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Post By The Hooded Hood tests how well this new replying resolution thing is working out Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 09:32:25 am EDT |
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Parodyverse Team-Up #3: Shirts vs Skins | |
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| Parodyverse Team-Up #3: Shirts vs Skins Previously: Citizen Z (secretly the supervillainous Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo) and Visionary (secretly a possibly-fake man) are lost naked in a subterranean complex full of death traps set by an alien bride of the Parody Master, the shape-shifting Skunk princess Annar. Now they are each following separate corridors to doom. Parodyverse Team-Up #1: Faking It Parodyverse Team-Up #2: The Naked Truth Note: I know other folks were perhaps hoping to contribute to this storyline. It's not too late to slip in some additional scenes, but I thought it best now if we brought home a finish to it so we can get on. Silicone Sally was having a bad day. She wasn’t exactly a big fan of having to warp her pliable body to be Citizen Z’s superhero suit anyhow, but now she’d been teleported off her boss and put inside a glass tube and prodded with alien probes – and not in the good way. She was still trying hard to pretend to be a bit of inanimate cloth, although she had a nasty feeling she’d just been trapped-up with some kind of alien explosive device that was ticking inside her molecular makeup. Other than that, things were fine. “Boy, am I glad to see you,” she almost called out when she saw somebody moving out of the shadows to claim her from the tube. Then she shut up. It wasn’t Beth von Zemo. It was Visionary. “Its stretchy and pliable,” the possibly-fake man muttered as he saw the suit. “I could get into that.” Sally had been hearing that from men since high school. She stifled a squeak as Vizh pulled her off her display stand and pushed a leg into her. “Citizen Z has all kinds of gadgets inside this thing,” her new wearer noted to himself. “If I can just find them I can – ouch, that pinches!” Sally hadn’t been able to resist. “Well, if you’re going to push that thing in my face,” she objected. “Er, I mean, nothing. Total silence. Shhhhhhhh.” Vizh yelped. “Who’s there?” he demanded. “Show yourself! What do you want?” “Right now, a breath mint would be good,” Silicone Sally admitted. “And if you could stop that nervous sweating that would be wonderful.” Vizh realised the sound was coming from around his stomach. Maybe lower. “Dancer warned me,” he worried. “Now the crullers are fighting back!” “I’m not half-digested pastry,” Sally insisted. “You don’t get to eat me. Not without dinner and drinks first. I’m just… your conscience. Yeah, that’s it. Always let your conscience be your guide.” “My conscience? My conscience is talking out of my…” “Well, you have a lot to feel guilty about down there, don’t you?” Sally improvised. “All those thoughts. And that whole Caphan thing. And… and the not putting down the toilet seat.” “Maybe there’s some hallucinatory gas in here?” Vizh considered. “That could be the next death-trap.” Sally pinched him again, hard. “Shape up! We have to get out of here. I mean you have to get out of here and, um, take this rescued superhero costume with you as… as evidence. Maybe get it to someone who can do a scan on it to find out if its going to exp… need washing. Fast.” “So now my conscience is making me feel bad about laundry?” “Just get past the death traps and let’s get on,” Sally told him. “Quick. Before this suit shrinks some. And believe me, your conscience could make that happen.” Beth von Zemo groped blindly along the pitch-dark corridor muttering about things she’d like to do to that possibly-fake whining interfering waste of matter Visionary. She was just taking comfort from the giant buzz-saw clockwork Rubik’s cube scenario when she saw the glass tube with the purple and black costume in it. “Sally!” she called. Her outfit didn’t reply. The Baroness approached it cautiously. “If I was doing this I’d have set some kind of explosive death trap on the tank,” she noted to herself. “So that when the desperate victim tries to retrieve her outfit something nasty happens. Molecular disintegration field on the glass, maybe, or just a simple biogenic plague contact solution? But there’s one thing that Skunk bitch didn’t bargain for: Sally!” Beth shouted through the glass at her minion. “Sally Reziliant, wake up! Come on! I’m not paying you to slouch around in a stunned drugged state. I could just take on college interns for that. I’m paying you to impersonate a superhero costume and help me out. So shrug off whatever mind-zap Annar put on you, tell me how to defuse whatever