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Visionary, limping towards the finish line
Sat Dec 18, 2004 at 01:54:53 pm EST
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The long delayed Follies of Youth, Chapter #(somebody else do the math): "I think we need a virgin"
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Hello folks. I'm having a heck of a time visiting the board, and my access this weekend is even more limited than I had hoped it would be. As a result, I'm going to have to save stories to disk and read them during the upcoming week, then hopefully comment on them sometime next week after the holidays (I should have full access, at least temporarily, between Christmas and New Years).

I wanted to bring you the finale of the Follies of Youth storyline today, but even though I've had this preceding part written for days, I haven't been able to find any way to get it up until now. With luck, I'll try and get Dancer's conclusion posted tomorrow... If not, it'll likely have to wait until next weekend.

Sorry for everything, and I hope everyone is doing well.



The long delayed Follies of Youth, Chapter #(somebody else do the math): "I think we need a virgin"


Previously in "Follies of Youth":

Eddie the starved-for-entertainment Imp has reverted the entire Lair Legion back
to their teenage years (with one or two interesting variations, including a
middle-aged CSFB!) Things seems to be winding down when Lisa summoned the imp
for a righteous beating, but some twisted writing partner of mine decided that
we couldn't just get on with the ending and left me holding the bag to come up
with some kind of further complication, as if I don't have enough to... Um...
Well, that's kind of a tangent. Anyway, Eddie appeared, made with some very
brief small talk, then blinked out taking the entire LL to god knows where...





“Okay guys, huddle up!” Coach Foxglove called out to them. The team gathered on
the sideline as the crowded gymnasium reverberated with the enthusiasm of the
cheering student body. “We’re down by 1 point, with time for one more chance
after we inbound the ball. Our entire season comes down to this last play…”

“We know, Coach” Visionary assured the man. “Who would have thought that a tiny
school like ours, on the verge of cutting the perennially losing basketball
program altogether, could dig deep within ourselves and find the true meaning of
teamwork to come this close to winning the state championships?”

“Things all turned around when Coach showed up” Jay said. “Not only has he
inspired us by teaching us the fundamentals of the game, and by standing up to
town pressure when he benched Epitome against our arch-rivals Gothametropolis
Central, but he’s also atoned for the mistakes that ruined his own professional
coaching career and even kicked his drinking habit, all while wooing simple
small-town librarian and internet porn writer April.”

“I know I’m inspired” Trickshot agreed.

“Alright, here’s the plan…” Coach Foxglove began, biting back tears of pride at
how far these kids had come. “Vizh, you inbound the ball to Mumphrey… They
won’t be guarding him all that well, since he’s an exchange student and they
never get to do anything important in situations like this.”

“Indeed” Mumphrey noted.

“Epitome, you set up a screen so that Mumph can get the ball to Tricky. He’s
our best shooter, so they’ll be expecting him to take the last shot… and that’s
when he’ll pass to Jay, who will be breaking at the top of the paint.”

“But Coach!” Jay complained worriedly. “I lost my Timberwolves hat, which oddly
enough made me the most popular kid and the best athlete in school despite being
all hairy… which was really a good thing, as I finally learned that being
popular wasn’t as important as being yourself, and that I actually wanted to be
with my best friend Whitney instead of with incredibly hot Sarah…”

“Does that mean Sarah’s available?” Visionary asked quickly. “Because despite
never being popular, I’ve always had a crush on her and I was thinking that
maybe she was really just a nice girl who had learned a valuable lesson about
underestimating the quiet guys while chasing after…”

“Guys… guys!” Dream sighed. “Timeout’s almost up. Jay, you can do this… All
of you can. You just have to believe in yourselves. I… I just want to say…
that it’s been the single greatest privilege of all my years of…”

“Booooring” Eddie groaned, thumbing the channel button on his remote
control. “What else is on?”



Sarah adjusted her tight knit sweater and grasped her pom-poms. More than
anything in her entire life, she had wanted to be a cheerleader. No… that
wasn’t quite right. She had wanted to be the cheer captain of a squad that won
the National High School Spirit Cheerathalon. To her, there was no prouder
uniform than the pleated skirt and bobby socks she donned each afternoon to
drill her squad towards perfection.

If only she still had a squad left to lead. She looked at the empty locker room
and sighed. Who could have ever imagined that half her team would be arrested
for bank robbery, while the other half went on the mysterious bus trip with the
football team to the old campgrounds upstate and were never heard from again.
Sure, she had managed to find a few new recruits… Like that Lisa girl, who
wasn’t so much interested in cheering but was actively searching for a way to
meet guys while “keeping limber”. As for that Yo… Girl? Boy? Either way, pep
didn’t seem to be in his/her vocabulary, although the offer to write some cheers
based on the essential meaningless of existence showed commitment to the squad.
And then there was that odd girl in the butterfly wings who always went around
the locker room naked…

Still, that was hardly enough to compete in this year’s Cheerathalon… and
considering the scandalous accusations that her predecessor as cheer captain had
stolen dance routines from a rival school, Sarah had to admit that perhaps no
amount of school spirit could save things now…

“Well” Eddie observed. “This simply won't do…” He pressed another button.



