Posted by ManMan presents (finally!) - on July 07, 2001 at 09:19:27:
ManMan Hits the Road - Las Vegas - Part One!
Ned Bailor staggered to the nearest boulder, sat down and resigned
himself to fate. He knew he hadn’t been a good person in his short life, that
he’d lied, cheated, robbed (occasionally with success) and he’d probably go to
Hell when he died. “It’s all about Karma,” he thought to himself. “I’ve done bad
things so bad things will happen to me. If I’d done good things....” He shrugged
and decided not to think about. Instead, he explored his dry, cracked lips with
a swollen tongue and wondered how he actually deserved any of this - Being
hounded out of the only family he ever really knew, forced into hiding but with
a record like his, not many people wanted anything to do with him, fellow
criminals looked down at him, while the public were actually - Ha!- afraid of
him. After a few months, he wasn’t safe anywhere in Parodiopolis, so he made a
final desperate attempt to contact his brother in Las Vegas and maybe stay with
him until he could figure out a better plan, he and his biological family had
never gotten on, they didn’t understand why Ned did the things he did, didn’t
like the way he was.......different and he left home as soon as he could, he
just hoped his brother would put him up, it had been a long time after all.
Following route 102 into Las Vegas he’d hoped to get most of the way by
hitch-hiking, but the desert road was unusually quiet and he hadn’t seen anyone
in the past 3 days. The harsh weather had taken it’s toll on the teenager and
the water Ned had taken along had been drank a long time ago. “Now I’m going to
die,” he croaked to himself.
His train of depressed thought was derailed slightly when a butterfly landed on his knee. At first, Ned lifted his hand instinctively to squash the thing when he hesitated, and regarded a thing he’d never really looked at before, the insects delicate wings were a summer yellow decorated with quiet wisps of black flame around it’s edge. It was, Ned thought, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. With one finger, he gently lifted the butterfly up close to his face and inspected it awhile, wondering how it came to be way out here in the middle of the desert and how it had survived, when it’s wings fluttered slightly and it leapt from Ned’s finger onto the end of his nose. Surprised, but not afraid, Ned left the butterfly where it was, feeling the insects legs gently tickle him when he realised the butterfly was looking at him. Something occurred to Ned and his mouth spread wide into a goofy smile, baring his brace-laden teeth. “Maybe you’re wondering why I’m out here...” He told his new passenger. But the butterfly didn’t answer, just regarded the teenager curiously before fluttering uncertainly into the air. Ned watched his friend leave, even wishing it good luck in finding water or whatever it needed to survive before closing his eyes again and praying that now he was in such a good mood, the end would be quick.
BEEP! BEEP!
Ned, startled, opened his eyes expecting to find the police waiting for him or worse, his old ‘family’. But instead was surprised to find a pink cadillac parked next to him, the driver of which was a gorgeous blonde woman who’s smile made his toes tingle. In the back seat was what looked like Elvis Presley giving Ned a concerned look. The woman spoke first. “Hey there, need a lift?”
“You look thirsty.....Wanna Pepsi?” Elvis offered him a can.
“Karma,” Ned muttered happily before scrambling into the car.
----
A smoky, alcohol-burdened atmosphere lay like a heavy fog over the casino of the Golden Lion Hotel. It clung to the desperate gamblers trying to make a quick dollar, it fuelled the out-of-town hicks plundering the dime slot machines and it choked the fronds of a super-powered, fern-wielding teenager struggling on a poker table. The teenager in question was Mark Hopkins, AKA spiffy, who for the past 6 hours had steadily been losing money. He glanced anxiously at what was left of his chips, and then back at his cards. “Um......All in,” he tried as casually as possible to say, but it came out an octave higher than he’d intended, making the hero sound like he’d just inhaled helium, he coughed nervously and pushed the 40 dollar stack into the centre of the table. The only gambler left in the hand, a man with a canine face and a nasty gleam in his eye, studied spiffy intensely. “How much is the bet?” He asked. A straight backed dealer gave the chips a quick count, “230 dollars....” he paused, squinted and the stack in the middle and picked something from the middle. “220 dollars......And a button,” he replied, with a suspicious glance towards spiffy.
“Oops...” The teenager let out a nervous laugh, which he swallowed too quickly. “Must’ve......Fallen off or something....”
“The bet is at 220 dollars,” confirmed the dealer. “With 480 dollars in the middle.”
The gambler sighed, but didn’t move. He gazed at spiffy again and began to tap the table with a red $25 chip. Tap...Tap...Tap... The gambler sucked the inside of his chin, sighed and began tapping again. Tap...Tap...Tap...
