Follies of Youth, the Epilogue - Tales of the Parodyverse

“I assure thee, friend Drury, the situation here be under our most strict control” Harlagaz proclaimed warmly to the video monitor from his seat on the couch between Kerry and Sam. “We Juniors art truly working unceasingly to uncover the location of the miscreant that didst abscond with our elders-turned-hotties, as fair maid Bonnington described them, and not just sitting about on our godly posteriors.” He gestured behind them to the kitchen table for proof, where Hamboy could be seen taking readings from one of the electronic whatsits that Al B. Harper had left behind. “There be no need for thy distress. Now, if thou wouldst be so kind as to vacate the scrying Magnavox, so that we may once again be reunited with “Wheel of Fortune”…”

“… Yeah, that’ll happen. So yer saying that SPUD can rest easy knowing you half-pint mooks are in charge over there… Well, lemme just get into my jammies and night-cap then” he growled sarcastically.

“Verily…” Harlagaz replied darkly. “I dost not like thy tone. Mayhaps thou canst not see for thyself how we dost have everything well in hand?”

There was a flash of light behind the couch, and Hallie suddenly reappeared, hopping about in frustration while her hands worked under her tight sweater at the bra strap across her back. “How the hell do you humans manage to harness yourselves into these damn things… every… freakin’…” she trailed off and gradually paused in her efforts as she took in her surroundings. Slowly, she turned around to regard the director of SPUD eyeballing her from the giant screen behind her. “Um… Aheh. I’ll be right with you, Col. Drury…” she assured him. “I’m having a slight… wardrobe malfunction.” With a flash the TV screen when black, and Hallie had again dressed herself in her usual gridlined leotard. “I so hate magic” she declared vehemently to nobody in particular, then turned to the Juniors. “Okay, off the couch… Hamboy, stop whatever that is you’re doing with Al’s I-Pod. I’ll scour the mansion and get a headcount. I want you all to check on the Legionnaires who live off-campus, so to speak. I need to know who’s back, and what age they are.”

“Is the crisis over then?” Kerry asked, yawning and stretching. “Or are they all going to be toddlers now? Or even elderly? I should warn you, I’m not changing any diapers either way.”

“I think everything should be getting back to normal now…” Hallie said warily, watching the corners for any signs of damnable extra dimensional imps. “At least, as normal as can be hoped for at after all that. It was… something of an ordeal” she noted, subconsciously tightening her arms across her chest. “But…” she added with a sigh, “Thankfully nobody seems to have gotten hurt.”

    “This is almost the same,” Marie Murcheson sighed with some relief. “At least something is.” She perched on one of the pews in St Antony’s Cathedral, the great gothic church overlooking Off-Central Park.
    “I guess the big bad city can be a bit overwhelming if you’ve jumped a hundred and fifty years into the future,” Flapjack admitted. “If you need me to loosen any of your clothing just say so.”
    “You are a very strange little man,” Marie observed.
    “I prefer to think of myself as compact. And physiologically redistributed. For example, I’ve got an absolutely massive…”
    “Flapjack!”
    “…Hump.” He pointed to the great West Tower of the cathedral. “Want to see what I can do with bells?” he offered.
    “Maybe later,” suggested Marie. The former banshee felt her time was running short. “There’s still so much more to see. I want to travel in once of those mechanical chariots again, with the odd little coachmen who gossip about politicians and sportsmen in such familiar fashion in that odd patois of theirs. And I want to climb to the very top of that shining tower of glass that overlooks all of Parodiopolis. And I want to go into one of those flying machines with the whirling blades and gaze down on the city. And I want to taste more of the strange foods like that Hot Dog With Everything you bought me…”
    “So you’re over your wave of nostalgia then,” Flapjack surmised.
    “This is the most wonderful day of my life!” Marie Murcheson assured him. “Oh…!”
    Flapjack lurched forward as the girl staggered and nearly collapsed. “What? What is it?”
    Marie held up her hand. It was becoming translucent. “I’m going,” she said, a look of sadness covering a face that had been shining with enthusiasm a moment before. “Going back.”
    “This way,” Flapjack said, grabbing her up in his arms and racing down the aisle of the cathedral. “You’re not going away. It’s not fair.”
    “I died,” Marie told him, and her grasp on him was light as a feather. “This has just been some strange, magic holiday, a moment snatched from cruel time…”
    “No!” Flapjack insisted. “I’m taking you to the high altar. Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”
    “Flapjack…”
    He was almost at the altar rail when Marie melted from his arms and was gone.

Visionary groaned contently as he rolled over in his bed while on the edge of a dream. And not just any dream… This one was about a raven-haired beauty kissing her way down his cool, wet chest towards…

“Vizh? Vizh, are you… well, you again?” a voice asked from directly above him, shaking him slightly.

