Posted by ag, ooooookay. Steph, you wanted it. Ian, you set it up, waiting for me to do it, well, here it is! Trickshot gets lucky! on October 08, 2000 at 00:21:57:
Trickshot Special #2, Of Harts and Potatoes
“The thing that pisses me off? I’ll tell you what that is Dragon breath!” an angry (is there any other kind?) Trickshot complains to Fin Fang Foom in the latter’s office, here on Lair Island.
“You Pimp-Daddies flaunting around here, acting like the greatest heroes on Earth, while my friend just stands there, wasting away!”
Finny says “Pimp Daddies??”
“Yeah! You and Exile! Exy won’t do anything cause he owes Jack money! Jack handed him his butt in the last poker game! While we were stuck on that stupid planet!”
Finny nods with realization. He never joined them in the poker games sence he prefers to keep to himself.
“Who’s Jack?”
Tricky reels with anger, “WHAT THE #$$^ DO YOU MEAN WHO’S JACK? He’s been around forever! Always in the background, always helping the little guy!”
Finny shrugs and asks “Have I teamed up with him?”
Trickshot calms a bit, “Well, no. But still that doesn’t excuse the fact that he deserves better then to be a coatrack!”
“spiffy?” Finny asks.
“NO! %^&* IT! A COAT RACK! A REAL COATRACK! You know! The statue in the foyer! That everyone places there coats, or in Lisa’s case, other things on! He’s a real man! Ex’s stupid sister turned him into a statue!”
Finny: “Exile was turned into a statue?”
Tricky: “No! Jack Rabbit!”
Finny: “Jack Rabbit turned Ex into a statue?”
Tricky: “AAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!! Listen carefully! Exile’s sister, Suicide Blonde, turned Jack Rabbit into a statue! No one has bothered all this time to contact Sersi, or someone, to change him back! I want to know why!”
Finny, bored with this whole conversation, sits upright. Now looming over the irate archer, the big dragon replies, “Look Carl, I DO know what your talking about. I just wanted to see how long I could get your goat, so to speak. We can’t reach Sersi, which is ALWAYS the case. There’s nothing we can do to fix the Rabbit….” Finny looks around at that last part. That’s the instinctive reaction everyone has when discussing fixing rabbits. Just incase Yo might hear. “Besides, with everything going on lately, I haven’t had time to think, let alone worry about Jack right now. I still feel like I haven’t got us out of our last adventure!”
Tricky, never one to be intimidated, moves closer to the dragon, and like some foolish knight, looks right into his eyes, “Of course… “Andrew”… how silly of me. It IS almost Christmas time again. You still have more reindeer to catch!”
“W..What? How did you know.. I mean, I DID’NT EAT SANTA’S RAINDEER! Besides, I never approved of that story! How did YOU hear about that anyway? It was before you joined!” Finny demands.
Not the least scared, Tricky smugly starts to leave. He throws back “From reading the earlier adventures of the LL. There’s lot’s of them on Visionary’s website. You should get a site Finny. There very informative!”
Trickshot can still hear Finny yell “VVVIIISSSIIOOONNAARRRYY!!” Even though the possible fake-man is no longer there, Trickshot figures the dragon will probably keep yelling.
Tricky makes his way through the foyer and stops. The smile on his face is wiped away as he looks at Jack Rabbit. At one time this hero almost died saving Trickshot’s life. Now he just stands there, under a pile of coats, bras, chains, and other unmentionables. It’s just not fair!
He storms out. Time for a walk he thinks as he heads for Parodopolis East Side.
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Parodopolis’ East Side. In a little flower shop called after its owner, “Diane’s Flower’s”, the owner stands behind the counter and watches the store’s sole customer. The man is wearing a dark trenchcoat and large brim hat. His features are clearly disguised. He comes to the register with an assortment of flowers and presents them to Diane. She rings them up and tells him the price. He pulls out the money and…HIS HAND! It almost looks like wood! IT IS WOOD! Thanks to years of training, she doesn’t even pay it any mind. The transaction complete, the man (a frequent customer) leaves. She thinks to herself, “Well! I guess our little visitor is getting careless. Hope the boys at SPUD (Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate) got all of that. I’d call up Dan Drury myself, but he said he didn’t want to be disturbed. Something about CrazySurgarFreakBoy’s mother needing him for a “under cover” mission. The way those two have been acting you’d think it was Romance Week, or month, or something!”
