.] MMK <^_^ing>: What? > so much as weight. But with civvie loads you tended to run > out of room long before the plane was maxed out weight-wise. > Solution: stretch the fuselage. GAVOK: [blinks] That's not what I got. I got "42." MMK: I got "The Magna Carta." TIFF: "Medulla Oblongata" here. TBS: Does this mean we have to read the fic all over again? [Pained screams echo throughout the theater.] > I used the extra room for an integral bunkroom along the > forward bulkhead, just aft of the cockpit. GAVOK : And then we reach the "Flight Deck". Which is the latest word for... COCKPIT! Can't imagine why they wouldn't want to use a lovely word like *COCKPIT*, can you? Especially with all those stewardesses going in and out of it all the time! > Couple of bunks, a small lounge area, head with a shower MMK: I'm not sure *what* I'm imagining, but it involves Al Snow and water pipes. TBS: Urk. > (what a luxury, but so nice), and a planning room. And, of course, WAND: ...the breakfast nook! ARL: ...a safe to lock your stash in! > the weapons locker. TIFF: Are you guys taking notes? GAVOK [clicking off his dictaphone]: Huh? Whazzat? > It wasn't much, but it was enough for a couple of guys on a > short trip. RW: A short EGO trip, that is... > If we ever needed an extended base of operations we could > always load the MMB (Mobile Modular Base) in the back. GAVOK : Please! Allow me to tell you EVERYTHING ABOUT IT THAT I CAN! > The MMB was basically a custom built RV that fit snugly in > the remaining cargo area. You could reconfigure it so that > it made a dandy base for a long range recon patrol, or a > slick pad for a spring break in Daytona Beach. MMK: *Now* how much would you pay? > I was playing with the idea of building another MMB which > had base facilities for an AWACS-type operation; [TBS disappears under his seat.] ARL: What're you doing? TBS: An AWACS-type operation. ARL : You... had to say that, didn't you? > the big stumbling block was that I hadn't quite figured out > what to do about the radome. GAVOK: But I thought Everyone Loves Radome. > Maybe a contoured phased array system... WAND: Isn't that that thing on the Enterprise that they always have to realign or reconfigure or somethin'? > Sorry... I love my plane, so I tend to wax ecstatic about it. MMK : Here's something that is au-to-ma-tic... it's Wax Ecstatic! When life is nothing less than tra-gic... it's Wax Ecstatic! When life has lost... all its ma-gic... it's Wax Ecstatic! GAVOK: Street Fighter: Warrior's Airplane! > The airframe itself is mostly on par with the Hotel model > used by the US Air Force, with a few WAND : ...bogeys on those crucial middle holes keeping him from breaking out ahead of the rest of the field. Let's go to John now for commentary. John? TIFF : Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz... > of the special-operations mods; there are the flare launchers [TBS leaps up and struggles to reach a sequined robe held out of reach by GAVOK.] > and the mounts for IR surpressing exhaust diffusers for the > engines. I had the JATO bottles fitted, just in case we TIFF : ...ran out of the special cookies. GAVOK : JATO! MMK: Jato! The Ninja in a Bottle! > had to make a rapid exit. A normal Herc needs a flight crew > of three, but this lovely is fitted out with an early > digital data bus system. TBS : Fit...ted... out... with a dig-i-tal data bus, yeah! > Not quite as hot as the layout they worked up for the Juliet, WAND : Juliet! When we made love, you used to cry... said "I'll love you like, the stars above, I'll love you 'til I die"... and there's a place, foh-or us... you know the movie song... when you gonna realize, it was simply that the time was wrong! Ju-li-ehh-et! [ALL stand and applaud.] WAND : Thank you. Thank you. > but it means we don't need a flight engineer. In a pinch I > can handle it all myself, [GAVOK and MMK start snickering.] TIFF : You guys... > but it is nice to have another set of eyes and hands to > share the load. [GAVOK and MMK burst out laughing.] TIFF: That's IT! [TIFF starts up her chainsaw and chases GAVOK and MMK around the theater.] WAND: I dunno. I thought it was funny. > And, of course, it has the ski mounts for arctic and > antarctic missions. Last year I added an RAF-style refueling > probe for a mission I did with MI-6. As far > as I know, that's a unique combination of options. ARL : But then again, as far as I know, for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows. Go figure. > All I need now are some hose and drogue pods for refueling > and skyhook gear and it would really be a do-it-all ship. MMK : It could even make julienne fries! > I'll get to it - someday. Anyway, where was I? > Oh yeah. TBS : Siberia. [smacks his forehead] > After I thawed out, I prepared my kit. I was taking my Glock > M21 (of course), ARL: I mean, naturally. MMK: It's obvious. GAVOK: I'd never be without it. RW: For sure. It's like my second head. > with a few extra mags. But I needed something more, > something with a bit more power and accuracy, and a larger > payload. TBS: INSTANT KIWI! [ALL look at him strangely.] TBS: Oh. Right. Okay. I'm... sitting down... now... > The M16A2 was out; GAVOK : It left in the middle of the night with a revolver. MMK: They must be sneaking off for a shotgun wedding. [WAND and TIFF tackle MMK and beat him senseless. It takes two seconds.] > too unwieldy in close confines. > The Uzi and MAC-10 were too wild and emptied out way too > fast. I certainly didn't need another pistol. WAND: Do you dare question the sacred Yun-Fat style? > The BAR was right out. GAVOK : It wasn't open until 10:00. ARL : And I didn't even give the DENNYS a second thought. > Gryph might get miffed if I swiped his Grease Gun, MMK: Hey, Gavok, what do you think comes out of a Grease Gun? GAVOK: I don't know, Puppet Pal MMK. What comes out of a Grease Gun? MMK : GREASE LIGHTNING!! > although I kind of doubted he would need it anytime soon. He > rarely carried, and never on a street-fighting expedition, > but he liked guns and had a fairly large collection, the > most utilitarian members of which he kept aboard in case he > needed them during a trip. RW: Silly Gryphon. Drugs and firearms are a bad mix. > He's the kind of guy who doesn't shoot unless he absolutely > has to, then makes it count. TBS : It's comin' right for us! > I settled on the Calico-9 for a medium arm; it has a high > "zap gun" factor with that helical magazine, but it's a > reliable weapon and I wouldn't have to reload it. MMK : Which is good, since I can't even set the clock on my VCR. WAND: Ha! I hear that, buddy! > If I did, it meant I was in a -bad- situation. But I needed > something else. There was a certain je ne sais quoi missing. TBS: What the hell does that mean? TIFF: "I don't know what". TBS: Oh. Any of the rest of you know -- TIFF: No. Really. "I don't know what". TBS: I got it the first time, Tiff. Wandy, do you -- [TIFF's mallet comes down on TBS' skull.] > Then my eyes fell upon it: the Pancor Jackhammer [WAND snaps his fingers. TBS, GAVOK, MMK don't move.] WAND: What? You're gonna let that slide? [A pause.] WAND: I mean, really? [Silence.] WAND: Not even one Goldberg riff? [Silence.] WAND: Um... okay. Actually, that's kind of a reli-- MMK : I wanna BE! YOUR JACK-HAM-MER! Why don't you CALL-ALL-ALL MY-Y NA-ME! WAND : Oh. > Gryph got me for Christmas last year at the International Assault > Arms Show in Monaco. Oh yes, that was it. GAVOK : Yeah, that's right. We were actually the heads of the show! In fact they wanted to name the show after us! That's right! But they didn't... because... we already have our own international show! And it's got acrobats, and jugglers, and fire eaters! Yeah, that's the ticket. > Nothing like a high capacity combat shotgun to liven things > up, especially in the close quarters a train job was liable > to entail. WAND : When you absolutely, positively have to kill every motherfucker in the *room*... accept no substitutes. > I stuffed a few random supplies into my field pack: TIFF : ...my toothbrush, my nightgown, some brownie mix, a couple of candles, a bowl... > flash-bangs, a few frags, MREs - the usual lethal stuff. MMK : Then you go to version 6 of your stuff! You got flash-bangs, a few frags, porn magazines, leather whips, you know, your stuff! ARL: I got it. The boy plays Rainbow Six. That's the only way I can think of that he got so anally retentive on detail. > That about wrapped it up. I stripped down and climbed into > my bunk for a night's rest. I listened to the howling winds > as I drifted into sleep. > > G TBS : Yeah, G! You down wit' my mad phat-ass skeelz? I gon' pop a cap in yo' ass, bitch! Word to your mother! > I was starting to wonder if Zoner's camping trip had gone as > well as it might; it was time for the fight and he still > hadn't appeared. I didn't really have time to worry about > it, though. > Things to do. RW : You know. The cat, the alarm clock, the dishwasher, the slit in the side of the mattress... [RW barely escapes evisceration.] TIFF: Grrr... > I'd left Fury at Zangief's house; WAND : There will be quite the surprise for our Russian friend when he gets home. Oh yes, there will. Nyar har har. GAVOK: Listen, Gryphon, if Zangief tells you he'll reveal where Fury is after you eat the meal he's prepared for you, DON'T EAT IT! Wrestlers and dogs just don't mix. [The "More You Know" logo appears.] WAND: How do you *do* that? GAVOK: Do what? [WAND sighs.] > he was sleeping in and anyway, he doesn't like to watch me fight. ALL: We can relate. > The loading dock of the factory, [MMK hums the Weapons Factory Theme from Super Mario RPG to himself.] > as I may have mentioned, was separated from the rest of the > factory by a large set of double doors. Today, those doors > were bolted open, and the outer door was closed. The > brightest lights in the factory were out here, big white > spots installed specifically to light up Zangief's fights; ARL: And, as we all know, the dim bulb is doing the narration. > it wasn't the fanciest arena I've been in, but it was big > enough and open enough to do the job, and when you get down > to it, that's all that really matters. GAVOK : Him doing the job. Yes indeed. > The steelworkers had knocked off for an hour and everyone > was crowded around the big double-door opening, staying > behind the white line painted on the floor across the > doorway. TIFF : Because the white zone was for loading and unloading of burly