“Just… just 10 more minutes mom…” he groaned, desperately trying not to let the lithe brunette slip out of his thoughts.

“Not the kind of reassurance I was hoping for” the voice above him noted worriedly. “Vizh? VIZH!”

“Gah!” he cried, startled to complete awareness thanks to the yell. He opened his eyes and turned his head to look up at a glowing green face peering down at him with concern. “Wha..? Hallie? What’s going on? What time is it?”

“Forget the time, Vizh… can you tell me what year it is?”

He pondered that. “Is this because I wrote ‘2003’ on check to cover the damage to the day-spa caused by the Juniors last week? I swear I’ll stop doing that soon enough… by the end of the year at least. I promise. Can’t this wait ‘til morning?”

Hallie sighed in relief and collapsed onto the bed to sit next to him. “You had me scared there for a moment. I thought you might still somehow be 16…”

“Um… okay…” Visionary answered carefully, being very aware of her presence just outside his sheets and doubly thankful that he had been sleeping on his stomach after that particularly vivid dream. Surprisingly, the image of the lovely brunette hadn’t vanished from his mind’s eye after all. He could quite clearly recall the water beading on her skin… the upturned corners of her mouth… her playfully sparkling eyes… He froze as thoughts of the last 48 hours came tumbling back to him, only to merge with memories of a birthday now more than a decade past and a very familiar face. “Oh…” he noted quietly, swallowing hard. “…crap.”

“Yeah” Hallie agreed knowingly, “That seems to be most everybody’s reaction today.”

    “So, you’re back.” Jury entered the Chronicler of Stories’ chamber. The middle man of the Triumverate sat hunched over his scrying pool, gazing into its depths.
    “Yes. Let us never speak of it again.”
    That didn’t sound like any fun to the Shaper of Worlds. “So you’re saying your done looking into girls locker rooms with your scrying pool?”
    “Yes, I’m done being an immature adolescent. Now drop it.”
    “Oh come on, are you telling me you didn’t enjoy the chance to relive your youth? To have another shot?” The Chronicler was attempting to ignore her, but she persisted. “To be free of responsibility, To have nary a care in the world. Maybe I should start a journey down memory lane for myself one of these days.”
    “I wouldn’t recommend it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to catch up on.” The Chronicler squared his shoulders then bent over his scrying pool, one of his ravens landing on his shoulder as he did so.
    “That means he wants you to leave, Jury,” came the gravelly voice of Dark Thugos, the Destroyer of Tales. “I know you usually start things without seeing them through, so take it from an expert; your conversation is ended.”
    “Oh, leave well enough alone, Thugos. I was just having a bit of fun with him is all.” Jury sorely wished she could begin a narrative that would see the end of the Destroyer, but she was bound by the policies of her Office and could take no action against her fellow Office Holders.
    “Yes, I can see that. But you see, your fun and the good Chronicler’s don’t mix. You see my dear, the reason our friend is even more taciturn than usual-“
    “Just leave it, Thugos!” warned the Chronicler.
    “Is because this recent ‘trip down memory lane’, as you called it, took our colleague back to a time where he could be happy. A time before his wife was brutally murdered. After he became the Dark Knight, he worked hard to forget that sensation. It took him years, and finally he forgot how to be happy.”
    The truth dawned upon Jury. “He didn’t know what he was missing.”
    “Exactly,” smirked the former Tyrant of the Sol Empire. “Now he remembers. And you were rubbing his face in it. Good day to you.” He spun on his heel and left the chamber.
    “Chronicler,” began Jury. He stopped her before she could get her apology out.
    “Just go. Leave me be.”
    Jury slowly turned and left the room. She hated what she’d just done to the Chronicler, and even worse was the fact that Thugos was reveling in it. She swore to herself she’d try and make it up to him.
    In his chamber, the Chronicler stared into the pool for a long time. Finally, with a wave of his hand, the image of his wife disappeared, and he continued his work of maintaining the Parodyverse.
    But he didn’t like it.

“It could be worse” Visionary told himself as he hurriedly dressed following Hallie’s departure. “Sure, you were a completely inexperienced, bumbling idiot, who got naked and clumsily relost your virginity, if that’s even possible, to one of your best and closest friends whom you will inevitably have to somehow face again if for no other reason than she just happens to be the big sister of your legal ward who in turn just happens to have the ability to somehow conceal a battlefield-grade flamethrower on her person at all times and would totally flip out and nuke half the state if she were to learn that you somehow got her de-aged sister to roll around stark naked in the long grass of off-central park…” He had to stop, as the lack of oxygen caused by his run-on sentence was making him dizzy. He pulled on a sweatshirt, hitched up his belt and realized that he was out of layers of clothes that he could casually wear to feel a little less naked when he entered the Bean & Donut…

Unless, that is, he could come up with some clever excuse for wearing a containment suit…

No… probably not.