“Oh would you come on already??” spiffy blurted in exasperation. When the casino went quiet, he realised everybody was looking at him, he smiled coyly and sat back down on his stool. “I mean.....uh....Take your time.”
The gambler smiled, the glint of victory already in his eyes, he picked up some chips and threw them into the centre. “You’re bluffing - Badly. I call.”
“Okay gentleman, let’s see your hands,” announced the dealer.
The gambler overturned his cards one by one, looking at spiffy the entire time, though the fern-wielder didn’t notice, his gaze was fixed on the mans hand. Jack of Hearts, 8 of Diamonds, 8 of Clubs, Jack of Diamonds, Jack of Spades - A full house. The gambler smiled baring sharp teeth and motioned for spiffy to show his hand. spiffy sighed and threw his cards on the table.
The gamblers face dropped.
“See? I only have this two pair. These 2 sevens......And those 2 sevens. Two pair,” spiffy smiled as the pile of chips were pushed over to him. “Ha Ha!” he exclaimed. “In your FACE dog face man! In your smelly wet-nosed face!” He continued to point and laugh at the man until a large-barrel chested bouncer approached.
“Excuse me sir?” he asked.
spiffy turned to face the man, and faced the bottom of the mans ribcage. “Um......Yes?” he asked weakly.
“How old are you?”
spiffy hesitated. “Aw man!” he sulked, and let himself be escorted back to his room. “But........I’m the mayor!” he complained weakly.
“Of course you are sir,” the bouncer reassured him.
----
“Channel 417 - The Cheese channel?? Whoa man, that’s alot of cheese....*click* Channel 418 - A psychic channel?” The door to the suite opened and spiffy moped in, dragging his feet. “Can you believe how many channels there are here?” Nats, spiffy’s companion and channel surfer asked him. “Look at this! A psychic channel! And look at the TV guide! It’s huge!” Nats exclaimed and pointed to what spiffy had first thought was a small coffee table. The silence that followed alerted Nats to the fact that maybe spiffy wasn’t happy. “Did the gambling go okay?”
“Beware all gardeners, chauffeurs and drag performers.....” The TV blared.
spiffy threw himself into an over-sized chair and growled miserably.
The flying-phenom scowled, “Something wrong?”
“Wrong?” spiffy squealed. “What could possibly be wrong? I’m Omni-Mayor and as such I’m one of the most respected government officials in the country...”
“Well, I wouldn’t go *that* far...” Nats interrupted.
”Beware all comedians, singers and writers!”
“So respected,” spiffy continued, “That I have to share a hotel room with my chauffeur....and the minute I actually start winning money in their casino they call me in for being under-age, of course they didn’t mind me gambling when I was losing money...”
“Ah.....There is something wrong, then. How much did you lose?”
spiffy in reply, took out his wallet, opened the zipper and turned it upside-down. A lone quarter tumbled onto the floor. “Great,” he muttered. “Now I can phone Vizh and congratulate him on being promoted to the second most worthless person to lead a superteam.”
“Hey, look on the bright side,” Nats reassured him. “I’m sure you can get your money back......Put up parking fines or something......heh heh.”
“Beware of the amazing offer that we at the Psychic Channel are offering you! 2 phrenology readings for the price of 1! Your life may just depend on it.......”
----
The pink Cadillac rumbled slowly along the desert highway, the skyscraping hotels of Las Vegas distant on the horizon. “So, how did you get out here?” ManMan asked Ned between gulps of his Pepsi.
“Oh....Well.....I was figuring on looking up my brother in the city. I was hoping to stay with him for a while,” the teenager explained. He didn’t bother to lie about anything, his age, name, he even figured to tell them his past if they asked.
“So you decided to walk? From where?”
“Parodiopolis.”
ManMan whistled in amazement. “That’s the entire length of the country! And you did this all by yourself? You’re lucky, y’know? There are some right loonies out there.”
Stacy smiled, “Like a superhero who dresses as Elvis Presley and has a talking knife as his best friend?”
Joe laughed while Ned shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat. “Uh......Superhero? Who is?” He asked, repressing the panic in his voice.
“Me!” Joe declared, “I’m ManMan! And this -” He pointed a finger past Ned toward the dashboard.
“-is Knifey,” his sidekick finished.