Russian wrestlers only. > Zangief had not yet appeared, but they were already chanting > his name. MMK: Ten to one it's piped. TBS: I'm not touching that. GAVOK: Nosir. MMK: Damn. > Tough hometown crowd. ARL : And the crowd goes wild! ALL <1/4-heartedly>: Yay. > It was cold outside, but it was hot in the factory, so I had > dispensed with an outer shirt. Today I was sporting black > BDU pants made out of that clever ripstop fabric with the > grid pattern in it, my new red All-Stars, a black T-shirt > with the logo of an obscure Worcester band, ARL: Scrotum Pole! RW: Dingoes Ate My Baby! Z-BOT: The Electric Blueberries! GAVOK: The Sexy Kung-Fu Lasers! TBS: Busta Hymen and his Swingin' Organ! > and a bright blue Spectrum cap given to me by a friend of > mine who works for that august organization. WAND: Yeah, thanks, we really wanted to hear every single detail of your clothes. Ugh. TBS: Street Fighter: Warrior's Wardrobe! > It might have made me look a little meaner than I intended, > dressing all in black, TIFF: Ignoring the fact that the goon just wrote he was wearing red shoes and a blue hat up there... WAND: ...and how five-eight, three-hundred-pound guys usually *can't* look threatening... GAVOK : Red shoes! Blue hat! I don't worry 'cause my head is flat! > but that's life. In here, a white T-shirt would just get > filthy. The floor looked like it hadn't been mopped since > the czars. MMK : Shouldn't I have people who do this *for* me? TIFF : Keep mopping! > The steelworkers' chant disintegrated into a wild cheer, and > they parted to permit their champion to pass. MMK: Due to a last-minute substitution, he's facing off against Moses! GAVOK : I'm going to take these ten commandments... and I'm going to lube those sons of bitches up nice and shiny... then I'll stick them... [TIFF glares and revs her chainsaw. MMK and GAVOK fall silent.] > He stalked through the ranks, which closed again behind him, > into the makeshift arena, swathed in a long, red, > high-collared cloak. The evening before, we had spent a good > amount of time laughing and joking; now there was no mirth > in his face. TBS Who would have known he would have been so upset about me sleeping with his wife? > It was set in such hard angles and lines that it might well > have been cast from the steel they made in that factory. > He reached up with one massive hand, undid the clasp that > held the cloak together at his throat, and threw the cloak > away. ARL : I gasped in horror. Didn't he know that the Salvation Army could really use that cloak? > Wow. He looked even bigger out of his work clothes. WAND: Race? Can you think of any new dick jokes? RW: Hmmm... nope. WAND: Damn. > He had on a pair of wrestling trunks and soft boots, and > aside from the pattern of scars left on his body by the > claws and teeth of his most common sparring partners and a > mat of chest hair that can only be described as impressive, > that was it. ARL: Zangief IS a BeeGee. > My Russian was smoothing out again with the use it had been > getting over the past twenty-four hours, so I didn't need > Cammy to translate what he said for me. MMK : [Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?] GAVOK : You want to MATE WITH ME? YUCK! MMK : ...what? > >Are you ready to lose, little man?< > "Nyet," I replied. TBS : I not beink investink in 'detachable penis.' > He smiled for the only time in our fight, WAND: But the fight hasn't even started yet! How can that be the only time he smiled in the fight if... I don't know. Someone else figure it out. > nodded, and settled into a half-crouch, his huge hands > spread out before him. > This would be a unique experience for me. TIFF : I'd never had my skull crushed before... > It wasn't very often at all that I was the smaller, nimbler > opponent in a match, TBS: Well, no SHIT! You're almost as short as I am, and you're THREE HUNDRED FREAKING POUNDS! WAND: Are you *sure* you're not a sumo wrestler, Gryph? > wasn't very often that my opponent was stronger and probably > tougher than I was on an absolute scale. RW : It was times like this that I really missed picking fights with grade-schoolers. > But then, that's why Ler Drit has multiple forms. GAVOK, MMK: Wondertwin Powers, Activate! GAVOK: Form of... Water Puddle! MMK: Form of... Ler Drit! > If I couldn't match Zangief blow for blow [ALL but TIFF snicker. TIFF revs her chainsaw and the snickering stops.] > in power, I'd have to hit him more than he hit me. TIFF: Ladies and gentlemen, I present, Ben Hutchins, Tactical Genius. ALL: Yay! > More to the point, I'd have to keep him from getting hold of > me with those iron hands. MMK : You've got to open your heart... accept time's sands... you've got to know your mind, you've got to understand... you've got to love the ground on which you stand, you've got to know your part of the master plan. You've got to know your part of the master plan. > Perfectly sound theory, anyway. ARL: As is *Communism*! > At the front of one of the clusters of watching workers, Cammy gave > me a cheerful thumbs-up; I returned it RW : ...for a nice sweater. Thank GAWD she bought that thumbs-up from Macy's. It was, like, sooooooo tacky! > and then got my mind on the job as Arkady Vonotov gave the > order to begin. > I centered, shuffled my feet a little in the grime on the > floor, and waited. It's his arena, I figured; let him move > first. MMK: SCENE! [MMK and GAVOK leap out of their chairs and set up the props; a table, two chairs, a clock, a refrigerator, and the chessboard w/ pieces.] MMK : RICHIE! We've been here since TEN O'CLOCK last night - it's now EIGHT in the MORNING! We've finished off the rum, the gin, the Old Spice... we've even drank all the Industrial Strength Floor Cleaner! THREE LITRES OF IT! I've EXPLAINED the RULES OF CHESS to you ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN TIMES! And I'm BUGGERED if I'm going to do it AGAIN! OKAY? [GAVOK sits in his seat and looks sheepish.] MMK : OKAY! KING'S PRAWN to KING'S PRAWN FOUR! [MMK picks up the pawn and smashes the piece against the board, then hits the clock; the clock flattens and clock pieces go flying. MMK and GAVOK stare at the clock.] GAVOK : Now why do you have to do that? MMK : SHUT UP! IT'S YOUR MOVE! GAVOK : Okay! Okay! Don't hustle me! I know your tricks, mister! Yesss... [GAVOK stares at the board, apparently lost in thought. He rises from his seat and stares at the board some more. He walks a couple steps away and stares at it again, backing up occasionally. He continues this for a couple minutes, then returns to the table and sits back down.] GAVOK : Yesss... [GAVOK stares at the board a couple more seconds, then raises his head.] GAVOK : Am I black or white? MMK : You're BLACK! GAVOK : Oh! MMK : YOU'RE THOSE ONES THERE! GAVOK : Yes, alr- MMK : THE ONES NEXT TO YOU! GAVOK : I don't like your attitude to this game! CHARGE! [GAVOK bounces a bishop off MMK's forehead. MMK grabs GAVOK by the throat, shoves his head into the refrigerator, and slams the door on it repeatedly.] GAVOK : END SCENE! [MMK and GAVOK put the props away and sit back down. GAVOK's face is covered in blood. WAND, TIFF, ARL, RW and TBS stare at GAVOK and MMK.] GAVOK: What? WHAT? MMK : You got something on your chin, Vokkers. GAVOK: Oh. [rubs his chin, to no effect] Did I get it? MMK : Yeah, you got it. GAVOK : Okay! [ALL shrug and resume watching the screen.] > MZ > For the record, Part 1 of my plan came off perfectly. The > train ran over the railway torpedoes I laid TBS: I think what you do with your torpedoes is your own business, "Zoner". > (which, by the way, are ARL: [rolls eyes] Oh, great. More weaponry banter. MMK: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THE TORPEDOES ARE! WAND: Hey, why don't you demonstrate the torpedoes... ON YOURSELF?!? > signaling devices; they go bang when the train goes over > them, but TIFF : But they go "ooohm-babba-labba" if a cow steps on them. Go figure. > they don't do any damage), and the engineer, like any > well-trained engineer, RW : ...instantly came up with a complicated mathematical equation to describe what was about to happen to the train. ARL : I'll be needing *all* of my pencils for this. > hit the brakes. GAVOK : Ow! MMK : We're banding together to take you guys out! Then the tag titles will be ours! > I jumped on a little before it was really > going slow enough, and for a second I feared I'd > dislocated my shoulder, but it turned out to have been the > right thing to do. > Unfortunately, then it all went straight to hell. Part 2 GAVOK: Hell, Part 2! Spend all eternity in a cage match against Viscera! > didn't work out so well. While I was crouching on the > fantail of the last car, holding my shoulder and moaning, I felt the > train start to pick up speed again. That wasn't in the script -- the > engineer was WAND: ...drunk as a Kennedy. TBS : W... wash me... do... WHEEEEEELIES! > supposed to -stop- the train. Had I laid out the torpedoes > wrong and accidentally set up the code for "slow down for a > second, then resume"? Did the codes mean something different > on the Trans-Siberian? MMK: Y'know, Zoner, you're one helluva spy. > Did they not use torpedoes after all? TBS : Daddy, what's Vietnam? TIFF : How do Pop-Tarts work? ARL : Why do I feel... funny inside? > If that was the case, the engineer might have just slowed > down to make sure there was nothing wrong with the tracks, then > resumed speed when he realized his train wasn't going to derail. > But I had checked all that out. In any case, -something- was wrong. GAVOK: The champagne was not Corbel! > The problem there was that, unknown to him, it just might > derail if he kept going at full speed. > "Shit!" I said, and kicked open the door on the back > of the car. On the other side, a pair of very surprised goons > in maroonish-red Shadolu shock trooper uniforms whirled to > face the noise of the door frame shattering. I shot them with > the Calico TBS : Meow, naughty kitty, rowr. > and took rapid stock of the room. It was one of those > fairly fancy cars, laid out to be like a sitting room > in an expensive hotel. GAVOK: Did he just get on board the Wanderer? [WAND glares at GAVOK.] GAVOK: Oops. > A few arm chairs, a nice rug, even a bookcase. But no > emergency stop cables. ARL : Yes, I think those emergency stop cables would go quite nicely with the Louis XIV Armchair. WAND : Oh, how droll... TIFF : And while I was admiring the room's aesthetics, more goons