traps are on your tube, and then lets get out of here.” “Cit… Citizen Z?” slurred the costume. “Is that you?” “Of course its me, Sally. Pull yourself together. Shape up. Well, stay that shape, but you know what I mean.” Bath reconsidered. “Actually, expand like a balloon and shatter the walls of that display case. But wait till I’m round the corner in case the traps are still lethal from the inside.” CZ retreated into the darkness until she heard the breaking of glass, then reappeared to see if her henchwoman was dead. She wasn’t. “Right, flow onto me,” the Baroness commanded. “We have to find a way out of these trapped halls so we can do what we really need to do.” “Rescue Visionary?” Citizen Z snorted. “Find and kill the Skunk princess. We’re going to be just too late to save poor Visionary from some horrible death. But Annar will feel my revenge. Oh yes.” “Annar will certainly feel a lot,” agreed Beth’s costume. A shapeshifting Skunk princess could do pretty much anything Silicone Sally could and a lot more besides. “…And I told Priscilla it was illegal to do that there under the buffet table but by then she’d already hidden the handcuff key so I had no choice but to…” “Sorry to interrupt this rambling and amazingly graphic confession,” Silicone Sally told the man who was wearing her, “but isn’t that another light up ahead? As in, way to escape?” Visionary peered through the gloom. Somehow he’d managed to avoid the flame traps, the slicers, the stabbers, the grinders, and the chompers so far. He suspected there were automatic gadgets in Citizen Z’s costume that were helping him in the darkness. Now he could see some kind of control room dead ahead – maybe the way out! “You know, I kind of hope you stay around in my head after this, conscience,” Vizh admitted. “Talking it out with you is much better than going to my therapist. Plus, she’s kind of vanished for now. Do you know how bad it makes you feel when your therapist hides from you?” “Please just go to the control room and turn off all the death traps,” Sally begged him. “Please.” “You could maybe sit on my right shoulder and advise me. Fleabot usually sits on the left and, um, advises me.” “Just go through the shimmering doorway and find some kind of off button, okay,” “I mean, Knifey advises ManMan and that seems to work out pretty well. Although would it be better if people could hear you – in which case it could be kind of embarrassing if you’re telling me off about thoughts I’m having about Hallie – or if they can’t hear you – in which case I might get put on Prozac and given electrical shocks?” “The door. Oh, please, the door!” “Then again, this could all be part of some terrible psychological psi-wave thing that… Hey, have you noticed this shimmering field across the doorway? Kind of like some sort of, um, death trap?” “Why no,” Sally replied innocently. “I can’t say I had.” “It could be real bad news if we try to go through it. It could, you know, kill me. And if I die, you die.” “Not if I flow off you at the last minute and… er, I mean, right. Shame. So what’s the plan?” Visionary hesitated. “Consciences don’t have plans?” “Just do something, you useless fake!” Silicone Sally snapped. “There must be some reason they let you hang around the Lair Legion!” “I’m real, dammit!” Vizh objected. “But you know that right? Right?” “Just get us through the door to the damned control room.” Visionary decided not to tell his conscience off for using a naughty word and to concentrate on the problem at hand. “Well, this Citizen Z suit is all rubbery and stuff. If I jumped through the doorway quickly it might insulate me against any shock or, you know, death field.” “No,” said Sally quickly. “Bad plan. Very very bad.” “Why? It seems like the best we’ve got.” “Because… um… you wouldn’t be taking care of other people’s things. Citizen Z might be upset. She might, er, she might cry if her suit got damaged. Yes, that’s it. Social responsibility.” “It’s in a good cause,” Vizh argued. “She’s probably still trapped down there, needing my help. I’m sure she could always get another outfit.” “No, she damned well couldn’t!” snapped Sally. “Just… always let your conscience be your guide. Or suffer the guilt of repeated gut punches until you get the idea, okay?” “Er… okay,” Vizh blinked worriedly. He was having a tough day with his conscience. Silicone Sally examined the doorway and saw where the seams could be breached and wiring shorted by a silicone liquid solution. She sighed. “Close your eyes then,” she told Visionary in resigned tones, “and make a wish, very hard.” “…And then the robot baby explodes, covering him in caustic flesh-eating bacilli. Not enough to kill yet, just to make him helpless and wracked with pain,” suggested Citizen Z. “Could work,” agreed