Tales of the Parodyverse

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Dancer via Vizh
Mon Sep 12, 2005 at 08:43:09 am EDT
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The Dancer – Epitome Waiting-For-Vizh-To-Catch-Up-With-Heart-of-Darkness-And –Post-Dancer’s-Chapter One-Shot
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The Dancer – Epitome
Waiting-For-Vizh-To-Catch-Up-With-Heart-of-Darkness-And –Post-Dancer’s-Chapter
One-Shot: “Did I always find you this frustrating or is it just because I’ve
been de-aged fifteen years?”


Mr Epitome, the paragon of power, the man of might, the stud of superdoing, etc:
So explain to me again what carrying your shopping has to do with fighting
crime?

Dancer: Well, you’re preventing my shopping being stolen.

Mr Epitome: I thought you were orienting me on the criminal underworld of
Parodiopolis, to bring me back up to speed after my recent mysterious 15-years
of memory loss.

Dancer: Yes, and also administering shopping therapy in case that helps. Do you
think this blouse goes with that skirt?

Mr Epitome: It’s very nice. Do they make one in your size?

Dancer: This is my size. It’s meant to be a little snug. It might not keep me
warm, but my date’ll be hot.

Mr Epitome: And the crimefighting?

Dancer: We’ll be getting to the crimefighting after the Mimble’s Sale. Can you
use your x-ray vision to see if there are any of those almost-Gucci shoes left
on the third floor?

Mr Epitome: No. My x-ray vision doesn’t work in the presence of notrelevantium.

Dancer: Hey, did Mr Epitome just crack a joke? Not a very funny joke, but a
genuine joke? Or have you been replaced by a Hero Feeder?

Mr Epitome: I had a moment of weakness. I think it’s the seventeen shopping bags
of womens clothing that are getting to me.

Dancer: None of it’s your size I’m afraid. Be good and get us to a taxi and I’ll
see if I can find you something in the J. Edgar Hoover collection.

Mr Epitome: Not what I’m talking about. I’m just saying that heaving your sale
purchases about doesn’t strike me as an effective way of fighting the war
against injustice. I know that I have to serve a probationary period with the
team again after my recent disability, but…

Dancer: Okay, relax. We’re fighting crime, okay, even as we speak. See that guy
there, with the duffel bag, that you almost flattened with our packages? He was
here to pick that other guy’s pocket, but instead he spotted that girl in the
cut-offs, and now he’s getting up the nerve to talk to her and they’re going to
find that they’re perfect for each other and he’ll give up crime and get off
drugs just so he can be with her for the rest of her life. So that’s one crime
averted right there.

Mr Epitome: That’s not exactly a major case we’ve cracked.

Dancer: Well, there were also those two teenage girls who were going to shoplift
until we bought the last of the scorching pink bikini sets that they were after,
and when they went for the sunset amber pattern they bumped into their old
kindergarten teacher who’s going to sort them out and put them on the straight
and narrow again.

Mr Epitome: You’re probability dancing? Right now? Changing people’s lives?

Dancer: Well, this is more probability shopping, but you get the idea.

Mr Epitome: You do that all the time? Just reach in and alter things, stripping
people of the liberties of choice?

Dancer: It usually sounds better when I talk about it.

Mr Epitome: But fundamentally that’s what you’re doing. You’re manipulating
events and thoughts so people choose the things you want for them, denying them
the opportunity to be good or evil by their own volition.

Dancer: Can we go back to discussing that ball you threw at Hacker Nine?

Mr Epitome: I think after all this shopping I deserve a straight answer,
actually.

Dancer: Boy, are you in the wrong team-up. Well okay then, how about this? If
you could talk somebody out of jumping off a rooftop and killing themselves,
wouldn’t you do it? Maybe even grab them at super-speed as they were hurling
themselves to their death? Are you robbing them of freedom of choice, or are you
setting things up so they maybe get better choices next time?

Mr Epitome: And why are we shopping when we should be crimefighting?

Dancer: You’re a big-picture kind of guy, aren’t you? Don’t the little crimes
matter enough to rate a big official superhero?

Mr Epitome: We can’t police the whole world. We can’t catch every pickpocket in
Parodiopolis, of stop every jaywalker on the planet. Besides, we have
conventional law enforcement for conventional crimes.

Dancer: But every citizen has a duty to uphold the law, especially when it’s
being broken right in front of them. A legal duty and a moral one. You remember
morals, right?

Mr Epitome: I’m all for them. We might disagree on what some of those moral
standards might be…

Dancer: Oh, I hope so, otherwise I’m terribly wrong about a lot of things. And
this would be a very boring team-up.

Mr Epitome: All I’m saying is, we can’t stop all the small stuff happening.
Superheroes aren’t there to stop teenaged bikini thieves.