“That’s the current situation, Commander Drury” Hallie reported to the SPUD
director via the wall-sized two-way video screen. “We seemed to have identified
the cause of the age reversal the team’s been struggling with, but we’ve no idea
where they’ve disappeared to now or how to get them back. And we don’t have any
kind of readings to make sense out of this Eddie character, all of which
suggests magic… Unfortunately, Xander the Improbable is rumored to be dead
right now… and Whitney Darkness, well, she’s not exactly available to ask
either. But I assure you the staff here is chasing down every lead we can
find.”

“Good, good” he said, nodding and chewing his cigar. “Of course, that might be
a little more reassuring had it come from a computer that wasn’t wearing that
particular get-up... Just what kinda programs are ya runnin’ over there?”

“Um… what?” Hallie ventured. “What’s wrong with my…” She checked out her form
to find the tight-fitting sweater adorning her chest with a block “L” and the
little matching pleated skirt. “Oh, son of a bitc…” she managed before
she too disappeared.



“Can you see anything?” Al B. asked eagerly from the crawlspace behind the
girl’s locker room. “C’mon… it’s my turn!”

“Hold yer horses…” Trickshot replied, squinting through the hole in the pipe
leading into the girl’s shower. “I think somebody’s coming…”

“Is it that new girl? Lemme see! She’s hot!”

“Yeah, and green… and I hear she’s dating the captain of the football team, who
happens to stuff ya into a locker five times a day as it is. Putting the moves
on his babe ain’t likely to help matters.”

“True…” the science geek admitted. “But any amount of wedgies would be worth
it.”

Trickshot shook his head, and went back to studying the view. “Man, we have so
got to set you up with Lisa ‘Two-step’ Waltz… See, all you gotta do for the
first step is…” He broke off his exposition suddenly with an intake of breath.
“Holy...! Keep quiet…” he whispered. “It looks like cheerleading practice just
ended! Jackpot!”

“The whole team?” Al breathed.

“The whole team! C’mon babes…Just drop the towels… I swear, Lord, do this one
little favor for ol’ Tricky…”

“Lemme see!”

“BOUNDERS!” Mumphrey called suddenly, making the other two teens jump and hit
their heads on the low ceiling.

“I am so telling your mothers” AG noted, glancing over Mumphrey’s shoulder and
into the ventilator opening leading back to the peep hole.

“Damn” Eddie sighed from his couch. “Just when it was getting interesting…”

“Mumphrey?” Lisa’s voice rang out from the other side of the shower wall. “What
are you doing back there..?”

The English exchange student blushed beet red. “On my honor, Ms Waltz, I
happened upon a shameful plot to bear improper witness to you and your teammates
in their altogether by masters Bastion and Harper here, and was about to give
them a right sound thrashing.”

“My hero” Lisa’s voice rang out. “Where are they, anyway? On the other side of
the shower wall?”

“Yeah” AG responded grimly while Tricky and Al gulped.

“And is it an enclosed and confined space?” Hallie asked speculatively.

“Indeed” Mumphrey agreed.

“Well then…” Lisa said. “It seems to me that this might be the perfect
opportunity for them to get to know the live mascot that Epitome and the others
stole from Gothametropolis Central this afternoon... What did you say the GC
team was named, Sarah?”

“The Gothametropolis Fighting Rabid Beavers”

“Hmmmm…” Eddie paused, holding the remote speculatively. “This channel’s
looking up suddenly. Still, if it’s mindless carnage I want…”




“I think he’s still out there!” Al B. informed them, listening at the snack bar
door. “What kind of thing could have done that to poor Principal Garrick? Or
have done it to his eyeballs rather? And why with a farm implement? That’s
just needlessly elaborate.”

“Are you asking out of just the faculty?” Visionary wondered, “Or should we
include the entire student body?”

“We should never have run over that fisherman guy last summer, then tried to
cover it up” Epitome noted nervously. “Or taken these jobs as camp counselors,
only to pair off with the girls and have sex every night. And dumping that
pig’s blood on the crazy naked butterfly girl at the prom may have been a
mistake too.”

“Yeah, well… hindsight’s 20/20” Trickshot grumbled. “At least the current
situation still beats last year’s graduation, when the mayor ascended or
whatever into that giant fern thing that ate the seniors. So what do we do
now?”

“I think we should punch somebody” Epitome reasoned carefully. “I really do.”

“Dude… it didn’t help with the SATs, and it’s not gonna help now.”

“I think we need a virgin” Lisa suggested.