shot me in the back of the head. The end. > That being the case, there was no time to be, as I had MMK : ...TO USE THE POTTY! GAVOK : POTTY EMERGENCY! > originally planned on being, subtle. ARL: How in the hell are torpedoes subtle, Zoner? > If I didn't get up to the locomotive and stop this train, > something very bad was going to happen rather soon. GAVOK: _The Sixth Sense_ will win Best Picture! AHH! > I stuffed the Calico back into my field pack and got the > Jackhammer ready; I had a feeling I was going to need it. > I shoved open the door in the front of the car and jumped > across the coupling, blasting a hole through the next door > on the way; ARL: [sighs] No one knocks anymore. It's sad, really. > there was nowhere else to go. MMK : Nooooooowherrrrre, to goooo from heeeeeeere... nothing to loooooose, my deeeeeear... nooooooooooowherrrrrrrre, to goooo from heeeeeeere... we're nowhere now... we're nowhere now... > Unfortunately, this posed something of > a problem, because the next car was a similar sitting-room > kind of affair, and it had a lot more than two guys in it. WAND : Does this man who just burst into our train car intend mischief? Pat Buchanan! ARL : Well, I don't really kn-- WAND : WRONG! Eleanor Clift! TIFF : He *does* have a gun, so-- WAND : WRONG! Sam Donaldson! GAVOK : Is my bald spot covered-- WAND : WRONG! Next topic! > The unwinking eye of the Jackhammer kept them from moving > for a moment; they just sort of stood there shocked and took > in my entrance. I took a quick and dirty count and called "a > dozen" close TIFF : A dozen! MMK, GAVOK: SCENE! [MMK leans over a table. GAVOK walks up.] GAVOK : Do you got any glazed doughnuts? MMK : No! We're all out of glazed doughnuts! GAVOK : Do you got any jelly doughnuts? MMK : No! We're all out of jelly doughnuts! GAVOK : Do you got any apple fritters? MMK : No! We're all out of apple fritters! GAVOK : Do you got any bear claws? MMK : No! We're all out of bear claws! GAVOK : Do you got any cinnamon rolls? MMK : [pauses] Wait a minute. I'll go check. [MMK stand up and walks to the back of the theater. He then walks back and stands above Gavok, holding a box.] MMK : No! We're all out of cinnamon rolls! WAND: [ahems loudly] We get it. It's the token Weird Al reference. Now sit down. [MMK and GAVOK grumble and take their seats.] TBS : Why'd you stop them? WAND: Did *you* want to see the box full of rabid weasels? > enough. Clustered in one corner was a small group of guys > in Russian Army uniforms; some were tied up and others > appeared to be dead. This wasn't going to be quite as simple as I > thought, was it? > I wouldn't exactly call them 'friendlies', but I didn't > want to catch them with my fire. ARL : I ask only that they burn with desire. They can stand *next* to my fire. > The group of uniformed thugs parted, TBS: It's Moses! And he's still pissed! > and from the front of the car the woman the IMF had warned > me about appeared, pushing her way through the group. She had > on a uniform like theirs, but a bit more elaborate, and where > they had little hotdog-bun hats like Army noncoms used to wear, Z-BOT : Welcome to the U.S. Army! What can I get for you? MMK: Yeah, I need you to invade some nonthreatening country. Z-BOT : Okay, sir! Want fries with that?! > she had that officer-type cap she was wearing in the IMF > file folder. In her right hand she had a Beretta 92F; WAND: It's Jill Valentine! > in her left, she had a large stainless-steel briefcase. If > it wasn't for that gun I may have felt a bit differently, she > was rather attractive in person. > "Laura Roxanne, I presume," I said. MMK : You don't have to put on the red dress tonight. > "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage," she said > coolly. TBS : Now give me back my bra. > "For what agency do -you- work? CIA? Interpol? MI-6, > perhaps? WAND : Let's see... you're too scruffy to be Delta and not weird enough to be SOG... > No... your equipment is too eclectic for you to be British > Intelligence. GAVOK: He must be carrying a toothbrush. > You certainly aren't Russian, either way." > "You've never heard of the agency I'm with," I said, TIFF : Because they disowned me! GAVOK : So neener neener neener! > feeling a smirk that might well endanger my continued > health slip onto my face. > It was probably true; very few people have ever heard of > the Impossible Missions Force. ARL : Mostly because I just made it up. MMK : Okay, story time. [ALL save MMK scream. MMK ^_^s.] > "Unfortunately for you," said Roxanne, "my curiosity > does not compel me to keep you alive until I find out." > "Maybe this shotgun will do a better job." GAVOK : I mean, c'mon. You ever wonder what gettin' shot would feel like? > "Perhaps." She put the Beretta away, into a cross-draw > hip holster held in place by her uniform's Sam Browne-style > belt, then turned and shoved the briefcase into the hands of one of > the thugs. "If anything happens to this, Gustav, your entire family > will die." > Gustav nodded and looked a little afraid, TBS : We've replaced Gustav's family with Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. Let's watch. ARL : You mean, like if I hit it with this hammer? TIFF : NOOO!! > immediately establishing a deathgrip on the case's handle. > Looks like I found the GoldenEye controller. > "I'm not sure what you plan on doing," I told her, Z-BOT: Well, the smart money says she's goin' for blackmail and terrorism, Zoner. > "but you ALL: ...SUCK! > might be interested in knowing that there's a good chance > this train's going to derail soon." > "Is there," she said, supremely uninterested. ARL: So Roxanne's... dumb as a box of rocks. TIFF: Why should she be any different? > She took a couple of steps toward me. > "There's a better chance that if you take another > step, I'll shoot you." RW: Shouldn't he be in more of a hurry than this? > "Is there," she repeated, and took another step. > I fired. > She wasn't there, but one of the other guys obligingly > made sure that expensive 12-gauge ammunition didn't go to > waste. MMK : That's one sneaky kid. > Something hit the side of my head like a steam hammer. I > blacked out for a half-second, long enough to cause a > slight stutter in my perceptions but not really long enough to > qualify me as "knocked out". GAVOK: So was he knocked out? MMK: No, he stuttered. GAVOK: What? MMK: Look, I don't get it either. WAND: Good thing you rambled on at tiresome length, "Zoner". I might've gotten confused. > I stumbled to one knee, lost my grip on the Jackhammer, > just about lost my breakfast GAVOK: Which reminds me... [grabs Z-BOT] Where are my waffles?! WAND: Let him go, Gavok. Now is not the time. GAVOK : This isn't over. > -- the side of my head felt like somebody had > taken a high-tension line to it. I remembered swimmingly > that Roxanne was supposed to be a student of M. Bison's form of Ler > Drit, and decided I never, ever wanted Ben to hit me and mean it. > He was unlikely to sucker punch me that way, but if he could hit > nearly as hard as this woman, let alone with the same electric > zap, I didn't want to take the risk. > I tried to get up; she helped me by giving me a good > swift kick in the gut that lifted me right off my feet for a > second. This time I did lose my breakfast, but oddly enough, the > experience cleared my head a little -- enough that I knew to fall > on my back and thumb a smoke capsule out of my equipment belt. TBS : Taste my Zoner Anti-Ler Drit Spray! > By filling the room with mist, ARL : ...I cleared my sinuses the natural way! > I bought myself a little time to get to my feet and clear > my head out, but I still couldn't find my shotgun. If I > couldn't get some kind of a gun on this woman I was dead meat. > I pulled out my trusty Glock and hoped for the best as the mist > cleared. WAND: Where the hell are Roxanne's heavily armed goons during this? MMK : I spy with my little eye something that starts with T. GAVOK : I know! A T-ree! > As it thinned I saw her, right in front of me, winding up > for a wheel kick that would have knocked my goddamn head off. > I put a round over her left ear, taking off her hat and a lock > of her hair, and that got her attention. WAND : Because killing her might have advanced the so-called plot. And besides, she's a babe. RW : My hair! He shot my hair! Son of a bitch! > "Next one goes in your eye," I told her. TIFF : Yes, but before you put a bullet in my eye, you must place one in your own. It's Biblical. ARL : Well, shit. Okay. TIFF : Dumbass. ARL : What? TIFF : Nothing. > For a moment we eyed each other across a smoky gap of a > few feet. GAVOK: David Letterman's mouth. Thank you. Thank you. > Then the world turned upside down. TBS : I'm pregnant with your baby. > The room shook with a shuddering BANG and threw us all to > the floor, and I was reminded that GAVOK : ...the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the side. Odd time to remember that, though. > we were on a speeding train which, by the feel of things, > had just run over that switch I threw. The engineer had been > expecting the train to take the mostly straight course through > the town of Dnepropovinsk; instead, it had WAND: ...taken the road less traveled by, and that had made all the difference. > just taken a sharpish left onto the spur that led to > the steel mill. It felt like we were still on the rails, > but that wasn't going to last -- we were already unstable and doing > a good 130 kilometers an hour straight for the side of the factory, > and there was no way we were going to make that curve. TIFF : Since Hutchins got a perfect score on the test, you all fail! ALL: Awww... TIFF : So you have to reread the story from the beginning! ALL: AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH! > From my new perspective, I could see the Jackhammer; it > had slid under a table. Well, that's something, anyway, I > thought as I grabbed it and slung it over my shoulder. NOW > the engineer was getting the hint that he might have done a bad thing. MMK : Baby did a bad, bad thing... > The noise and shuddering got worse as the brakes slammed > in, but I knew in my heart that it was way too late for that to help now. > I lunged across the floor, my hands finding the scattergun > and bringing it up to fire. GAVOK : Dwee-baddo-bob-badeee-bo-squibby-de-bo-dupity-dop! > Most of the thugs were still trying to untangle themsevles from the heap > on the floor, but a small