“I’m sure regressing to 16 could have gone much worse. Honest.” He swallowed and opened the bedroom door. “If only I knew how.”

    “Sorry,” said Fashion Accessory, generating bandages to cover the flash burns. “We weren’t sure you were cured.”
    “Right,” hissed Falcon, as Ham-Boy commanded the pile of sausages he was under to snake away. Glory had to help dispose of the cooked meats Fred Harris couldn’t control, which she did with relish. “Because when I called ahead I found our phone line engaged.”
    “Er, I wast on yon internet,” Harlagaz covered for Hacker Nine, whom the Juniors were secretly harbouring. “I wast surfing for megabytes, most verily. Also, I wast checkething mine e-mail to see if there wert any more offers to improve mine wedding tackle that I must seek out the originators and smiteth.”
    “They weren’t big fireworks anyway,” Kerry told the returning SPUD agent. “You still have eyebrows, don’t you?”
    Falcon shook off the Juniors and sought out his little sister. “Lindy.”
    She looked back at him with a wary face. Yesterday he had turned back into his sixteen year old violent drug-addict punk self. “Yeah.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Lindy nodded.
    “It was this spell. Turned all the Legion to…”
    “Yes, I heard about the beautiful nude butterfly chick,” she told him, glancing over at Harlagaz and Ham-Boy. “I know what happened.”
    “I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to be Falco again.”
    And suddenly Lindy realised that Sam Wilson was far more scared about it than she’d been, and that right now what he really needed was a sister to take care of him. “C’mere,” she told him, and gave Falcon a great big hug.
    Sam clung on to her and held her tight.
    “Oh, and sorry about the taser thing,” Lindy added. “And also about the scorch marks in the bathroom.”
    “Time we were going, guys,” said Kerry rapidly. “Our work here is done. Bye!”

“You know, Sarah…” Visionary practiced, easing his car into eastbound traffic, “I really, truly, honestly meant to call you the next day… I just didn’t realize that the next day wouldn’t happen until 16 years into the future…” He groaned. That would never work. Besides, he was pretty sure she had mentioned a former date already tried that one when finding himself in awkward grocery store run-in. At the next light, he pounded his head against the steering column for good measure and added clarity. “Okay, okay… don’t panic. We’ll come back to that…” he promised himself. “Move one to issue #2…”

“Um… I’d just like to say, in my own defence… I wasn’t quite done growing yet, and I’ve gotten much better with practice…”

    It’s funny how age gives you perspective.
    We’re back to normal. I can safely remove my Hatman cap without reverting to my 16 year old rookie self. Normally I’m not looking to take it off that often, but it’s funny how you feel trapped by something normal when the choice regarding it is gone.
    So here I am, back to my ripe old age of 21. It’s amazing how much you change in only 5 years. I hadn’t really realized it, but the trip down memory lane is a long and twisting road, especially when you consider I made the trip first class.
    Everyone else remembers what it was like to be, de-aged, back to their 16 year old selves. But it’s different for me. I had the choice to go back and forth at will, and I find myself almost missing that option.
    When Eddie’s spell changed us, I was sent back to my second day as a Legionnaire. I was a rookie whose biggest worry was proper etiquette for the wearing of costumes around the Lair Mansion. Jarvis was the team leader. I wasn’t an integral part of the team by any stretch of the imagination; I hadn’t even been initiated by Lisa, and to clarify I never have been. Ever.
    I’d never broken a bone before. Ice packs and Advil weren’t things I needed to have on hand and available every day of the week.
I hadn’t been tortured by the Demon Lover, a being who plagued Sorceress and the Darkness line of women for generations. Gluegun, the sick sadistic torturer of women, had never violated my mind and body.
I hadn’t been frozen in the Faerie mythlands and thought dead by all of my friends and family.
    I had yet to have been forced to choose setting the entire Parodyverse back the way it was meant to be over the woman I loved and the son, or daughter, I had never had. I would never have lost her over that decision.
    I had never attended a funeral for heroes who died protecting their friends, family, and all of existence itself.
    It’s tempting to want to stay that way. Under Eddie’s spell, I had the potential to lock myself in a little bubble of bliss and ignorance. Even now that the spell has been broken, I could probably find a hat somewhere that would let me duplicate its effect.
    But then I would never have had the joy of growing up surrounded by a rotating but always loving extended family.
    I wouldn’t have the satisfaction knowing that I make the world a better, safer place. The joy of helping those in need would be denied me. Onslaughter would have destroyed my home province and most likely my entire country. China would be a radioactive wasteland.
    I would not have known the love of a woman who cared for me more than life itself.
    So many of my accomplishments would never had happened. I would never have been named Senior Tactical Advisor, which is an ironic title considering I’m younger than a great number of my teammates. I would not be the Emergency Services Coordinator.
    And the kids at the Zero Street Mission wouldn’t be able to say they have a friend in the Lair Legion.
    This recent trip down memory lane really drives home how much we take things for granted. If I could start all over again, with the knowledge I have now, would I do it? Most likely. But would I be the same person I am today? No, I wouldn’t be.
    And quite frankly, I like me.