“Er… I said I was willing to consider your suggestions on trying new things in
due course…” Mumphrey coughed delicately. “But I really think that now is not
the proper time…”

“Not for that…” Lisa said. “Though I like that you’re keeping an open
mind. No… somehow I think the key to defeating this serial killer is to find a
virginal girl to fight him.” She looked around the room. “So… um…?”

All the gathered teens studiously avoided meeting her gaze.

“Right. I guess it was a long-shot at Inspiration Point Drive-In…”

“Actually...” Hallie sighed, stepping forward. “I’m…”

“…As far from a virgin as possible” Epitome cut in, with a nervous look at the
other guys. “Really. It’s just like I said. We were just doing it a few
minutes ago, in fact. We do it all the time.”

“We…?” she blinked, then frowned at him. “The hell we do! What have you been
saying about me? Does the whole school think I’m some kind of slut?”

“Hey!” Lisa argued. “Oh, wait… nobody actually mentioned me, did they? Never
mind.”

“So…” a gravely voice whispered into Sarah’s ear from behind her. “Do you like
scary parodies?”

“Just a minute…” the teenager told the man in the white plastic mask brandishing
a butcher knife. “We’re kind of in the middle of something here.”

“No… the whole school doesn’t think anything of the sort” Al hastened to assure
Hallie. “Really.”

“Yeah… It was only the guys like Al who paid $5 to see your underwear in the
men’s room.” Trickshot added.

“WHAT?” Hallie yelled.

“Um… excuse me…” the killer in the white mask said politely, tapping Sarah on
the shoulder. “Mass murdering psychopath here… You’re all kind of upstaging my
big scene…”

“Yes, I suppose so” Sarah admitted. “You… bully stereotype!” she yelled to
Epitome, pointing to the cloaked and menacing figure. “You were right... I
think you should punch this guy!”

“Finally…” the testostorone fueled adolescent growled, hauling off and
decking the killer. The cloaked would-be slasher went flying through the wall
of the snack bar and across row after row of parked cars (including taking the
roof off of Aunt Sally, which never stopped rocking), and finally vanished over
inspiration point itself. “Woah… Did you see that?!” the paragon of power
observed. “I so totally nailed that guy! Dude, I am so freaking sweet!” He
kissed his both his biceps for emphasis.

“I can’t believe I gave you my panties” Hallie groaned. “And let you get to
second base.”

“Um… what just happened?” Visionary asked. “Not the second base thing… although
I’m both curious and surprisingly anxious about just what that entails… but…
well, this whole thing is getting kind of weird.”

“It’s a post-modern horror film” Sarah explained. “I just latched on to that,
and then suddenly remembered who we are and what we’re doing here.”

“Because cutesy self-awareness is part of the whole post-modern horror shtick…”
Lisa noted, nodding herself. “I knew something wasn’t quite right. My dialogue
was atrocious… and these outfits…”

“I didn’t think the dialog was especially bad” Visionary sniffed.

“Dialog? I’m not even supposed to be here…” Hallie complained. “Not only was I
never a teen, but I wasn’t affected by this whole mess to begin with! Not to
mention all this magic has gotten my physics engine all screwed up…” She hopped
up and down to emphasize her point. “I mean, look at how much I bounce!”

The assorted guys politely complied with her request.

“Um… actually, I think your bra is just undone” Sarah noted clinically.

The AI’s eyes went wide as her hand clutched the center of her chest. She then
cast an angry, blushing glare towards Epitome.

“Rounded the corner for third!” he nodded triumphantly, looking around to
receive a high-five. After catch Hallie’s expression, the other guys wisely
left him hanging.

Lisa began pacing. “It’s all coming back to me… We were having breakfast,
working out the whole teen thing… and then I… And then he… Why that little
*expletive deleted*”

“Wait… What did you say?” Visionary asked, tearing his focus away from Hallie’s
attempts to refasten her remaining undergarments.

“*Expletive deleted*” Lisa swore again.

Dancer tapped her lips thoughtfully. “Hmmm… if we’re being censored, then it’s
not film. We must be on television… American television.”

“Why American?” Vizh asked.

“Oh, you can say *Expletive deleted* in Europe. And also *Expletive deleted*
and *Expletive deleted*, and even show Hallie hopping around without the
stretched out sweater.”

“Hey!” Hallie objected.

“I am so living on the wrong continent” Trickshot decided.

“So… wait…” Visionary tried again. “Why is all of this happening? And who is
behind it?”

Dancer spun around slowly and counted the walls of the snack bar. “First…
second… third…” She stopped at the fourth, looking directly into the camera,
coincidentally through the broken hole Epitome had left. “He’s behind it” she
said, pointing.

Visionary looked over her shoulder and out the picture tube at an elf sitting on
a sofa, licking Cheetos dust off his fingers and staring back at them with a
decidedly bored expression on his face.

“Dammit… I’ve already seen this one” Eddie observed, idly reaching for the
remote control again… “I wonder what else is on…”









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