group were already standing and rapidly developing > situational awareness. That wouldn't do. Since Plan A was shot to hell, it > was time for Plan B. MMK : RUN! [ALL except TIFF and WAND start running wildly around the theater.] TBS: When in danger or in doubt, run in circles! Scream and shout! > Plan B, first developed by the noted archaeologist and > adventurer Henry Jones, Jr. back in the twenties, ARL: Unnecessary Cameo #7! > was simple. If written out it would simply state: Make it up as you > go along. > I dropped the standing group with two rapid shots from the Pancor. > Laura was not in sight and the door to the next car > was ajar, so I didn't see any reason to stick around. The train was > shuddering something awful as it fought futily to dissipate energy in > a more controlled manner than by, say, slamming into the factory. > I was nearly to the door when the train lurched sickeningly and > left the rails. > I hit the floor, put my hands over my head and hoped I > wasn't about to start a new career as heavily armed luncheon meat. WAND: Guys, if I EVER buy a meat product called "Zoner," just shoot me. > G MMK : ... Wally. > Zangief sized up the situation for a moment, then took two > immense strides forward and swung into action, throwing a > clothesline that spun him halfway around. I dropped to one knee, > ducking under it, and drove my flared left fist into his flank. > It felt like punching a brick wall, but it hurt him a little, too. > Not all that much, but a little. He dropped his right fist onto my > head; I was a TBS : ...self-inserted author avatar, so I took no damage. > little slow ducking away and caught the blow on my shoulder, not > hard enough to numb the arm, but hard enough to remind me I was > trying not to let him do that. GAVOK : Can I hit you again? MMK : ...um, no. GAVOK : Please? MMK : No. GAVOK : Pretty please? MMK : [sighs] Okay. > Still down, I swept his legs, spilling him to the floor, > then went for a jumping stomp. WAND: He's five-eight, three hundred pounds, and he's trying to jump? > He rolled out of the way and grabbed for > me, but too slowly; I was already out of range. I think he > was starting to get mad. He stomped straight toward me, > stopped, and threw a short jab kick that caught me off-guard. > As the kick knocked me back, he took a hopping half-step and shoved > a fist into my face; MMK: SCENE! [GAVOK, TBS, and MMK set up.] MMK : Hey man, where've you been? We been lookin' all over for you! GAVOK : You know. Around. MMK : You want a fist? I think I got an extra one here somewhere. GAVOK : No thanks. TBS : Eat this! It's good for you! GAVOK : I'm not even that hungry. MMK : What is it with you? You on some kind of diet or something? GAVOK : Back off me, man. Back off! MMK : You ain't down with us no more! You ain't fat! GAVOK : You ain't fat! You ain't nothing! YOU AIN'T NOTHING! [makes a tough face] > fortunately, it was only a jab, but I still felt as if > someone had smacked me in the forehead with a baseball bat. One of his > huge hands closed on my shoulder, and another grabbed for my belt. I > gathered my wits and realized I had to do something quick, or he was > going to shove my head so far into the ground it would come out in > Australia. TIFF: I found my happy thought! ARL: Me, too! TBS : I found my scary thought. > It was about then that we both noticed the deafening Diesel roar, GAVOK: Yeah! MMK: It's only Glen Jacobs. GAVOK: Aw. > the howling train whistle, and the scream of metal on > metal drawing rapidly nearer. WAND: Y'know, if I was Zangief, and I am... TIFF: What? WAND : ...and Gryphon talked about the train jumping the tracks, and it does, I'd suspect treachery. > Near the man-door next to the big rolling > loading door, Arkady Vonotov looked out the little window, > his eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. > > TRAIN!< he bellowed. > The train is jumping the > tracks, it's heading right for us! [ALL make gunshot sounds.] > Run, into the factory, hurry!< > "We finish later," Zangief said, plopping me down on my feet TBS: I don't remember Zangief eating Ben. > but retaining his grip on my shoulder as he half-dragged > me onto the process floor behind the flood of alarmed steelworkers. GAVOK : Ha! I mop floor with you, comrade! > I looked around for Cammy, but she was ahead of us > already. > C - R - A - S - H - ! - ! - ! GAVOK : ARL: B - A- N - D - I - C - O - O - T - ! - ! - ! GAVOK: Damn. > If you haven't been inside a building that's had a > train crash into it, MMK : Then boy, you ain't livin'! > I guarantee you I can't adequately describe what it's > like. WAND : But that won't stop me from trying, darn it. > The locomotive had started to make the turn, so it didn't > come straight into the building; instead it caught the corner > of the loading dock and tore that wall off the building, leaving > the inner wall mainly intact. Instantly a geyser of icy air screamed > into the building, or, I suppose, more accurately, all the hot, > humid air inside burst out, the moisture condensing into a cloud of > mist that boiled out into the cold Arctic midday. > Hitting (and demolishing) the concrete slab of the > loading dock as well as most of that particular wall bled off most > of the locomotive's energy; fortunately, it hadn't been pulling a > particularly heavy or long train. It fetched up with a > burst of smoke next to the factory, its last set of wheels caught in the > tangle of rebar left from the wrecked slab. > While we were collectively trying to take in this turn > of events, the windows on the side of the second of three > coach cars behind the locomotive burst out, and a group of guys in > dark red uniforms scrambled through the holes. RW: It's the Crimson Guard! MMK : Shall we... GAVOK : ...destroy them all? > The same happened for the front > car a moment later. They were armed, and moreover, they > were wearing uniforms I recognized. They were ARL : ...Deliverators! RW: Uncle Enzo's gotta be pissed. > Shadolu field troopers. One of them, a woman whose officer > cap showed her for the ranking officer, had a silver metal briefcase in > one hand and a Beretta automatic in the other. WAND: She's here to give you your reward... and your freedom. > The Shadolu goons trained their weapons on us, the > collective crowd of steelworkers and fighters, and their leader said > icily, "You will provide us with transportation out of this town, or > we will kill a random selection of you." TBS: There's something subtly wrong with that threat... > I looked to my left; Zangief narrowed his eyes and nodded > almost imperceptively. The touch of Cammy's fingertips to > my right hand prevented me from having to look to the right as > well. TIFF : On three, we throw Gryphon at them. ARL : Da. WAND : Now wait a gosh darn minute! > "I am not thinking so," said Zangief. > I gathered my Ler into my left hand and hurled it at > the nearest submachinegun-toting thug. GAVOK : Fuck-shit-seriously pissed-cock-sucking-son of a bitch-Barbara Streisand! > "CHAIN - LIGHTNING!" > The Ler lightning flashed out and zapped the nearest > thug, then arced to the next. I had tried this stunt with a > succession of boards in the yard a few times; ARL: What is it with original characters in Street Fighter fanfiction and how they keep "suddenly remembering" their techniques? > my record was four, but the boards didn't have as much > metal on them. > I got six of the thugs, right down the line, cutting a big > swath out of their right flank. > Then we all charged them, and things got straight out > of hand. Some of the sturdier steelworkers grabbed tools and > charged into the fray with us. Zangief grabbed two of the thugs > and did the classic George Reeves bash-heads-together thing with them; > I had to pause and admire that for a second, earning myself an MP5 > butt slammed into my gut. TIFF: So why the hell isn't anyone getting shot? GAVOK: Well, you know. They're play guns. RW: And the North went on to defeat the Confederate Army... > Unfortunately for the guy doing the slamming, he was a > 198-pound weakling who MMK: ...had apparently bribed his way into a position as a professional military operative. > didn't know enough about the fine art of subgun-butt-slamming to > put his shoulders into it. WAND: The fine art of subgun-butt-slamming? For Christ's sake! Paint-by-Numbers is a fine art compared to subgun-butt-slamming! > I took the subgun away from him and demonstrated the proper > technique. MMK : 'Cause if there's one thing I know, it's butt- slamming! > He lay down to appreciate it for a while. ARL : Ben, dear, don't show off. TBS : But you do it all the time, Aunt Pol. ARL : Yes, dear, but I know how. > This went on for a bit, until the crowd started to thin > out and the Shadolu thugs who knew something about fighting > started to emerge. MMK: Why couldn't they just *all* be cannon fodder? > I was about to show one of them the true beauty of a > flared left hook when something plowed into my back and sent me > ass over teakettle into a tool bench. Ouch. I tossed aside a couple > of random tools WAND: Like Gutter! ALL : GUTTER IS A TOOL! > and got to my feet to find myself facing their leader, the > dark-haired woman with glasses, who was standing in a > slightly flawed Psycho Whirlwind attack stance. > "Your right foot's turned out too far," I told her. TIFF: So put your right foot in. RW: Put your right foot out. GAVOK: Put your right foot in... TIFF, RW, GAVOK: ...and shake it all about! ALL: You do the Hokey-Pokey, and turn yourself around, that's what it's all about! > "Who are you," she demanded, "and where did you learn the > flare technique?" Z-BOT: Cue the bad dubbing! > "Who am I? I'm Gryphon. Where did I learn my technique? TBS : Street Fighting for Dummies, of course! > That's none of your business," I replied. "I never tell my > secrets on the first date," I added with a smirk. ARL : Yes you do! RW : Not now, sweetie... > With an inarticulate snarl, she came at me with a jumping > spin kick; her kicking foot was flared and it was fairly > obvious she intended to knock my head in with it. Z-BOT : I wasn't sure, thou -- ow! > I blocked it; the flare stung my arm, but I was ready for it. She > landed on her feet, which wasn't bad for somebody who just slammed > their ankle into a stationary object, and then Zangief grabbed her > from behind, seizing her in a bonecrushing bear hug. MMK: He's setting up for the Jobberdropper! > She gasped, then drove an elbow into his side where I > had already tagged him with my ducking fierce. WAND: Y'know, Hutchins, when we urged you to stop using "backfists", we didn't mean "substitute the buttons from Street Fighter". > Grunting, he loosened his grip a little, but a little was all she > needed; she got her feet on the ground, spun, and let him have a > flared uppercut TIFF : Here! Collect the set! > that threw him backward. He hit the lip of the big cooling-water > tank at the small of his back, teetered, then toppled backward > into the tank and disappeared. GAVOK: Now he's gonna emerge as a Tyrant! TBS: Then Ada's gonna throw Roxanne the rocket launcher! RW: Hey, man, *Annette* threw the rocket launcher. TBS: What are you, crazy? RW: It's all there, man. Look at the facts. TBS: Jabronie. > One of the other goons grabbed me, trying to emulate > Zangief's hug technique, but he was a lot smaller than Zangief. > I shrugged him off and bounced his head off the workbench next to me, RW: ...to the side of the coolant tank... ARL: ...against the back wall... TBS: ...off Zoner's face... Z-BOT: ...