Ned’s eyes widened, they hadn’t recognised him, or had they? Were they giving him a lift? Or had word gotten around and now the heroes were looking for them? Escape! But where to? If he asked to leave now, it would look suspicious, too suspicious, they would ask why and he’d be forced to come up with some bad lie, which they might investigate, and find out it was false, and track him down, put him in jail, maybe for life! He groaned.
“Anything wrong?” Stacy asked, turning her head.
“Uh.....No, no, nothing. You’re a superhero?......Cool,” Ned enthused weakly. “So what, uh villains have fought?”
“Practically everybody,” Joe replied, without a hint of modesty. “And we’ve beaten them all.”
“Or we choked them into submission with the trail of dust we left as we fled....” continued Knifey.
“Ha Ha,” Joe snorted humourlessly. “We fought the devil, and we didn’t run then,” he countered.
“We only did that because you didn’t like the idea of being married to him.”
“Sure, but my thoughts of what he would do on the wedding night is what really motivated me,” Joe explained with a cold shudder.
Ned relaxed slightly in the knowledge that they hadn’t recognised his civilian identity and blurted out the question he’d wanted to ask in the first place. “Are you a member of the Lair Legion?”
“Nope,” Joe replied, enjoying his question and answer session. “I like the freedom of being solo.”
“And you have the choice to opt out of any really dangerous missions,” added Stacy.
“Hey! Good one!” Knifey exclaimed.
“How about the Abandoned Legion?” Ned continued, undeterred.
Joe shook his head. “Nah, for the same reason. Plus spiffy would be like, my boss and that would just be weird.”
“You know spiffy?” A hint of anxiety had crept into Ned’s voice.
“Sure! We’re like two peas in a pod....”
“Two cabbages in a patch?” Knifey offered.
Joe continued, ignoring the sniggering from Stacy and Knifey. “When we work together it’s like-,”
“The Beatles without Lennon and McCartney?”
The Elvis impersonator shot them an annoyed glance. “What’s with you guys today?” He sank further into the back seat, sulking. “I mean, I’m trying to build us up, trying to make Ned here feel a little more safe and secure about being with 3 complete strangers out in the middle of the desert and you keep shooting me down!”
“Aww....” Stacy gave him a sympathetic laugh. “We’re sorry, we didn’t mean to ‘shoot you down’ we thought....”
“We thought you were being your usual big-headed self. Sorry,” agreed Knifey.
“Well,” Joe pouted. “You’ll need to apologise to spiffy too when we meet him.”
Alarm bells rang in Ned’s head. “We’re......We’re.....We’re meeting spiffy in the city?”
“Yeah, we’re performing a ceremony honouring....The King,” replied Joe, unconsciously quivering his lip. “Hey!” He called out, his tone brightening immediately. “Did you know spiff is the Mayor of the city? I bet he can get us into all the coolest places....”
----
“And if I catch you street hustling again, I’ll throw you in jail!” Warned the policeman, carrying a small folding table and 3 cups with him and throwing them into the back of his patrol car. “But......I wasn’t hustling! I was trying to win my quarter back!” Protested the fern-wielder as the officer drove away. Things hadn’t gotten much better since he’d left the hotel. Nats had driven him almost insane with the constant flickering of channels, it reminded spiffy of a bizarre rave, featuring Tony Danza, Dean Martin and Bob Hope, that or the time he’d gotten himself locked in the Lair Mansion’s broom closet.
Leaving the suite he’d decided to get some fresh air, explore the city, escape from the casino and......and promptly got lost. Without money he couldn’t afford a cab and nobody would offer directions for a quarter. So he’d tried a last desperate gambit, winning a quarter at a time from a street hustler, he’d approached the man, lost his quarter and was frantically thinking of ways of winning it back when he heard the hustler scream an expletive and disappear in a cloud of dust, leaving spiffy with the equipment as the policeman pulled up. Protestations that he was the mayor had -again- gotten nowhere, though the cop had given the fern-wielder a lecture on the responsibility of office and that political corruption was what was weakening the country. spiffy agreed, and vowed to fight political corruption in all its forms if only the policeman would “over look” this incident this one time. Then the officer had left. “Great. Just perfect!” The fern-wielder cried as it started to rain.