Unfortunately, Vizh still hadn’t been killed in a tragic car crash. However, the usual bumper-to-bumper morning rush-hour on the Claremont Expressway was giving him plenty of time to consider his future. He listened to the endless streams of colourful phrases that emanated from his fellow commuters, and envied the unending, tedious, mind-numbing routine of their lives. Why couldn’t he have woken up to find this day exactly like the countless others before it? Coffee and a cruller at the Bean & Donut. Read the Funnies. Show up for morning class. Catch on fire. The simple little things that define a day.

How do you undo something like this, and go back to how it was?

    Yo was still pink in the face from scrubbing off all the mascara she’d plastered on in her teenage-goth phase. Hallie tried not to smile.
    “No, it’s no problem, really,” the LL’s artificial intelligence told the pure (adult) thought being. “I can just set the mansion maintenance nano-drones to repaint your bedroom some other colour than black.”
    “Perhaps is cute-rainbow stripes?” suggested Yo. “Or to be cheerful clouds and flowers?”
    “Whatever pattern you like,” Hallie promised.
    Yo nodded at that. “Is good.”
    But Yo still seemed a little uncomfortable.
    “Anything else?” Hallie ventured.
    “Is just one thing,” the worried thought being admitted. “How is Yo to be getting of black paint off of Yo’s bunnies?”

“Hey, are you some kinda moron or somethin’?” the guy leaning out of his Hummer yelled from behind Visionary’s battered green Pinto. “Move it already!”

Visionary blinked and realized that the traffic snarl was finally beginning to loosen. Shaking the image of a lively, dark-haired teen twirling across a dance floor from his mind, he pulled forward through the construction zone which had backed up drivers all the way past the Carrington District.

For the first time that morning, new possibilities played at the edges of his mind… and these frightened him even more.

“Follies of Youth, Post Script”

This story takes place before Untold Tales #170

With a press of his thumb, Mr. Epitome jammed another nail into the crossbeam that he had set across the gaping hole in the Lair Mansion’s corridor. Once he was done getting it in place he could attach the sheetrock to it which would cover the damage he had done earlier when he punched the Ausgardian youth Harlagaz through it. Then the hero could go about wallpapering over the new section and moving on to repair the wall on the other side.

He wasn’t supposed to be working alone. The Junior Legionnaire he had sparred with was supposed to be helping him, but Dominic noted that it was his responsibility to fix the damage, since he had started the conflict in the first place, and that the work would go quicker for him without Harlagaz underfoot. Then Epitome could move on and try to fix some of the other damage done.

It had been 48 hours since he had been able to check in with the Grey Eminence, for obvious reasons. Aldrich Grey would expect a detailed summary of the events that had transpired, which would be a headache, since the power broker would have little sympathy for such ridiculous distractions as having his top operative being transformed into a testosterone poisoned teenager.

Then there were the apologies. He had made an ass of himself, in his transmuted state: assaulting Harlagaz, bullying Al B. Harper, hectoring Sir Mumphrey…

“So, a cheerleader?” Hallie inquired after materializing behind Epitome’s right shoulder, a smug smile playing across olive lips.

…objectifying the team’s artificial intelligence…

“I’m sorry,” the Paragon of Power said by reflex, “What I did was thoroughly unprofessional.”

“Well, it was juvenile and sexist, at least.”

“Again, I apologize.”

Hallie went on, “What about Metallica?”

“Asking you to attend the concert was a clear violation of workplace fraternization standards, and I’m sorry to put you in such an uncomfortable position.”

“Why did you do it?” the hologram inquired, “Did I look that good in bobby socks and pig tails?”

“No. I mean to say, your appearance was not responsible for my error in judgment. That is, it was my stricken state that led me to forego proper mores- ah,” Dominic scratched the back of his neck, “I’m being unclear.”

“Take your time,” Hallie prompted, “It’s fun to watch you squirm.”

“My point is this: while I do find you attractive, for a multitude of reasons, most of which I detailed while in my altered state, it was said altered state that clouded my thinking, which lead to my offer, which, while sincere, was inappropriate.”

Now it was the AI’s turn to blather, “Well, while I suppose, at the time the offer was made, it could be construed as inappropriate, given your transformation. However, since the aforementioned offer was made in good faith and based on sound, er, un-Eddified reasoning, perhaps, if you still wish to-”

“Would you like to go out some time?” Dominic asked, ending Hallie’s circuitous monologue in a display of chivalry.

“Thanks,” she said, “And yes.”