*nothing* but net. > then returned my attention to his boss, who had whirled to face me, > back to the water tank, and who still had that briefcase in her hand. MMK, GAVOK, TBS: IRRRRRWIN! IRRRRRWIN! IRRRRWIN! > "Ya know," I observed, "most people put down their > briefcases to fight." WAND: Unless you happen to be eDAN. > "Your style is a perversion of Ler Drit," she said, TBS : It's out*rage*ous! Where'd you get it, sweetie? > as if the fact half mystified her and half > disgusted her. "Where did you learn it?" > "A perversion, is it?" I replied. "Pot, kettle. > Black?" TBS : And are you free later? WAND: The HBO original series, _Perversions of Ler Drit_. > "Enough nonsense!" she barked. "ANSWER me or -- " > I was never going to find out "or what". Zangief came > rising up out of the water tank behind her about the time she > started to "answer", his massive arms spread wide. She couldn't hear > him over the din of combat and I didn't let anything in my > expression betray his presence; she'd be aware of it as soon as -- > He slammed his cupped hands together on either side of > her head. I winced in sympathetic pain. Even without the > agonizing air pressure in her ears, that must feel like getting your > head caught in a pneumatic press. She crumpled like an unstrung > marionette, hands reflexively clutching at the sides of her head. > Zangief climbed out of the tank, smirking, and waded into the fray > again, hurling red-coated Shadolu minions left and right. I caught a > glimpse of Cammy in there, swinging one guy in a chokehold so that > his feet whipped into another one's head. They looked like they had > the situation in hand. I was curious about what was in that briefcase. > I turned around just in time to get a real good look at the > corner of it, and then I was blinking at the grimy floor > and wondering if I was shot. TIFF: If you are, it'd be about time. > No, I guessed not... the side of my head felt sticky, > but there was no apparent hole, just a really sore spot. I > turned over, trying to fight down the swimming feeling in my > head, and looked into the barrel of the Shadolu woman's Beretta. MMK : All right, sonny, consider yourself pinched. TBS : Wow. I can hear the ocean. > She was none too steady on her feet yet, but she was > pissed off enough to counteract that and the muzzle of her pistol > was rock steady. > "I don't normally use guns with fighters good enough > to challenge me," she said, louder than she needed to say it, > "but I have no time for this. You will answer my question or I will > kill you!" > "I'm not answering," I replied, TIFF : Is that your final answer? ARL : Um... no... er... ye... er... I'd like to use a lifeline. > pulling my concentration together and trying to get enough energy > piled up to zap her. > "Then goodbye," she said. Her finger tightened on the > pistol's trigger. The hammer started to tip back, and I > steeled myself to make my move. WAND : My head exploding will distract her, and then... I'll strike! > BLAM! > The woman cursed, recoiling and grabbing at her hand, > as the Beretta jumped with a loud report and a fat orange spark > out of it and skittered across the floor. A spatter of blood oozed > between the fingers of her left hand (which was closed around her > right), and fell thickly to the floor, landing near the dropped > briefcase. > "No shooting my partner," said Zoner's voice behind me. TIFF : That's my job. > "The briefcase, if you please." GAVOK : ...and Siamese, if you don't please... > MZ > Shit. TIFF: Okay, now the story is rap-riffing itself. WAND: A self-riffing fic... if only that meant we could leave. > The train crash must have knocked me out harder than I thought. GAVOK : NO! I slept too long! > My vision was still snapping in and out of focus. [ALL start snapping fingers] MMK : Boom, badoombadoom, boom; badoombadoom boom... > I think I bounced my head off of the door frame in the crash; RW : ...I was starting to realize how goofy my codename is. > it would explain the volume of blood matting my hair and > annoyingly running down my ARL: Teeth. MMK: Nose. TIFF: Ears. TBS: Ba... haven't we done this joke before? Z-BOT: Yes, all of the above. > neck into my shirt. I was trying to kill her, not pull off > that fancy-ass John Wayne disarm shot. TBS: The fool. He'll get a bunch of bonus points for that Justice Shot. > I also should have had the presence of mind not to mention > the briefcase, since now she'd realize she'd dropped it and > try to pick it up. MMK : So what was that woman's name again? GAVOK : Something with an S. Slappy... Slippy... MMK : Check the briefcase. GAVOK : Samsonite! I was way off. But I knew it started with an S. > I shouldn't've worried; Gryph was on the ball. WAND : His bizarre sexual fetishes were getting disturbing... > Even as she was looking down for it, he had already hooked > the handle with his toe and kicked it into his hand. He got > to his feet, touched the welt on the side of his head > gingerly, and glared at Roxanne. > "Gryphon, may I introduce Laura Roxanne, MMK : She's here to turn on the red light. > supposedly one of Shadolu's top field agents." RW: She'll be entering the long jump, the high jump and the discus... > "Charmed," he said. > He would have said more, I imagine, but the sudden, loud, > metallic SPANG noise TBS, GAVOK, MMK: SPANG spang spang spang SPANG spang spang spang... > that echoed through the factory ended all the ongoing > conversations, and most of the brawling, too. Everyone > looked up to see the big master crucible sag on one hinge. > Apparently the impact of the train with the building had > broken the other, or accelerated an existing crack; but it > wasn't going to stay up there for long on one hinge anyway, > and that was very bad news. MMK : It would be hard to explain. ALL: AUGH! MMK : Okay, story time. TBS: GODDAMNIT, NO IT ISN'T! MMK: ...okay, then. > "RUN FOR IT!" ALL : CONNECT FOUR! > Gryphon bellowed, repeating the suggestion in Russian for > the others' benefit. TIFF : What is the American saying about my mother? ARL : He wants to give your mother's fish to your brother, Raoul. > Everybody, including Laura Roxanne, took his advice, running > for the gaping hole where the loading dock had been. That > may have been a mistake, in retrospect; it was the obvious > course, but though there was a big hole in the building, > there was also a pretty sizeable drop and a wrecked train > out there, a lovely little obstacle course to be run before > one could break to either side and get out of the inevitable > path of the steel in that crucible. TBS: "We ran for where the loading dock used to be, but outside, there was a long drop and a wrecked train. We'd have to avoid both of those before we were out of the way of the molten steel." WAND: Nice work. TBS: Thanks. > We reached the outside of the inner doors ahead of the main > body of the melee, despite the fact that we started on the > other side of them; it took the bulk of the group that long > to figure out what was going on. By then, the crucible's > other hinge let go, and the thing crashed to the process > floor, doing just what I feared it would do: TIFF : ...it took a year off after high school to "find itself". WAND : ...it hung out in Cabrini-Green after nightfall. Z-BOT : ...it made sweet love, down by the fire. ARL : ...it started writing its own Street Fighter fanfiction. > it toppled toward the doors, unleashing a flood of orange > molten steel toward the loading dock doors, where everyone was > crowding out. > "Here," said Zangief to Cammy. "You catch." He seized her by > the scruff of the neck RW : Good dog, dog fly now. MMK : NONO! ARWWOOOOO!!! > and tossed her off the stump of the loading dock, into the > snowbank off to the side and, hopefully, TBS: ...through the 50-point slot. Five more tickets, and I could get a stuffed pony! > out of harm's way. > She tumbled into the snow, got up, and turned, waiting. Z-BOT: Like a good dog should. TIFF: Excuse me? Z-BOT: Um... nothing? [Sparks fly.] Z-BOT: Ow. > Zangief reached into the mass and started yanking people > bodily out and hurling them to her; TIFF : So, what exactly am I supposed to be doing he-- TBS, RW : AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-- TIFF, TBS, RW : Whoof! > she didn't actually catch them, TIFF Okay, I'm ready! GAVOK : AAAAAAAA- SPLAT! TIFF : Oops! Sorry! Can we try that again? > but she was there where they landed to keep them from > falling on their heads and to encourage them to run like > hell in the proper direction. Z-BOT : Run that way! GAVOK : I wanna run back into the molten steel! Z-BOT : Run that way, OR ELSE! GAVOK : okay. > What a novel evacuation approach. The mob of steelworkers > and Shadolugoons made it through the inner doorway, but milled > at the shorn-off edge of the concrete, unsure what to do. WAND: You make the call! > They couldn't jump down into the jagged tangle of rebar and > train parts; indeed, the only path to safety seemed to be getting > hurled by Zangief. MMK: But is that really safe? GAVOK : Come, comrades! My gag reflex is the key to survival! > Gryph looked from one side of the doorway to the other, and > his face lit up in that way that meant he'd had an idea. He > tossed me the briefcase, ran to one side and grabbed a chunk of > I-beam, MMK: I-Beam! From