The woman called Diane Lancer has a sudden image in her mind. “It never fails. Why is it every time the subject of love comes around I thinks of Carl? Carl Bastion, the most obnoxious, arrogant, stupid male to ever cross paths with me! Carl Bastion, my husband. FORMER husband! I’m a widow now! A widow who forever dresses in black! Carl Bastion, AKA Trickshot, the annoying archer and super hero. All his green arrows couldn’t save him THAT time! He thought he had a hawk eye, the way he shot! But then I killed him! Like a black widow spider, devouring her mate! It hurt badly enough the first time, when I betrayed him to Zemo. Like some kind of black canary, I sang and betrayed my husband! That monster wasn’t supposed to kill Carl! All those years, as an agent of SPUD, forgetting him. TRYING to forget him! The way he walked. His posture. His voice. The feel of his body against mine….. But ENOUGH! He’s gone! It wouldn’t be so hard, if it weren’t for his return. Well, his supposed return. That imposter from another universe! He THINKS he’s Carl, but he’s not! Carl is dead. I killed him! I …… loved him. $%^%^*&!! What’s love got to do with it? It’s just a second hand emotion!”
Before “Diane” can break into an imitation of Tina Turner, the little bell chimes as a new customer inters.
It’s a woman, dressed in country attire. She seems out of place in a city as big as Parodopolis. “Diane Lancer” wishes at moments like these, that she wasn’t put in charge of this “front”. The Flower shop is set up, by SPUD, to catch wanted criminals who happen to stop by to purchase flowers for their loves, gang members, or what have you. “There are better places to serve, like Siberia, over in mother Russia. O’ well, at least the pay’s good.” She thinks.
“Can I help you?”
The girl, a bit timid, responds, “Yes. I reckon. Y’all see, I got this’n call. From ma ex. He wuz ma boy friend an all, b’fore I moved east. He said to meet him heear. Ya’all seen a handsome man, 5 foot eight, brown hair, comes to the name o’ Dwaine Fuller?”
Almost with a snort of disgust, “Diane” responds, “Miss, if you ask me, forget him. If he’s your ex, and he’s back around, trying to get back the way things were, just tell him to take a hike!” She doesn’t know why the subject makes her blood boil, or to be more precise, she doesn’t WANT to think about it.
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Down the street a man in purple and green walks with no particular purpose. Carl Bastion is, as always during his walks, lost in thought. The archer known as Trickshot feels that there’s just too much going on in his life.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for everything else.” He thinks to himself, “I mean sure, it stinks that a good friend like Jack Rabbit has been turned into a statue, but then Lisa, Donar and the rest of those lazy quitters left to reform their stupid bridge club! I mean how can they just sit when they have the responsibility to BE heroes? I don’t need this! I’ve got enough problems with Natalia dissen me. Why won’t she admit she digs me? So what is she betrayed my double on this world! I’m here! It’s her chance to start over! A second chance!”
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Back at the flower shop, a white pick-up truck pulls up. It has Idaho license plates and the bed of the truck is full of potatoes. A man in a dirty western duster with a big cowboy hat climbs out. His face is hidden in shadow and as the light strikes it, we see a common western scarf covering his features.
The girl in the shop comes out.
“Dwaine! Is it really you?” she asks.
“Jenny!” he calls in a western drawl. “I just had to see ya! Honey, I jus cant live w’out ya. Can we get back t’gether?”
Jenny looks at “Diane”, who gives her a nod of approval, then replies, “Dwaine….. Ah jus can’t. Ahm sorry, but Ahm liven fer me now!”