Mr. Epitome smiled and hitched up his official Office of Paranormal Security tool belt, “Great. We can set something up once I’m done with my work, if you don’t mind.”

She did not. Leaving him to finish his repairs, Hallie set about attending to her own duties.

Epitome smiled as he prepped the strips of wallpaper for application. It appeared that, when he was a teen, he had exhibited some degree of common sense.

“Wait… what was the middle part again?” Visionary had asked, his chips clutched in his sweaty hand.

“Um… maybe you’d like to try your hand at Roulette instead, sir?” the girl working the craps table had suggested politely, desperately searching the crowd for a new shooter who could grasp the rules of the game after at least three run-throughs.

Visionary grimaced wryly at the memory. He wasn’t much of a gambler, really. Now, here he was sitting in his car, contemplating a major gamble of his own. All he had to do was risk a friendship that meant as much to him as any family ever had. The payoff… well, those dancing eyes and upturned lips, and the chance to let what had always been a small crush blossom into something much, much more. An existing relationship, taken to someplace entirely new.

All or nothing, with one roll of the dice. The only thing was… he was pretty sure he still didn’t understand the rules of the game.

    “So,” Asil said to the newly restored Lisa, “you’re back.”
    “Complete with character-establishing laugh lines that I really don’t mind, honest,” the first lady of the Lair Legion sighed. “You don’t seem too happy about it.”
    Her clone double shrugged. “I was starting to like teen-you,” she admitted.
    “Yes. I remember the talk we had,” Lisa told her. “About how we don’t talk.”
    “That’s fine,” Asil answered. “That we don’t talk I mean. What do we have to talk about anyway? We can go back to not talking.”
    “How about we grab dinner sometime next week?”
    “Really? Dinner?” Then Asil’s face became suspicious. “You’re not going to want to cruise for marines afterwards, are you?”
    “Depends if the fleet’s in. Nah, I’m kidding. But until now I’d never realised how tough it must be for you starting out as being my clone.”
    “And I’d never thought how my being around must rub some old scars in your past.”
    “I’ve learned to mistrust sisters,” Lisa pointed out. “Daio was always top student when we were children, and I was the rebel. She was pretty horrid to me when she was head girl.”
    “She is a big cow,” Asil admitted. “But I think she still cares about you.”
    “Yes, but you’ve never attempted to infect me with mad cow disease because I borrowed your hairdryer.”
    “Well, not so far.” She eyed the amorous advocatrix carefully. “Do you miss being sixteen?”
    “Well, I miss some of it, like having my whole future ahead of me to do what I dream. Than again, I’ve picked up a lot of experience on the way that I wouldn’t like to lose. And also I’m far more flexible in my major joints after years of practice.”
    Asil considered this. “You do have a whole future ahead of you,” she pointed out. “You’ve achieved everything you once wanted to, becoming a lawyer, and a founder Legionnaire, and Chris’ mom. And now you’ve got a whole new future in front of you to do whatever you want to next.”
    Lisa grinned. “You’re growing up too, aren’t you Asil? How old are you now, in human terms? When you’re not shifting your physical age, I mean?”
    “I was cloned six years ago,” Asil answered. “Psychologically they say I’m maybe sixteen or seventeen. Way more mature than that Kerry anyway.”
    “About where I was as a teen then. With all that potential and so many choices for the future open to me. Now they’re open to you.”
    Asil blushed but Lisa caught her by the wrist and held it. “I mean it, Asil. Even if you’re not really me, you’re enough like me for me to know what you can do. You’re smart, pretty, fit, and somehow you seem to have become kind as well, which I figure has to be a flaw in the cloning process or something. So now you can be whatever you want, however you want, with whoever you want. Sky’s the limit. Remember it.”
    Lisa smiled at Asil. “Dinner next week, okay?”
    Asil watched her go with a stunned look on her face that finally blossomed to a big goofy grin. “Okay.”

Visionary sat in his car and stared down the street at the unassuming Bean & Donut sign hanging over the entrance to the little shop on the edge of Parody Plaza. It was no good trying to work out what he wanted to say, he had realized, until he managed to come up with what he wanted.

Did he want to recapture that heady experience of being 16, and tripping with uncommon grace around a makeshift dance floor with the most beautiful and exciting girl (no… woman) there? Did he want to go back to the comfort and safety of every other morning, prematurely approaching middle age with a kind of well-worn acceptance of his lot in life, and not particularly regretting it?

More to the point, would Sarah want him in either way any more, or was it already too late?

As he sat there and fretted, the truth came to him so clearly that he couldn’t deny that it was time to get out of the car and buy a cruller. What he wanted most, he decided, was to talk it over with the one person he always went to with this kind of stuff.

Some things, it appeared, never changed.

