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Since it's kind of a slow day, here's "The Second Time Around", part one Friday, 14-Jan-2000 18:44:46
The Second Time Around Pegasus was on monitor duty. She hated monitor duty. Still, she could imagine worse assignments, and (more importantly), she was sure Zemo could as well. The leader of the Scourge of the BZL had been rather testy ever since they had lost the bowling tournament to Jarvis’ Lair Legion, and that was weeks ago. So, she stretched her wings and settled in for a quiet night with a trashy novel. Besides, her shift ended in an hour and a half, at which time she thought she might hit the SoBZL’s sauna and hot tub. ‘Membership does have it’s privileges’ she thought as she flipped a page. That was when the alarm started blaring. She checked the computer screens to see if it was some kind of malfunction. Zemo’s $250,000,000 castle had been rebuilt, but there were still plenty of bugs to work out of the state-of-the-art electrical and security systems. You’d be amazed how much a contractor could screw up, even at those prices. The computer showed an intruder in the laboratory. Some two-bit prowler was rustling through the Baron’s technological what-nots. That’d be sure to piss off Zemo. He didn’t even like anybody touching the remote control to his television. Pegasus turned and bolted for the door. Halfway down the hall, she went equine, her hooves rapping loudly against the stone floor. She burst through the half-open Laboratory door with a snort, spreading her wings and rearing up on her hind legs. That maneuver never failed to impress the rubes. In the back of the room, a figure whirled around to face her. He was tall, with a polished steel mask, complete with two very sharp and nasty horns rising from the top of his helmet. Pegasus briefly wondered if he managed to drive while wearing that thing. Maybe he owned a convertible, or at least had a sunroof. “Who are you?” she demanded. The figure returned her cold stare. “Someone who was never here.” he said as he reached his hand for a control panel to his right. Too late, she recognized the gizmo that he was standing on: Zemo’s time machine. Yo awoke with a splitting headache. This was quite odd, mainly because Yo didn’t think that he should have a headache. Yet he did. Something was decidedly wrong. He (Yo was in a ‘he’ kind of mood today) rolled out of bed and got dressed. The Pure Thought Energy part of him always found the human’s concern over clothing to be rather silly, but ‘when on Earth...’, as the old saying went. Besides, he had the feeling Lisa would never get any work done if everyone were to go around nude, so perhaps this clothing thing did indeed serve a purpose. He selected his best hat and mask. While he was too polite to say so, he firmly believed that Zorro was the only person on this planet with any fashion sense what-so-ever. He was in a hurry to tie his mask, as today was Thursday, and that meant waffles for breakfast. Despite his mysterious headache, Yo was happy. How could one not be when waffles were imminent? That happiness was replaced with thoughtful concern as he entered the kitchen. No waffles, as far as the eye could see. This just wouldn’t do. What was going on here? “It’s about time you got up...” Starseed said as he stuck his head in the doorway. “Come on, Jarvis is calling an emergency meeting.” Yo nodded happily and followed Starseed. All in all, Starseed looked quite good for someone who had just been buried the day before. Yo decided not to mention to his fellow Legionnaire that he was, in fact, supposed to be dead. Such minor details often caused his friends distress, and besides, it always took too long to try to explain such things to them. Yo noted that the conference room had been redecorated as he entered and took his seat. “Now that we’re all here” Jarvis said icily, looking at Yo, “let’s get down to business.” “All here?” Yo asked, looking around the table. Only Lisa, Jarvis, Starseed, spiffy and himself were in attendance. “Space Ghost was captured last night by Zemo for the Apostate.” spiffy explained. “That’s kind of the point to this whole meeting.” “Ah” said Yo. While he didn’t always understand all the nuances of their crude language, he thought that there must be another reason that spiffy’s clarification didn’t clarify things. “What of Fin Fang Foom?” “What about him?” Jarvis snapped irritably. “Where is he currently being?” Yo inquired politely. “Still dead, last I heard.” Starseed answered. “Of course, I haven’t really been checking up on him. Not since we buried him, anyway.” “Ah” Yo answered. “What of NTU-150?” “My secretary?” Lisa asked, surprised. “I suppose he’s filling or collating or faxing or some-such-thing.” “Ah” Yo answered again. “What of Visionary?” The all looked at him as if he had grown an extra head. Yo didn’t think that he had. “Visionary?” Jarvis asked acidly. “Who the hell is Visionary?” Cheryl surveyed the scene before her. “This isn’t right” she commented thoughtfully. “This isn’t right at all.” “How so, my wife?” The Apostate asked curiously, his dark eyes watching her with a mix of admiration and amusement. “The damn fool’s got the rack stretched too far, too fast” she replied with her usual impatience. “The Legionnaire will pass out in minutes. A proper torturing should last hours, if not days.” “Quite right, my dear. You always were an apt pupil. I shall have a talk with our malevolent ‘physical therapist’, and correct the problem.” The Apostate