Dwaine slumps his shoulders. Then after an uncomfortable pause he starts to unwrap the scarf. As his strangely misshapen head starts to become visible, he speaks in a calm, but disappointed tone. “Ah wuz hoping you’d understand. Ah wuz hoping you wouldn’t think of me as a freak too.” He removes the hat and scarf completely revealing his head to be….
“A potato!” the master spy posing as Diane says.
That did it.
“YES! MY HEAD IS NOW A &*(^% POTATOE! ENOUGH! Potatoes! Lets have revenge for the mistreatment we get!”
Suddenly, the potatoes in the bed of the truck grow to nine feet tall, with arms and legs. These Potato Men start to advance on the women. “Diane” runs into her flower shop.
“Hey! Mr. Potato Head! Leave that chick alone!” yells Trickshot as he fires several arrows into the Potato Men. They hit with a thud, but the terrible spuds continue to advance.
Trickshot smashes through the store window with an impressive super hero entrance, but he’s dumb founded by what he sees. There in the store the woman that was chased has removed her black wig, revealing her long red hair. He knows that face like no other.
“Talia? Natalia Romanza?” Tricky asks with love struck wonder.
“Shhh moron! You’ll blow my cover! C’mon idiot. Let’s go get some fries!”
It’s like the old days as the two attack the Potato Men.
Explosive arrows, shishkabob arrows, tar arrows, ketchup arrows, salt arrows, drill arrows, heat arrows, as well as her wrist blasters, (SPUD issue gauntlets that fire a nuroshock blast into her opponent) all start o take down the spud men. She also uses her new toy. The Vox Humana Magnifier. This device, attached to her neck, hidden on her choker, magnifies her voice. It gives her the chance to scream out a sonic burst capable of shattering windows five city blocks away or breaking attacking spud monsters into tatter tots.
Then Natalia Romanza, otherwise known as Lady Natalia, as well as other aliases, has cornered a single Potato Man. She’s ready to take him when the three others come up from behind. One has her throat so she can’t use her voice weapon. The other two hold her arms out stretched so that no matter how many times she fires her gauntlets, it would be a misfire. The one she had cornered pulls back it’s massive arms, ready to kill her. That’s when the tunneling sour cream and chive arrow rips through the attacking vegetable.
Its down hill for the Potato Men from there. The former lovers act with out thinking. One covers the other. Then vice a versa. Soon the attacking Potato Men aren’t enough to stop the duo, and they fall to the ground like mulch.
As the heroes close in on Dwaine something unexpected happens, Jenny steps in front of him.
“Ah can’t let you do this to him. Cant you see he’s just scared?” she turns to him, “Alright Dwainy-muffen..”
Tricky: “Dwainy-muffen???”
Jenny continues, ignoring the archer, “I’ll go with you. Ah can’t leave you like this.”
Dwainy-muffen responds with awe, “You still love me? Despite the fact that ah had a accident with the potato crop?”
She looks at him with love in her eyes, “Oh baby, ah wouldn’t care if you had a carrot for a head! You’re still my Dwainy-muffen!”
The two kiss as Trickshot and Lady Natalia try not to spew on their shoes. Then without another word they drive off.
Tricky looks over at Natalia and says with a grin, “Aww, young hick love! Y’know Talia, there’s something in the air this week. You think a guy like me and a gal like you could…”
“NO!” she says with force followed by a brisk walk away. Before he can catch her she’s gone.
He just looks down at the ground for a while.
Then he starts to pick up his arrows. As he gets to the one that saved her life, he finds a note attached.
Carl,
I guess I can’t deny it.
My terms then.
Next Friday
9:pm
He can’t believe his eyes. He lets out a cheer, jumping in the air, only to land on discarded dead Potato Man, causing him to slip. He lands on his butt, hard. The stifled laugh from the overhang stories above doesn’t catch his ear. “Carl. What will I do with you?” she thinks as she shoots out a thin wire. She swings away; wondering if this is renewed joy she feels, or uncertain fear.
The end…… for now. :)