the people that brought you I-scream, I-smilk, and I-bred! WAND: I-bread? MMK: Boy, I hope not! [WAND attempts to cut MMK in half. He is unsuccessful.] TBS: I wanna I-BEAM! I wanna I-Beam! Z-BOT: They're amazing! Just ask one of our oldest customers, Cyclops! Get your I-Beams here! > shot back the bolt that held the door on that side open, and > started shoving it closed. > "Zoner!" he shouted to me. "Shoot out the other bolt!" GAVOK : Already taken care of, mi amigo! RW : Shoot *out*, not shoot *up*! GAVOK : Oh. Right... > So I did. I saw what he was planning, shot the bolt out and > had the door most of the way closed by the time he arrived. > He plopped the chunk of I-beam down on the concrete floor, > stood on it, and shoved the doors shut. A moment later the > flood of molten steel reached them; I could see the muscles in his > back bunch as he fought to keep the doors from bursting open. ARL: He-MAN! TBS, RW: AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE! > A trickle of steel oozed under the doors, pooling around the > I-beam. WAND : All that stands between our heroes and death is Gryphon! Can he rise to the challenge? ARL: Yay. TBS: Go, Gryphon. MMK, GAVOK : Go, Gryphon. He's our man. If he can't do it... well, shit. > "GET - THESE - PEOPLE - OUT - OF- HERE!" he shouted, pushing > with all his might TIFF: What exactly is that door made of? Krell metal? > and, I would imagine, hoping like hell the piece of beam he > was standing on was heavy enough that it wouldn't slip and > drop him face first into the molten metal. TBS: We should be so lucky. > I put my Glock away and ran to help Zangief chuck people > into the snow. TBS, GAVOK : Whee! > Shadolu thug, steelworker, it didn't matter to us; nobody > deserves to die like -that-. WAND: Okay, maybe Regis Philbin. TBS: And Demi Moore. GAVOK: *Ding!* WAND: Demi Moore doesn't deserve to be dropped in molten steel! TBS: Oh, I know. I just wanted to make the reference. > Laura paused for an instant to glare at > me before allowing me to toss her into the snow; I'm not > sure what it meant, really. MMK: It's #117! The You-Just-*Shot*-Me-You-Stupid-Bastard Glare! > Finally it was down to just us; Zangief threw me, TBS: Hey! That's a knuckleball! Are you blind, ump?! > and then turned and headed past Gryph to the other side of > the dock. GAVOK : Ehhh-- [TIFF saws off his arm.] ARL: Well, I'm scarred for life. GAVOK: *You're* scarred? > Getting up a good running start, the big Russian charged > straight through the pool of molten steel, catching Gryph > under his arm like a football, and sprinted as fast as he > could go (which was faster than I expected) across the dock, > performing a terrific running long jump off the end of the > platform. WAND: I'm praying he spikes Gryph in the end zone. > In my mind's eye I can still see him in slow motion, ARL, GAVOK: Dah dah dah dah dah dah dah... TBS: Whooshwoooshwoooshwooshwoosh... > leaving a comet trail from his burning wrestler's boots, WAND: Aw, crap. 'Gief's running Windows 95. > soaring like the Tick from the loading dock to the snowbank > and plowing into the snow like a meteor. ARL : How you Americans say... SPORK! GAVOK : Nononono... it's... SPOON! ARL : Keen. > The doors banged open and the river of molten steel gushed > out, pouring over the end of the dock, setting ablaze the > flammable parts of the wrecked train cars, and hitting the > snow with an huge hiss and a curtain of steam. RW: And totally ruining the new carpet. > We stood in the snow at the edge of the furrow of > destruction plowed by the train, watching the still-molten > steel bubble and cool where it had pooled in what was left of > the middle train car. > Ben's hands were singed from holding closed the hot doors, ARL: Buddy, if those doors were holding back molten steel, they better be a damn sight more than "singed". MMK: At this point, I'm convinced that Gryphon is related to Zor. > and Zangief's boots were just about gone, but both had > escaped serious burns, ALL: *HOW*?! > and Ben looked pretty content about > having his hands salved by his Scottish angel anyway. WAND: So he's cheating on Cammy with Morrigan? > The whole scene would have been most beatific GAVOK: Groovy, cat. Let's hear some of your rhymes. WAND: He said "beatific", not "beatnik". GAVOK: Damn. > if there hadn't come from behind me a familiar loud metallic > click and the sound of a clearing throat. I turned around to > see Laura Roxanne pointing an MP5 at me. TIFF : Now I shall play this song I downloaded! It's Tom Green's "Bum Bum Song!" TBS : SWEET MOTHER OF GOD, NOOOOOOO! > "The briefcase, if you please." > "Oh, come -on-, are we going to go through this -again-?!" I > demanded. "Look, can't you just admit you've lost?" > "Never." > "Sure, you can kill me. TIFF : Really? Thanks! WAND : Oops! > And then you'll have to kill Gryphon. And then Zangief. TBS : Please to be keeping me out of this, comrade. > And then all the rest. You're outnumbered, and besides, > you'd run out of ammo first." That damned smirk was back on > my face. -Why- do I do that? TIFF: Because you're a smug bastard. Next question? > "I do not have the patience for your weak attempts at > humor." GAVOK : Goodbye, watermelon! [GAVOK crushes a watermelon with a mallet while everyone covers themselves with a plastic sheet] > "OK, so I need new mater -- " > I was interrupted as Gryphon reached over, took the > briefcase out of my hand and, with a negligent flip of his shoulders, > tossed it into the molten metal. > "NO!" cried Roxanne, dropping the submachinegun and shoving > past me to lunge after it. I restrained her; I think she > really would have charged after it. The steel was cooling, but it hadn't cooled fast enough to save the GoldenEye controller. It > took only about twenty seconds to deform, and forty to vanish > completely; only a few chunks of especially tough wiring insulation > and the gemstone, cracked and worthless, floated on the surface. > Laura realized I was still holding her in my arms and > shot me another odd look as she pried herself free and > stepped clear. TBS: Five bucks says they shack up by the end of the 'fic. MMK: You're on. > About then occurred to me that the thing my partner had just > destroyed was the object of my mission. > "Hey!" I cried indignantly, feeling a momentary solidarity > with the Shadolu terrorist leader. "Do you have any idea > what you just destroyed?" ARL : That was Marcellus Wallace's soul, you jackass! GAVOK : I heard it was an Oscar in there for his wife. RW : I say it green glowing thing. > Gryphon shrugged and grinned at us both. "Nope, not a clue. WAND : Okay, let's shoot him. TIFF : Agreed. TBS : What? > But hey, this is detente, guys," he said. TIFF : Firm to the bite and ready to eat! Tuck in! > "Shadolu doesn't get it; we don't get it; the Russians don't get > to keep it." [ALL laugh.] WAND: Oh, for fun. GAVOK: High treason! It's what all the kids are doing! > Zangief laughed explosively and clapped Gryph on the back. TIFF : ...breaking his spine in several places. > Laura Roxanne shot Ben a look that would have slain an > elephant, turned on her heel, MMK : Roxanne just hit Corino with a chair! OH MY GAWD! > and stalked away. A few paces from us, she stopped, spun > around again, and snarled, "You'll regret this entire incident." MMK : What are you going to do? Go cry to Bison? TIFF : You're mean! GAVOK : Cry, baby! Cry! TIFF : Stop picking on me! MMK, GAVOK : 1, 2, 3, CRY! 1, 2, 3, CRY! TIFF : WAAAAH! > I'm not sure if she was talking to Gryph, me, or both of us > together, RW: Two men at once? You rude *bitch*! [RW ducks under a chainsaw swing.] RW: Hah! > so I just put on my sweetest smile. > Then she pivoted and tried to leave again, followed by those > of her men who could still at least stagger. TBS : Could someone give me a hand here? My legs got melted. > "Don't you want to stay for the rest of the fight?" Gryph > called after her. > "Da! Aren't you curious who wins?" Zangief added. Z-BOT : We all already know who's going to win. MMK : Da... but I job like champion! > She turned again. "You're going to finish your fight?" There > was a note of something that might have passed for interest > in her voice, but she was keeping it pretty well hidden. ARL: So she was hiding it, but he noticed it, so it wasn't well hidden, but he thinks it's well hidden... [counts on fingers] ...okay. Someone in this conversation is dumb as a stump. > Gryph shrugged and looked at Zangief. "I dunno about you, > big guy, but I hate leaving anything unfinished." GAVOK : So on Thunder, I'm gonna reveal who the Hummer driver is. > Zangief grinned sharkishly. "How can we have party if we > don't finish fight?" he replied. TBS: With all your limbs intact, you can do many things! > Laura Roxanne seemed to consider it. For a moment I thought > she was going to stay, and I kind of liked that idea for > some reason. WAND: Is our little Zoner not on speaking terms with his libido or something? > Then she glared again, turned on her heel again, and stomped > away into the snowy tundra. My orders were to stop her from > getting the GoldenEye, not to apprehend her, and besides, I > wasn't up to a chase, so I let her go. Nobody seemed > inclined to call me on it. MMK: Hey, oni-- [WAND glares at MMK.] WAND: ...no. > G > I'm glad Zangief and I finished our fight outside. ARL : The hypothermia took my mind off of the broken bones. > The snow was bracing, and soft enough to keep him from crushing my > skull with his spinning pile driver. ALL: Booo! > We pounded on each other for five or six minutes, feeling > the fatigue of our day's activities, and eventually we were > reduced to kind of staggering around trying to grapple, like > boxers in the tenth round or so. ARL : Your ear tastes much good! > Unfortunately, Zangief's punch-drunk stagger was a little > more feigned than mine. I launched a particularly sloppy > punch combo at him, and he sidestepped it, gathered me in > with one massive arm, and locked me into his bear hug. GAVOK: Bear hugs, bear hugs, bear hugs. MMK: It's worse than a Hogan match! TBS: With the Ultimate Warrior! > He would have been better off just punching me out, which he > would have been perfectly capable of doing. The confining > feeling of the hug and the sharp pain it raised in my sore > shoulder muscles did more to revive me than the crushing did > to stun me. RW, TBS, GAVOK: Oh, yeah, well, that makes -- what? MMK: IT