her costume. “You’d be best if you specifically set the enzymes to only go for secondary nerve tissue though, because otherwise he wouldn’t feel the full agony after the first ten minutes or so. And why is it a fake baby? Kidnap a real one so he gets the guilt of that as well.” Citizen Z paused. “You’re… remarkably bloodthirsty today, Sally. And intelligent. You’re actually making a useful contribution to our discussion about Visionary.” “Well, he annoys the hell out of me too,” explained Annar. “And I’m learning a lot from you, er, boss. You’re very educational.” Beth was mollified. “I am,” she agreed. “It’s why my reign over this planet will be so memorable.” “I don’t understand why you’re allied with the Lair Legion though,” Annar admitted. “You don’t seem to be at all like those insipid do-gooders.” “As I’ve told you many times before, Sally, I need access to their secrets and resources to carry out my nefarious and brilliant long-range plans.” “But why bother?” the Skunk princess demanded. “Why not just betray them to the Parody Master and let him reward you with control of the planet? Just go down into that cellar where Goldeneyed is projecting that Celestian force-field and shoot him in the head. Then be queen of the world.” “It has occurred to me,” agreed Citizen Z. “Of course it has. But when a von Zemo rules, she rules supreme. Not under that preening, posing Parody Master. Ouch. Careful Sally, you’re squeezing too tight.” “There’s a lot to squeeze,” Annar answered angrily. “Anyway, we’ve got past all the death traps. Here we are at the doorway to the control room.. What do you want to do now?” “Well I’m not just walking through that shimmering barrier,” Beth answered. “That would just be stupid. Use your pliable liquid-rubber state to short the circuitry around the doorframe and then lets go take control of this complex.” “Sure,” Annar agreed. “Lets get you into the ‘control room’.” The door defences flared and sparked then died. Visionary and Citizen Z raced into the room from opposite sides. “CV!” Vizh called out. “So you made it!” “Visionary!” Citizen Z hissed. “So you made it!” Then each realised the other was wearing a Citizen Z costume. “So you, um, carry a spare CV outfit,” Vizh noted. “Um, where?” “None of your business. Why are you dressed as me? How are you dressed as me? And eew!” “Well, I found your costume and…” “Well its fake,” CZ interrupted. “Totally fake.” “It’s real, dammit!” Vizh answered reflexively. “Um, at least… I thought it was.” Beth von Zemo began to have nasty thoughts about shapeshifting Skunks that made her flesh creep; at least she hoped it was her flesh that was creeping. “Sally?” she called. Both costumes kept silent, in accordance with previous orders the Baroness had issued. “Sally?” asked Vizh. “My pet name for you,” CZ improvised. “I always call you it. Sally.” “Er, thanks?” Vizh frowned. “Only I thought you didn’t like me?” “Whatever gave you that impression, um, Sal? You’re my most favourite of all the people I make plans about. I was thinking about you all the way through the trap tunnels. Every time I saw a rotted impaled corpse I thought of you.” “Okay,” Visionary responded nervously. “So about this spare costume thing. You don’t happen to see two yellow coats around here, do you, only those things are expensive. Well, not cheap. Well, not very cheap.” “Visionary, try to focus on the situation. We have two duplicate Citizen Z costumes. We have one missing shapeshifting Skunk princess. Do the math.” Visionary hated supervillain battles that involved sums. “Er…” “One of us is wearing a bride of the Parody Master!” Beth snapped. “One of us is wrapped right now in a lethal alien.” “Ah,” said Vizh. That really wasn’t good. A thought occurred to him. “Might that alien be able to, you know, speak in a voice a bit like your conscience?” “What? What conscience? What voice?” demanded Beth. “I think its me,” Vizh cried out, frantically trying to pull Sally off him. “I’ve got the alien! Help! Why doesn’t this thing have a zipper?” Beth was rather suspecting that she was the one wearing Skunk. Her conversation with Sally had been far too erudite. Sally wasn’t that imaginatively nasty. “Right hand pouch pocket,” she called to Visionary. “Get out the EMP brainwave modulator and set it to around 165 cycles per nanosecond. Two second burst. Now!” Vizh gave up trying to squeeze out of Sally and found the belt pouch. He fumbled with the mechanism with fingers that suddenly seemed hampered by their gloves. “What does this do?” he worried. “Its set to the general resonant frequency that, um, any silicone-based shapeshifting lifeform might think on. It’ll stun them into a stupor for a few moments, make them lose cohesion. Just do it!” CZ felt Annar stir around her, felt the