strode across the room to where Space Ghost was receiving the inept attentions of the rookie torturer. Cheryl turned and trudged back up the stairs of their $250,000,000 castle. Being Queen of the Parodyverse was all well and good, but somehow she was just was never satisfied. She was instantly given anything her heart desired, anything in the entire world. Why, then, did it feel like she was missing something? “Perhaps I should conquer France today” she mused thoughtfully. “That always seems to put a smile on my face.” “I beg my lady’s forgiveness...” Hallie, attendant to the queen, said nervously. “But you normally conquer France on Saturdays. This being only Thursday, the French will not have finished rebuilding from last week. They might by Friday, but not as of yet.” “Just as well” Cheryl noted, heading for the war room. “This way the street mimes won’t have any buildings to hide in once the ground assault begins. Flushing mimes out of basements and sewers can grow tedious.” It was time travel, obviously. Yo wondered why it had taken him so long to realize it. The headache was the definitive sign. His subconscious had picked up the shift in the space-time continuum. The implications of poorly conceived time-travel plots were enough to give anyone a headache, even a being of Pure Thought Energy. From what Yo could tell, this plot was particularly poor. The fact that Yo had no good reason to remember the original time-line was a clear indication of this… Someone had done a sloppy job of rearranging history. The first step to correcting the problem would be to find out precisely where this time-line diverged from the original. Luckily, it never occurred to Yo that this would be a near-impossible task. He thought he knew where it had begun, and so, of course, he did. Yo took a deep breath, and, as easily as one might think of going to the corner store, he thought himself to be back in late August of the Year 1990. “All right,” Visionary’s roommate, Brian, said. “You’re up.” Visionary took the ball and gave it an experimental toss into the late summer air. It had been a while since he had played volleyball, and his main concern was simply not making a total fool out of himself. Just get it over the net... Just get it over the net. He threw the ball up above his head (one had to serve overhand, anything else would just be rather wussy) and smacked it with the heal of his palm. The Fates smiled upon him, and it was a particularly decent serve. The blonde girl in the back row of the other team casually advanced towards the net, and the ball went over her head to bounce with a satisfying ‘thud’ in the grass. “Oops, that’s out, I’m afraid.” The blonde said, retrieving the ball. “Wha-? What are you talking about?” Visionary stammered. “That wasn’t even close to out!” “Weren’t you paying attention when we made the rules?” she asked innocently. “Since we don’t have any backlines, anything over the heads of all the players is out.” “But you moved up!” Visionary said indignantly. “Really? How peculiar.” she noted. “I’m sure I must have had a good reason. Anyway, I believe that it’s now my serve.” She flashed him a pleasant smile. Visionary considered arguing some more, but ultimately decided to let it go. This was just a friendly game, after all. Simply a way for freshmen to get to know each other before classes started. Considering that, out of the entire dorm, only three women had shown up, Visionary figured his chances of getting a date out of this game were slim enough. Calling one of those women a weasel to her face was probably not going to drastically improve his odds. The blonde girl swung her arm in a great underhand blow, and the ball went sailing high in the air towards Visionary. Slyly, Visionary took a giant step forward. The ball reached its zenith, disappearing in the sun, then came plummeting back down to land squarely on top of Visionary’s head, creating what the blonde girl must have found to be a very satisfying ‘thud’. “Smooth” Brian observed as their teammates ran after the lost ball. “I thoughth tho” Visionary replied, having bitten his tongue. “Are you all right?” the blonde girl asked, her teenage face sporting a some-what sympathetic smile. “I think I’ll live” Visionary answered, forcing his tongue to work. “You wouldn’t have been moving up to force the shot out-of-bounds, would you?” she asked innocently. “I am shocked, *shocked* that you would suggest such a thing.” Visionary answered haughtily. “So then you meant to do that?” “Well, uh... I’m really not in the habit of purposely taking blows to the head.” Visionary admitted. “Don’t worry,” she reassured him thoughtfully, “it didn’t show. You made it look quite professional.” “Cheryl, get back over here and serve!” one of the woman’s teammates, presumably her roommate, called out. Visionary’s blonde assailant returned to her side of the net and prepared to launch the ball again. “Do me a favor and see if you can whack a cute one this time” her roommate suggested, “I could use a date for tonight.” Atop a nearby hill, unnoticed, a dark figure watched, the sunlight reflecting off his polished steel mask as his menacing horns were outlined against the crisp blue sky. Soon... very soon, he would have everything he had ever desired. What was more, he would soon have everything his hated rival ever held dear... It was just a matter of time. to be continued... Visionary, reposting the story of how Vizh and Cheryl met. |
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