HURTS SO GOOD! BOOYAKALAKA! > There was no way I was going to break his hold with my own > muscle power, but I had one more trick up my sleeve, and it > was time to see what Zangief thought of it. ARL : Um... pick a card? Any card? TBS : Not bloody likely, comrade. > I gathered my Ler and concentrated it like a flare, but > centered instead of focused on a limb. I didn't throw it in > any particular direction; I just let it out. MMK : Light a match! > This had the amusing side effect of flaring my entire body; > Zangief was suddenly bear-hugging a man who was, for all > intents and purposes, on fire. WAND: Flame on! GAVOK : He's ON FIRE! > He reeled, releasing me, and staggered back. With the last > of my energy, I drove in an old-fashioned left cross, with a > lot of shoulder behind it. If this didn't do the job, MMK : ...then Zangief would. > I was sunk for sure. RW : But it will. Trying to build up suspense for this is like building a skyscraper with Coca-Cola. > It crashed into the side of Zangief's jaw and hurt me almost > as much as it did him. > We both stumbled back a step; his eyes seemed to clear for a > moment, as if my punch had roused him and made him mad > instead of stunning him. Then they glazed, and he toppled > over backward, sending up a spray of snow as he crashed to > the ground. TIFF : ...and so, as told in American myth, the Grand Canyon was created. Any questions? > It wouldn't do to pass out myself at this moment, but I > wasn't feeling up to an end-zone dance either, so I settled for > giving myself a good bracing whitewash with some snow and lurching > over to the spectators -- cheering despite the defeat of their hometown > hero -- to see if anyone had anything to drink. MMK : Here. Drink some of this rat poison. I mean, Gatorade! GAVOK : Thanks... You almost got me there. TBS: ... WAND: I know. It hurts. TBS: ... WAND: Just let it go, man. It doesn't matter. Just let it go. > MZ > When Zangief woke up, he was true to his word. We all > walked GAVOK : Well, I walked. Zangief and Gryphon crawled like weak little babies. MMK : "Don't like leaving things unfinished..." What the HELL was I thinking? > into town, and they threw one of the biggest feasts I've > seen just about anywhere, whether it be a steel mill town > celebrating a street fight or a high-class state dinner. The > food was better than at any TIFF : Arby's. > state function, too. ARL: Yeah! Drink enough vodka and you might try borscht! > We drank more than we should have, laughed so > loud and so long into the night it would have bothered the > neighbors if they hadn't've been with us, and generally > raised the roof. WAND : Tear the roof off, tear the roof off the sucka... GAVOK : Now can you dig it? > There was music and dancing. TIFF: There's something funny about the idea of Zangief singing karioke. Z-BOT: It isn't funny "ha-ha", though... > Watching Gryph try to negotiate a kazakhchok > dance in his battered state was incredibly amusing; he > didn't have much to drink, but I could tell he was feeling > pretty sore. He made ARL: Let me get this straight. He took some heavy blows from Zangief. TBS: Yes. ARL: And he does a Samson impersonation at the steel factory, stalling the collapsing building. TBS: Yes. ARL: And then he almost gets his butt kicked by Zangief, a fate which he escapes by IGNITING HIMSELF. TBS: Uh huh. ARL: HE SHOULD BE DEAD! HE SHOULD BE COMATOSE! HE SHOULD BE GASPING FOR BREATH! HE SHOULD-- [RW places his hand on ARL's shoulder.] RW: You're trying to make sense out of a fic again. That way leads to madness. > up for his sloppiness with sincerity, though. > Zangief amended his nickname for Gryph after experiencing > his full fighting skills. MMK : For your selfish booking I shall call you Kevin Nash. > Instead of "little American buddy", Ben had become Z-BOT: ...the Fiery Badger! RW: ...the Cubist American Bonfire! WAND: ...Superior-To-Philip-In-Every-Way Man! > "little American bear", a nickname that would probably stick GAVOK : Because both Gryph and bears take their dumps in the woods. > with him until Zangief's dying day. ARL : And that's why, your honor, Ben hired me to kill Zangief. > The other ironworkers took to calling them "Big Bear" and > "Little Bear". Gryph didn't seem to mind. TIFF But when they started calling him "American Beefcake," he went ballistic. GAVOK : Dammit! First Raiden, now this! Now I have to think of *another* name! > The steelworkers weren't particularly distressed over the > demolition of their factory. Apparently they'd been trying > to get the management to update the facilities for some time. This > was as good an excuse as any, and they were pretty sure it would be > followed through. If not, well, the Russians have a word for that: ARL: BULLSHIT! > nichevo. > It means, roughly, "Oh well, what can you do?" ARL: WE CAN KICK THE CRAP OUT OF THIS SORRY PIECE OF A -- RW: Someone hit Arly. He's losing it. TBS: He never *had* it, Racewing. > They'd move on. They had skills, MMK: *Mad* skillz! GAVOK: Mad *ninja* skillz! Z-BOT: Mad, bad, *crazy* ninja skillz! TIFF: That would explain their lack of gunshot wounds... > they knew how to live in lean times, and they were part of > a big and generous people who were learning how to be free > again. TBS : No, no, no! You're acting all wrong! [sighs] You can be so Communist-era sometimes... > They weren't worried about their futures, however > uncertain they might be. I kind of envied them. > The following day, I transmitted my report to IMF. Hi, > guys... the good news is, Shadolu didn't get the box. GAVOK: They went with the Red Snapper instead. > The bad news, WAND : ...is that there are at least two more chapters of this. > it was, um, destroyed in the train crash. Wasn't my fault, > honest. > They probably weren't going to pay me for this one, but > screw it, I can afford to give away a favor now and then. I > think they were more interested in getting it away from Shadolu > than in keeping it anyway. ARL: Which American government are *you* working for, Zoner? > That taken care of, I went up to the cockpit and made sure > everything was set for takeoff. Great... all I was missing > now was my crew. RW : Oh no! I left them at the zoo! > I went down and stuck my head out of the hatch. [GAVOK starts panting.] > "You ever need anything, little American bear, you > just ask Zangief," the big Russian was saying. MMK: As long as that something isn't diction skills, you should be fine. > "I will," Gryph promised. He stuck his hand out, and > Zangief took it in one of his big paws, shaking it firmly but not > turning it into a contest of strength. "You guys take care, all of > you." > The steelworkers, led by their huge chieftain, fell back, > but they weren't leaving the field until we were away. > They were better hosts than that. Z-BOT They also wanted to make sure we didn't steal any bathrobes. > "Sure we can't drop you in Scotland?" Ben asked, > turning to Cammy. "We have to stop somewhere around there for fuel > anyway." > "I wish," she said, GAVOK : No, really. Your seat's on the bomb bay doors. TIFF : What? You sonuvaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! > "but I'm not going straight back. Can't tell you where I'm > headed instead." MMK : Sore wa... [WAND sticks his sword under MMK's chin.] WAND: You've been spending WAY too much time with those Impro yahoos. > He shrugged. "That's life in the industry," GAVOK: Fame. Ain't it a bitch? > he said with a wry grin. "I'm glad I got to see you here, anyway." > "Me too," she replied. "Take care, I'll see you soon." > She gave him the kind of hug and kiss I wish I'd get more often, Z-BOT : No, wait... that's a chokehold. TIFF : You "don't tell secrets", huh?! RW : Ack... arg... > and he was still glowing when he and Fury climbed aboard > and locked down the hatch. ARL : Damn it, Gryphon! Don't ignite every time someone hugs you! GAVOK : Sorry. I couldn't help it. TIFF : Oh, God! The pain! It BURNS! > "Ugh," he remarked, settling into his seat and attaching > his harness points. "I think I'll take a month or so off. And > spend the whole time in the hot tub." MMK : And tell the reader about every minute of it. [ALL gag.] GAVOK: Maybe it won't be so bad if he's replaced by Eddie Murphy as James Brown. WAND: Not at this point. It'd have to be Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft. ARL: Accompanied by his new sidekick, Kato, played by Jet Li. RW: With a constantly naked Catherine Zeta-Jones sitting in front of them. MMK: At her side, of course, is her lover, played by an equally naked Salma Hayek. [TIFF quietly achieves critical mass.] TBS: Ooh, and they're taking turns shooting Backstreet Boys! [TIFF abruptly calms down.] TIFF: That *would* be pretty cool. GAVOK: Yeah! And there's a big slice of cheesecake! [ALL others pause to give GAVOK a weird look.] MMK: You're just never going to be any good at this, Vokkers. GAVOK : The important thing is that I *tried*! MMK: Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that. > "You'll feel better after a good night's sleep." > "I've -had- a good night's sleep." ARL : I have those every night. I don't need any more. > "How disappointing." I was smirking, I could feel it. > "Grow up," he growled, but I could tell he wasn't > really mad. WAND: He was just sorta pissed. > We fired up the Hercules and headed for home. > END BATTLE 02 TIFFA: Why oh why are there two digits there? Z-BOT: This thing isn't Y2K compliant. [A creak is heard.] RW: Door's open! [ALL exeunt.] ====== W I don't get it. I just don't fuckin' get it. It seemed like only yesterday that the gang and I were fighting and hanging out in Dream City. So how the hell did I end up in the Torture Theater? How did I get stuck, time and time again, forced to read the lousiest fics to besmirch the 'Net? And more importantly, how did I get tied up and laid flat inside a large, gridded cardboard box with Tiffa? I heard MMK shout, "D-3!" A moment later, a large blob of chocolate and peanut butter landed right by my head. Oh, shit. TBS I turned to MMK and shouted, "Miss! It's your turn, Gavok!" From my elevated pedestal, I looked down upon the rest. Whereas I wanted to play "Ooey Gooey Battleship," I was glad to have been a referee instead of a target. Both MMK and Gavok agreed that I was too small to make a target, which would have given one of them an advantage. Gavok loaded his catapult, pointed at MMK and shouted, "I'm going to take this