    Sir Mumphrey Wilton looked nervous, more like an abashed schoolboy than he had when he’d been an abashed schoolboy. “Umm, Ms Waltz…” he began.
    “That’s a little bit formal, isn’t it Sir Mumphrey?” the first lady of the Lair Legion asked him, raising an eyebrow. “Considering our last twenty-four hours.”
    “Hmph. Ms Waltz, I assure you I deeply regret taking advantage of you under such circumstances. Quite inexcusable.”
    Lisa turned to him. “Is that what this is about? You’re here to apologise for Junior’s behaviour.”
    “You were a vulnerable young woman and I exploited that in the most reprehensible manner,” blushed the eccentric Englishman.
    “Yes,” smirked Lisa happily. “You exploited me pretty damn good.”
    “I know there’s no way I can ever make amends…”
    The amorous advocatrix turned on him impatiently. “Oh really, Mumph, will you stop with this Victorian nonsense just for once? We woke up in bed together as teenagers because we happened to be in bed together as adults beforehand. Or are you apologising for that as well now?”
    “Well no, consenting adults and all that…”
    “And then your first instinct as teen-British Bulldog was to rescue me from whatever danger I was in.”
    “That wasn’t actually my very first instinct,” Mumph admitted. “But it was the one that prevailed.”
    “So you didn’t abuse a poor helpless waif, lost in the big city.”
    “Well not then,” Sir Mumphrey admitted. “But last night, after all the excitement with the villains and whatnot…”
    “Did I scream and struggle?” Lisa challenged him.
    “Well yes,” Mumph answered.
    “I mean did I scream and struggle to get away from you? Did you force me onto the bed as I desperately tried to escape your vile embraces?”
    “Of course not,” Mumphrey told her, outraged at the suggestion. “but I came and plied you with champagne, with the vile intention of seducing you and ruinin’ you.”
    Lisa folder her arms. “And do you think I’d have let you seduce and ruin me if I hadn’t wanted to be seduced and ruined?”
    The eccentric Englishman considered this. “Well… I suppose not,” he admitted. “But you were just a gel, no experience of life or counsel of a parent to guide you, prey to…”
    “Mumph, I knew what I was doing. And what you were doing, which was very nice actually.”
    “But all the same, unfair to treat an innocent maiden in such a…”
    Lisa shook her hair. “Oh Mumphrey, I was sixteen! I hadn’t been an innocent maiden for ages!”
    “What? But you said…”
    “I lie sometimes. Look, I’d been escaping from the Little Sister of Mercy and running wild since I was eleven. Do you really think in all the bad places I got to in those years nobody got to my… bad places?”
    “So I didn’t take your maidenhead and ruin you?”
    “You in no way ruined me, Mumph. But if you’re feeling really guilty I can spank you for it later with a cricket bat.”
    Sir Mumphrey coloured some more. “I say. Hmph. Well then, it’s not as bad as I thought. Still, I apologise for the disgraceful bad form, Miss W… Lisa.”
    “And I thank you for the disgraceful good sex, Mumphrey. Call on me tonight an we’ll see if we can’t improve on it, shall we? There’s something to be said for years of practise. A century and a half’s practise in your case.”
    “I shall attend upon you with the requisite dairy products,” Sir Mumphrey agreed. He made a little bow and left the room.
    And Lisa watched him go with a secret little smile, and a precious memory to treasure of her first time with a man; and she felt for a moment as if she was again sixteen.

“You know how older people are always trying to tell us they were cool when they were our age?” Kerry asked Samantha Bonnington, putting her feet up on the dashboard.

“Yeah…” the Junior known as Fashion Accessory replied, scowling at her teammate’s tennis shoes on her freshly polished interior. Hamboy had spent a lot of effort to get the last set of scuff marks out... Sam was going to have to alter her top into an even more revealing neckline to get him back to work on it so soon. “So, like… What of it?”

“Well, now we’ve got documented evidence that it just isn’t true. Older people are dweebs, no matter what magic is involved.”

“I don’t know…” the older girl teased as they drove back to the condo. “Your sister and Vizh seemed to be working on getting into their share of trouble… If we hadn’t caught them in time, you might have been on your way to being ‘Auntie Kerry’…”

“Do you want me to hurl on your leather interior?” Kerry growled dangerously. “Even my sister is more discriminating than that. And I’ve seen what kind of thing she brings home with her.” She put the disturbing images from her mind. “So anyway, as the first and only truly interesting generation to come along since lord knows when, I think it’s up to us to identify and eliminate the factors that lead to old people becoming as pathetic as they are, whatever those factors may be. Or get Hacker 9 to do it for us.”

“The factors seem to be mostly time…” Samantha said, taking the exit for the Englehart Bridge, “and, if all those little blue pill commercials have anything to do with it, diminishing sex drives.” She looked down at her expensive cleavage. “No wonder I had to retake that midterm…”

Big Thick Eddie: “No, I really don’t think so.”

De Brown Streak: “Really?”