----
“Right, look for a hotel called......” Joe ruffled around in his pocket before producing the telegram spiffy had sent him. “-The Golden Lion. spiffy and Nats are staying there, we should have suites pre-arranged, and if I have a word with the Manager, I’m sure he’ll out you up until you find your brother, Ned,” he explained, watching the streets carefully. Ned’s grip on the car door had increased since their arrival in Las Vegas, his clenched muscles betrayed his fear and he could only reply to Joe with a stiff nod and a quick “thanks”, his mind began thinking about jail, a maximum security prison where he’d be confined probably for the rest of his life or maybe he’d be interned at the Vault, a prison for criminals with super-powers and where people like him would soon be known as ‘Honey’. A place where-
“Hey! Pull over! Isn’t that spiffy?” Joe asked, pointing towards the opposite side of the street as the car parked on the sidewalk. Ned jerked his head and saw a dark figure walking slowly, but inevitably towards them. “How do you know it’s him?” Stacy asked.
“Who else has an umbrella made of ferns?” he replied. “Hey spiff!” Joe called, waving his arms frantically.
This was it. Ned had to move now or be caught, he imagined himself leaping from the car, sprinting into an alleyway and into safety. But his legs wouldn’t move, they refused to function, disagreed with any order Ned put to them. His mind became more frantic, begging and pleading his limbs to move, even flap in the general direction of safety! Anything! Please!
spiffy trundled to the side of the car and gave them a downcast smile. “Heya Manny,” he greeted and cast his eyes over the rest of the group. “Why don’t you have the top up? It’s pouring down!”
“Trickshot* doesn’t have one,” Knifey replied. “It seems that the archer prefers to look good in the face of actual practicality.”
“Oh...” spiffy glanced at Stacy and flashed a coy smile. “Hi, I’m spiffy. I’m the Mayor and I lead my own supergroup.”
“What? Like Pink Floyd?” The girl replied.
“Huh? No, uh......The Abandoned Legion?” spiffy offered.
“So......Strays then?” Stacy suggested.
The fern-wielder didn’t know how to answer. “Uh......”
“You pick up abandoned superheros.....You’re like, a ‘pound’ for lost superheros?” Stacy asked, this time with a light grin on her face.
“No!” spiffy answered, indignantly. “We’ve battled alongside the Lair Legion loads of times! We even have a God who bums aroun- operates out of our Headquarters!” Then something twigged inside of him. “Ooh......You’re joking right?” The cars laughter gave him his reply. “Right, good one,” he added.
“Yeah,” chuckled Joe. “That’s Stacy Gwen, and that-” pointing to the passenger seat. “- is Ned Bailor.”
“Hiya Ned,” spiffy acknowledged him. Then the fern-wielder frowned and leant into the car slightly more. “Ned?” He’d heard the name before......Lots of times before. Ned looked up at spiffy. A puppy dog pleading in the teenagers eyes, a fixed smile on his face which looked more like a grimace. “You!” spiffy cried. Fronds that were keeping him dry lassoed quickly around Neds chest and arms, securing him tightly to the passenger seat.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Demanded Stacy, and picked up Knifey from the dashboard and poked him toward spiffy.
“Whoa lady! Whoa!” spiffy protested. “Your passenger’s a criminal!”
“Wait a second spiff,” Joe started, then took Knifey from Stacy. “Let’s listen to what he’s got to say, spiffy wouldn’t do this without a good reason....” He told her.
“Too right,” spiffy confirmed, he turned to Ned. “If I unwrap, will you promise not to morph and try to escape?” Ned’s mouth was covered in a large frond so he nodded and spiffy let him go. “Right, tell them who you are,” spiffy ordered.
“I......um......I’m sorry,” Ned mumbled, then sighed. “My name is Ned Bailor, I’m also known as Pudu Lad.”
Joe was confused. “Who?”
“I was part of the supervillain group known as The Proctology. You’ve probably heard of them,” Ned replied.
Joe was still confused. “Uh.......Sure, okay,” he replied and mouthed a ‘Who?’ to Knifey.
“Let’s take him down to the nearest police station, then we can book him,” spiffy suggested.
“Wait!” Ned pleaded. “I......I have information! About The Proctology!”
“Who cares?” spiffy told him and climbed into the back of the car. “You guys pop up, try to rob a bank that has no money in and we knock you all flat in about 2 minutes.”
“Not this time.....They’ve.....had a line-up change.....New leadership,” Ned gulped.
“So?”
“His name’s.....The Thighmaster,” replied Ned.
“Aw......Not him again!” cried Joe and Knifey in unison.
“And......One of them, looks exactly like you,” continued Ned, pointing to spiffy.
{* Trickshot loaned ManMan the cadillac way back in ArachKnight City!}
End of Part One!
Next time! - It’s an all Proctology issue! Starting with their recent
history we see how The Thighmaster took control! How Ned found himself in the
middle of the desert! And why they pose an ‘actual’ threat! Don’t be square, be
there!