Dancer: Tell that to CSFB! Anyhow, I’m not arguing that we need to stop all
the small stuff. I’m saying that sometimes it’s enough to just stop a single…
ooh, handbags!

Mr Epitome: Did I always find you this frustrating or is it just because I’ve
been de-aged fifteen years?

Dancer: I’m sure if you found me frustrating before you were far too polite to
mention it. Come on, we need to be in Old Carrington in around twenty minutes.
Fortunately there’s a taxi available for us just now.

Dancer: Um, do you have anywhere to carry change in that costume?

[And twenty minutes later, across town]

Mr Epitome: So now we’re fighting crime outside a delicatessen?

Dancer: And a very good delicatessen it is too. Mr Limbowski cuts all his own
pastrami, you know, except when his back’s bad.

Mr Epitome: Only I was working on a process that would help pinpoint the weapons
depots that B.A.L.D. have secreted around the city, which I could be clearing up
instead of watching you eat a hot dog on a suburban corner.

Dancer: Well, if you’re bored of patrolling for jaywalkers you could always go
and help that old man there with his bags. I can offer references for your
bag-carrying skills if he asks for a resumé,

Mr Epitome: We’re fighting crime, not helping one-armed homeless bums carry
their belongings about.

Dancer, frowning: Mr O’Brian’s not a bum, Dominic. Use that X-ray vision right
now on his left forearm. Go on. Now.

Mr Epitome: If you insist, but I… Ah. I see. Okay, you win this one. I’ll carry
his bags. I’ll carry his bags with pride.

Dancer: Because you’re an admirer of cheap tattoo work?

Mr Epitome: Because that tattoo’s the badge of the US Army X Corps 1st Raider
Company from the Korean War, and those guys were the forerunners of every
special ops unit this nation now possesses. And that badge buys a world of
respect from people who know about that stuff. So you laugh at me all you want
Dancer, because you win, but I am going to help that man with his bags.

Dancer: Not laughing at all, Dominic. Hello, Mr O’Brian. Let my friend here give
you a hand with that, okay? Going home?

Mr O’Brian: Oh, hello Dancer. Yes, heading home. Just round the corner.

Mr Epitome: This place? You live here?

Mr O’Brian: Well, for now. Without heating it’ll be too cold come winter. I
guess that’s what the landlord wants, to get us out. All of Carrington’s being
redeveloped these days.

Mr Epitome: You have to live in this… hole? No heating?

Dancer: No hot water, no garbage disposal, no hall cleaning, no maintenance.
It’s criminal. But, you know, small-scale criminal.

Mr Epitome: Is there a memo out about this being Teach Epitome a Lesson Week or
what?

Dancer: You didn’t get it? Lisa circulated all the rest of us. I think tomorrow
Yo’s showing you the grooming of bunnies.

Mr Epitome: I’m going out now to fight some crime. Small stuff. I’m going to
discuss the health violations of this place with the Super. And then I’ll be
using the FBI computer to trace the owner of this site and I’ll be talking to
him too. And then, Mr O’Brian, if you’re willing, I’d love to buy you a steak
dinner and hear some stories from the old days. If that’s okay with my mentor
here?

Dancer: Dominic, that sounds like the perfect evening’s crimefighting. If you’re
really good I’ll make sure we bump into somebody with an embarrassing spandex
costume as well before we go home.

Mr Epitome: Before we finish though, one more question. Since I’ve been
regressed 15 years some people have been horrified and some have been delighted.
Which are you, Dancer? Are you glad that I can’t carry out whatever sinister
plots you were all worried about, or does it bother you more that I’m so out of
date and not as trained and experienced as I was?

Dancer: Honestly? Well, it won’t surprise you that I’m a big believer in
chances. And I think maybe you were running out of those before your… whatever
it was. Now you’ve got all kinds of possibilities ahead of you.

Mr Epitome: And you’re planning on trimming them to the ones you think best for
me?

Dancer: Taking away your choice? No, I won’t do that. But I might introduce you
to the Mr O’Brians of life veery now and then to remind you what you’re fighting
for, if that’s okay with the paragon of power? Oh, and as for lessons?

Mr Epitome: What now? You need a hat to go with all the shoes and handbags?

Dancer: Lessons go two ways. While you’ve been with the Legion you’ve taught me
to be always true to my convictions and to live them every moment. And just now
you taught me that I can still be surprised by a simple act of generous
humility. Also, the hat idea is a pretty good one.

Mr Epitome: I can’t get you a hat. I have to fight crime then take a hero out to
dinner.

Dancer: Am I invited too? *smiles at Epitome* I’d be nice to get bought dinner
by two heroes. And you are going to be a hero this time round, right Dominic? A
great hero? I think so.








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