Big Thick Eddie: “Really.”

DBS: “Can you at least ask?”

BTE: “Well okay. But I’m telling you.” He turns to the crowd in the Fatal Toilet and shouts out, “Hey guys, have any of youse seen a beautiful naked butterfly chick in here recently?”

Medium Dim Willie: “In the last few days. No.”

Quite Large Illiterate Ben: “I saw some pixies over by the billiard table. Then I was sick over Smallish Stupid Donny and I passed out.”

Fairly Average Gormless Kevin: “There’s a number on the wall in the guys’ bathroom. If you call there they can probably set you up.”

De Brown Streak: “Thanks, but I’m looking for one particular beautiful nude butterfly chick. Is dull thud here?”

Big Thick Eddie looks around. “I think he’s under that pile of people in the corner, sleeping it off.”

DBS and Eddie hoist the drunks aside and fish thuddy from the bottom of the pile. Eddie wrestles the Santa hat from thud’s teeth.

DBS, shaking thud: “Cressida, are you in there?”

BTE: “I wouldn’t do that.”

DBS: “He doesn’t like being woken up suddenly?”

dull thud pukes on Josh’s running shoes.

Cressida, the wonder worm, now back to being a tapeworm inside thud’s stomach: ~~ That does it. I’m applying for a new human. ~~

DBS: “Cressie? You’re back inside thud?”

Cressida: ~~ Looks like. Either that of I’m being marinated for Christmas. ~~

DBS is disappointed: “So you’re not a beautiful naked butterfly chick any more?”

Cressida: ~~ I’m not a beautiful naked butterfly chick yet. ~~

dull thud: “Mwfghtfhmp…”

De Brown Streak: “That was your future self? When you come out of thud and pupate?”

Cressida: ~~ Could be. Why? ~~

DBS pulls up a chair. “No particular reason. I’ll just wait here for a while. Don’t mind me.”

dull thud: “Bwfnrhmprpr.”

Cressida: ~~ sigh ~~

“Whatever” Kerry growled, climbing out of the car. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

“C’mon… admit it… Some of those teen Legionnaires were kinda cute” Samantha prodded.

“Ew.”

“You didn’t have as much fun with a bound, 16 year old Vizh in his underwear as I did?”

Kerry closed her eyes and shuddered. “I remind you, your sunroof is open and I just had the Grand Slam Breakfast Special at Denny’s.”

Samantha laughed. “Don’t be such a drama queen. You got to clock the teach in the head with a lamp. That’s gotta count for something.”

The Probability Arsonist chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Okay, I did enjoy that part…”

“I mean, like, everybody is taking this whole thing so seriously…” the fashion maven continued, “but what really happened? The Legion forgot themselves, broke out in acne, had some schoolyard fights, copped a couple of feels off each other and made complete fools of themselves. Take out the acne, and that’s any Tuesday of the month.”

“Yeah” the younger teen was forced to admit. “I suppose it was pretty funny, wasn’t it?”

[The Scene: It's the day after Vizh and Sarah were enthusiastically sixteen, and
now they're back to their normal ages and selves. And Vizh has come to the
Bean and Donut Coffee bar to check whether he's allowed to live]

Vizh: So, Sarah... Um, do you want to talk with me or clobber me or what?

Sarah: I bet you're hoping for the what, aren't you. Hot sticky
break-the-furniture what.

Vizh: What? I mean... what?

Sarah: How much do you remember of us being sixteen together?

Vizh: Well, I remember that we were quite sixteen together. Several times.

Sarah: Yep. I thought we were pretty good at whatting at sixteen.

Vizh, brightening: Really? You thought...

Sarah: Hey, stop smirking. You didn't have much competition with my other first
time.

Vizh: First time at what?

Sarah: Exactly.

Vizh: What? Oh... what! You mean you were...

Sarah: How big a slut do you think I am, Visionary?

Vizh: Well, according to that Spark test... Er, I mean, not at all. No. No
ma'am. But you mean I was... like you were... and we...

Sarah: Right. And it wasn't at all bad. It's kind of nice to have better
memories, and to have gone for a nicer guy. So thanks.

Vizh: So what now? No... I don't mean what now. I'm not suggesting what.
I mean what you’re thinking what is.

Sarah: I should hope not. I've just washed down this counter.

Vizh: I just wondered where we go from here? I mean, are we going out still, or
was that a long time ago? Do you want to pretend it never happened? Can we still
be friends? Will you still e-mail me about the crullers?

Vizh, thinks more carefully: Do you want Kerry back? I'd quite understand.
Really.

Sarah: No. I think she'll settle down fine once we've got the fuss of our
wedding over, Vizh.

Vizh: *sprays crullers over the counter*

Sarah: Hey, I've just cleaned that. Oh stop choking, Vizh. It was a joke.
J.O.K.E. I wouldn't inflict my mother on anybody as an in-law.