internal costume spikes start to grow. Vizh finished fiddling with the gadget and there was a high-pitched whine. All the lights shorted out. “Cycles per nanosecond, you moron!” Beth screamed across at the possibly-fake man. “Not per second. Do it properly!” Vizh tried again, glad that the little device had an illuminated LED screen. He pressed the stud and heard the whine again. “You bast…” said his conscience. Then his costume poured off him into a pile of goo on the floor. Visionary had Shoggoth flashbacks. Beth was likewise freed from her Skunk bodysuit. “Quick now, while they’re dormant,” she called out, “find the central override control panel for the killing mechanisms. I can turn them against everybody!” “Except me,” Vizh pointed out. “Find them!” CV urged. In the darkness Vizh and Beth crashed into each other and tumbled down in a tangle of naked flesh. “Get off me, you oaf!” the Baroness screeched. “I can’t. You’re too heavy!” Vizh complained. They struggled and rolled over, landing in the thick sticky pile of half-stunned shapechangers. Silicone Sally stirred back to consciousness and realised she was all mixed up with Princess Annar. “You bitch!” she shouted out. “You implanted me with explosives!” “Amateur!” hissed back the Skunk assassin. “Call yourself a shifter?” Sally and Annar clashed together like two sloppy messes of watered-down play-doh, dragging the two humans tangled in their masses along into the plastic melee. “Hey!” objected Vizh. “What’s going on!” “If you don’t get your hands off there you’re about to die!” Citizen Z warned him. “Fake!” shouted Annar. “Feeble attempt!” “Hey again!” objected Visionary, although Annar had been taunting Sally. “Oh yeah?” shot back Sally. “Well… pooh to you!” “Oh, good comeback,” scorned Citizen Z. “Sally, just phase through her molecular structure and implant the explosives she’s laced you with back into her, then trigger them with your last reflex before disengaging.” “I should what?” Vizh blinked. “And I still don’t know why you’d call me…” “Shut up!” Annar, Beth, and Sally screamed at him. Silicone Sally slurped through Annar, doing as her boss had advised. “Now detonate!” the Baroness ordered. There was a whumph as molecular-level explosives went off throughout the Skunk princess. Then although it was pitch black in the fake control room, everything went darker. Mr Epitome wrenched the roof off the pretend control booth and shone a torch down into the space below. “Over here!” he called. “I’ve found them!” CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Yuki, and Trickshot bounded over and looked down through the new tear at their missing team-mates below. “Wow, that must have been quite a party,” CSFB! whistled as he spotted the tangle of naked limbs wrapped in what appeared to be toffee strands. “Go Vizh. Tap that wide…” “Vizh!” called Hallie severely, glaring down at the tableau. “What the hell are you doing?” “Wha…?” groaned the possibly-fake man, gradually regaining consciousness and blinking in the torchlight. “What happened?” “The old amnesia ploy,” Trickshot approved. “Best bet right now. Good call.” “That’s a Skunk!” Yuki recognised, analysing the inert form of Princess Annar. “I’d better get her restrained. I mean by more than just tying her round Vizh and CZ.” “Hey, she’s hardly going to get away while she’s anchored to Citizen Z,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! pointed out with a snicker. “A Skunk, yes,” agreed Citizen Z, hastily grabbing Silicone Sally and pulling the stunned shapeshifter over her head as a hood. “We had Skunk problems.” “So that’s what you kids are calling it these days!” CSFB! grinned. “Way to tame the bad guy, Vizh!” “What? But I…” stammered Vizh. “It wasn’t like that!” Yuki found Visionary’s clothes neatly stacked away in a security locker. “So how was it?” she wondered. “How was it for you?” “It was a very special time, and I’ll always treasure it,” CZ said, patting Vizh on the cheek, “but I just can’t be with a guy who keeps calling me Dom while we’re doing it. Sorry.” “He what?” growled Mr Epitome. “He what!” growled Hallie. “He what?” goggled CSFB! “I wonder if any of these death traps are still working?” asked Vizh hopefully. Next Issue: Well, this format is really for anybody who wants to do a team-up story between two characters that don’t usually work together. So who’s next? Shoggoth and Hatman? Yuki and Donar? CSFB! and Dancer? Al B and Yo? Tricky and the Librarian? Zebulon and Dan Drury? It’s up to you to tell the tales of the team-ups we’ve rarely seen. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2007 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2007 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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