ammo, turn it sideways, and SPLATTER RACEWING AND ARLIETH WITH IT! E-4!" Gavok launched. Both MMK and I knew that that'd be a hit. I snickered despite myself, but MMK's usually-loony expression did not change. RW One moment, I was walking out of the theater. Next thing I knew, I was having pleasant dreams about Roll and Sakura. (No, not THOSE types of dreams. You hentai.) I was awakened from my rest by a large plopping noise. I looked up and discovered that I was tied up and in some type of box. Arlieth looked at me. He was as bound and gagged as I was, and judging by the look of him, the plopping sound was caused by a mound of chocolate and peanut butter hitting his feet. Damn. Not again. If only Roll were here... MMK So, that lugan thinks he can beat ME in "Ooey Gooey Battleship," does he? Uh, uh. No way. Just because he gets a lucky hit does not spell curtains for the Emm-Emm-Kay! No, siree! I launch into my Canadian Ultra Taunt to show Gavok who's boss. Then I load my catapult, aim it, shout, "Eff 7, jabronie!" and fire. T I'm going to kill them. I'm going to cut them into bits and pieces. I'm going to slice them, dice them, and sell their remains to Jumpy for soup stock. I'm going to stick electrodes in their eyeballs. A blob of peanut butter and chocolate just landed by my head. They are going to be VERY SHARP electrodes. G I like pie. I like monster trucks, too. I sure could go for a monster truck pie right now. Oh, yeah... the game. "IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO?!?" I shouted triumphantly. MMK sighed, "I scored a hit on you, you idiot." "Well,... well... yeah, but it didn't hurt! And besides, this next shot will knock your socks off!" I loaded my catapult and took aim. "D-4!" I shouted as I let it rip... ...and knocked Snotter off of his referee pedestal. Crawling from the gooey blob, he licked his face, pointed to MMK's box and said, "The box, Gavok. You're supposed to hit the people tied up in the BOX." I nodded. And then I had a brilliant idea. If I launched MYSELF into MMK's box, I'd know how he arranged his pieces! I sat in the catapult, turned it towards his box, shouted "D-4!" and fired. A The first time I came to this theater nearly cost me my life and my sanity. It was much worse than being tied up, gagged, and having my feet covered with a brown and gold blob. Not MUCH worse, mind you, but at least my brain wasn't bleeding. I looked over at Racewing who, to his credit, was trying not to laugh at my predicament. I sighed and looked up, thinking about how I could get out of this. And then, it hit me. Unforuntately, "it" was not a means of escape. "It" was Gavok. "MMMMMMMMMMPH!" I howled in pain as Gavok landed on my ribcage, rolled off and slammed into one of the box's walls. "WHOA!" he shouted. "THAT WAS COOL!" MMK looked down on us. "Gavok, you cheater! You're not supposed to do that!" "Yeah, but it's fun!" he replied. I rolled my eyes. Racewing seemed to wuffle in agreement. "Really?" MMK asked. Gavok nodded, responding, "Why don't you give it a try?" MMK grinned widely and rushed off. A moment later, as I saw him render himself airborne, I had the feeling that either Wanderer or Tiffa was in for a very rude surprise. Judging by the loud, muffled scream that we heard a moment later, I guessed it was Tiffa. T That really hurt. Whatever landed on me smelled like... cheese. I looked up. The man sitting on me wore a red tuxedo. I snapped the ropes on my wrists. KILL. W Next to me, Tiffa suddenly broke free and reached up towards whatever had just landed on her. I heard someone yell "SWEET JESUS FLUTIE!" That had to be the MMK. As Tiffa ripped out of the cardboard box, I struggled with my ropes for a second, meaning to back her up, but they were too tight. Two things occurred to me just then; the first was that Tiffa was going after the MMK, so she could be busy for a while. The second was that I can teleport. Oh, yeah. I disappeared and reappeared two feet straight up, in the same position, feeling like an idiot. My ropes didn't come with me. Twisting in midair, I pulled out my sword and landed on one knee, looking around. To my right, Tiffa chased the MMK around the room, waving that damned chainsaw -- one day, I've gotta figure out where she keeps that thing -- and the Black Snotling was staring at me from a referee's chair. To the left was another gridwork cardboard box. Gavok sat on it, watching Tiffa chase the MMK. "Okay. Now you die," I said to the Snotling. Judging from the look on his face, I think he believed me. TBS Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit... Racewing and Arlieth got the same idea, I guess. They appeared above the cardboard box without their ropes right after Wanderer did. They looked just as angry. Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit... MMK You know, I just noticed that I spend all my time in this theater running from someone, or dodging their attacks, or no-selling Pidgeoner's chokeslams, or something like that. I wonder what that means. Tiffa and her chainsaw were right behind me, so close I could feel the heat off the chainsaw blade. 'Vokkers and Snotters were right behind Tiffa, getting chased by everyone else who'd been playing "Ooey Gooey Battleship". I should've given 'em all more drugs. I ran by the projectionist's booth for Torture Theater, and who should come out but Nere? He had a grenade launcher and was yelling something about "a Redfield-style smackdown". I wasn't really paying attention. Then he fired, and the whole front of the theater got vaporized. Little Mac, who he'd been trying to shoot at, looked at the gun, at him, then back at the front of the theater. His jaw was wide open. A The theater's open. Hold on. The theater's open. I love you, Nere. Racewing and I tossed the Snotling to the side and ran for it. Daylight never felt so good. Just the same, I didn't stop running 'til I was three blocks away. W Gavok hid in his hat behind the snack bar when he saw me coming. I nearly didn't notice his hat lying on the floor, but when I did, I stuck it in the microwave and set it on "Baked Potato". Then Nere nearly took my damn head off with a flame round. When I dared to look up again, the front of the theater had been blown apart. The doors were lying cockeyed on the lobby floor. Unfortunately, I could see what looked like retracted blast shutters directly above them. "TIFFA! WE'RE OUTTA HERE!" I yelled. She didn't look like she heard me, but then, past her, I could see eDAN in the projectionist's booth. He looked pissed, and he was standing right next to a console with a big red button on it. I vaulted the snack counter and ran for it. Tiffa could take care of herself. T Kill. Maim. Destroy. Cut. Pierce. Spindle. Mutilate. Sla-- Hold on. Did he just say we're out of here? He must've. The front doors were open, and Wanderer was running through them. MMK, consider this your lucky day. Suddenly, sheets of steel started sliding down from over the falling doors, and things got a little complicated. eD Nere, you jabronie. "Great job, slapnuts!" I yelled. We'd already lost two experimentees. The Snotling was already out the door, and Wanderer was right behind him. I wasn't going to lose all of them. No way in hell. There were still *two chapters* of this 'fic left, and they were gonna watch every last second. I hit the red button marked with the biohazard symbol, and hoped it did something cool. T I'm not gonna make it. I'm not gonna make it. I'm gonna be trapped in here. With Gavok and the MMK. I've never run so fast in my life. I slid under the shutters as they closed, cutting myself on the broken glass, but I was out. I was free. Before eDAN could pull some other trick, I scrambled to my feet and got the hell out of the theater. MMK I realized about ten minutes later that, apparently, Tiffa wasn't chasing me anymore. Back in the lobby, the theater doors were replaced by a spiffy-looking set of steel shutters with radiation symbols on them. The projectionist's booth was empty, except for spent shells, broken arrows, and about three hundred thousand empty bottles and cans of Mountain Dew. The microwave behind the snack counter dinged, and Gavok tumbled out of it, glowing green. He didn't seem any different than usual. G Mutant Gavok like pie. Pie good. Ba chomp ba chewey chomp. MMK "Hey, Vokkers!" I shouted. "Gavok bad?" he said, teetering slightly on his feet. "No, not as far as I know. Look, I think we're trapped in here again. Wanna play Power Stone?" "Power Stone good. Gavok like Power Stone. Ba chewey." "All right, then. Let's go!" eD Well, that was a disaster. Sure, we got to do all that Chow Yun-Fat badass shit we'd been saving up, but the experimentees got away, the Men in Black got away, I left half a can of Mountain Dew in the theater, and we had to get out real quick before we were trapped in the theater too. I guess I'll have to come up with some other way to get my money... === Staff: Self-Appointed Editor: Thomas "Wanderer" Wilde Writing Staff (in no particular order): James Howard, the Multimediocre Knight mmk@beer.com http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Battlefield/4281/ the Black Snotling camcarr@ibm.net Arlieth Tralare arlieth@west.net http://www.west.net/~arlieth W4 woofersan@home.com Geson "Racewing" Hatchett ghatch@panix.com http://racewing.tripod.com Gavok jasp@cyberex.net Scott "Falconer" Faulkner sfaulk@earthlink.net Zeek Silverfire twarner@erinet.net Thomas Wilde [a.k.a. Wanderer] storyteller@msc.net http://www.dimfuture.net/elsewhere/ Thanks to Quanah Harjo, Anthony Jennings, Robert Daniel Conway, Michael Autrey, Shane Hoover, and Tiffa for contributing their characters. Theme song by Racewing, after Michael Autrey. Introduction by Wanderer. Conclusion by W4 and Wanderer. "Street Fighter: Warrior's Legacy" is originally by Benjamin Hutchins, with help from what would appear to be everyone in Massachusetts. All Street Fighter characters are copyrighted by Capcom. All original characters are owned by Eyrie Productions Unlimited. All Octagon Rumble characters are copyright their respective owners. Please don't use them. We're horribly irrational and violent people. Links: Mystery Octagon Theater: http://www.dimfuture.net/elsewhere/mot.html Thanks for reading. > Gryphon shrugged and grinned at us both. "Nope, not a > clue. But hey, this is detente, guys," he said. "Shadolu > doesn't get it; we don't get it; the Russians don't get to > keep it."