Vizh: Sorry. It was just kind of a shock. I didn't mean...

Sarah: I didn't even know men could turn that colour.

Vizh: I mean, I know I dishonoured you so if you feel we have to...

Sarah: hey, hold it buster. I was there as well. I know what happened. You in no
way dishonoured me. What we did was in no way bad, in any sense of the
term. You were the nicest guy a girl could get her pants charmed off by. Really.

Vizh: I didn’t mean to hurt you or anything.

Sarah: Well, maybe when you first started, but after that it was pretty… oh,
yeah. I know that. But you didn’t dishonour me. That’s not where I keep my
honour. And its not like you didn’t check pretty thoroughly.

Vizh: *sprays more cruller, and apologizes while choking*

Sarah: You might have traduced me, I suppose. I’ve always wanted to try that. Do
you think you traduced me?

Vizh: I’d have to go look it up.

Sarah: Anyway, whatever it was you did to me was quite nice, despite the grass
burns, so I wouldn’t get all bent out of shape about it if I was you. Um, I
didn’t bend anything of yours, did I?

Vizh: No. Completely unbent, honestly. No problem… Well, in that case, do you
think we should see each other again. Not for whatting obviously, but maybe for
a coffee?

Sarah: We see each other for a coffee every day, Vizh. Then you read the paper a
little, complain about the football, and leave a nice tip that you can't afford.

Vizh: I meant... maybe a date.

Sarah: No. Sorry Vizh, but it wouldn't work. Nice guys don't do it for me. And
you're about the nicest guy I know.

Vizh: I could try to be nastier. I could tip less.

Sarah: No, it's not that. It's just... *sighs* Vizh, I don't date people I work
with.

Vizh: Sensible. Um, are you offering me a job?

Sarah: Vizh, I'm trying to tell you... Why do you think I asked you to take care
of my little sister Kerry?

Vizh: Because I'm a sucker?

Sarah: Well, why else, I mean? As far as you know I hardly know you. Yet I fob
my sister off on a total stranger.

Vizh: Well, its very understandable, given its Kerry.

Sarah: Vizh, I want you to watch very carefully, okay. *twirls round, whips off
apron, and flashes Vizh a big confident smile* Ta-Dah!

Vizh: You had your hair done?

Dancer: No. I switched to my secret identity. Look closer.

Vizh: Night-club Sarah?

Dancer: Dancer! I'm Dancer, Visionary! Your team-mate, the Probability Dancer!

Vizh: No, I don't think so. That would make no sense at all. That would... it
wouldn't... there couldn't be... there's no chance it... I can't... um...

Dancer: Yes?

Vizh: ......

Dancer: Vizh? You still in there?

Vizh: Dancer? Really?

Dancer: Need another coffee? Sarah's about here somewhere.

Vizh: Noooo! Don't play with my mind! So, Dancer is really mild-mannered Sarah
Shepherdson, waitress at large?

Dancer: No, Dancer is really mild-mannered Sarah Shepherdson, talented terp
waiting to be discovered any day now thank you very much.

Vizh: That's... well that's pretty improbable. Which is probably how you did it,
right?

Dancer: Right. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, Vizh. I'm trying to keep the
need-to-know list down to just a very few friends and family and my
arch-villainess Magenta St Evil. Oh, and the Hooded Hood.

Vizh: Okay. Although I'm not sure why you told the Hooded Hood.

Dancer: The point is, I have this rule. I don't date co-workers. And we're both
in the Lair Legion together, Vizh. So look, I really, truly, and honestly will
always treasure the time we were sixteen together. It'll make me happy when I
think back and remember it. And I hope we'll always be close friends, closer
because we were one sixteen and stupid with each other. But we can't be a couple
now. And I think you know that, don't you?

Vizh: My dump-sense is still acute after all these years. But yeah, you're
right. And this is the nicest dumping I've ever had. The coffee and cruller make
all the difference. And... so does the truth. You didn't have to tell me about
being Dancer.

Dancer: And then you'd have thought it was just you. That's not fair.

Vizh: After I was not bad with you when we were sixteen?

Dancer: Vizh, you were spectacular, but if I tell you that you'd never get your
head out of the door.

Vizh, preening: Spectacular.

Dancer: Yeah. I can't think what happened to you since. Goodnight, Vizh.

Vizh: Goodnight... Sarah. See you tomorrow?

Dancer: Very, very probably.

the end.

Post By Featuring the writing talents of the Hooded Hood, Hatman, Killer Shrike, De Brown Streak, Dancer & Visionary Fri Dec 31, 2004 at 09:56:38 am EST	Subject Follies of Youth, the Epilogue

	[ New ] [ Email ] [ Print ] [ RSS ] [ Tales of the Parodyverse ]	Next In Thread >>