Tales of the Parodyverse

Post By

Josh Clement
Fri Jun 03, 2005 at 02:03:35 pm EDT
Subject
The Intermittent Adventures of De Brown Streak #15 Visionary Week Special - Now With 100% Less DBS!
[ Reply ] [ New ] [ Email ] [ Print ] [ RSS ] [ Tales of the Parodyverse ]
Next In Thread >>


In a quiet little restaurant somewhere in Tiny Greece (see HH’s map of Parodiopolis, or since it’s HH’s map, Paradopolis), Visionary sits nervously with his unexpected date, Pricilla DuBois, who is secretly De Brown Streak’s mutate lost twin sister, the Vermillion Vex. Any similarity to characters and situations in major comic book companies with really vicious lawyers is purely coincidental.

Pricilla: “Well, this is… unexpected. I’ve never eaten Javan cuisine before.”

Visionary: “Sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting to accidentally date you and most places were booked. And really I was getting a bit confused. I thought that this joint had some kind of Star Wars theme.”

Pricilla: “The menu seemed to baffle you too. Do you really enjoy diced killer blowfish in a seaweed sauce?”

Vizh: “What? I thought I ordered the salad!”

Pricilla gives Vizh his first smile of the evening. “Yeah, my research said you could be kind of careless about the little details.”

Visionary panics. “Research? You’ve researched me?”

Pricilla realises that this is kind of a giveaway that she’s actually a card-carrying member of the Botherhood of Evil Mutates, working for her father Morbido the Malevolent. “Well, when I say research,” she covers hastily, “I’m talking about finding out what a guy’s like before I meet with him. Basic precaution in the modern dating field.”

“There are databases and stuff?” Vizh asks worriedly. “Only I think they should take into account when a guy’s on prescribed medication that might make him clumsier or slower to catch on than usual.”

“No databases, although somebody could make a fortune with that idea. No, I had to rely on these.” Pricilla opens her bag and gets out a bunch of glossy celeb magazines. “Is it true you jilted Lisa at the altar?”

“No. Absolutely not. That was all a big misunderstanding. A multi-part misunderstanding really.”

“What about you and nine green-skinned alien slaves you captured?”

“That was all blown out of proportion too. I didn’t capture them, I rescued them, and there was no hanky-panky at all. Not even any hanky. Well, almost no hanky, and that was later.”

Pricilla makes a note on a pad she’s carrying. “Uh huh. So you didn’t sleep with them?”

“Not all of them. I mean, I don’t talk about…”

Pricilla moves down the list. “The Lair Legion’s administrator seems to think very highly of you too. She says you are a Great Man, the finest human being ever to be born, and that she doesn’t know why every woman doesn’t want to date you.”

“Yes, well Asil is a little… enthusiastic in her assessment of my…”

“What about your waitress friend? The one in the coffee shop?”

“Sarah. We’re just good friends. I only go there for the crullers really.”

“So there’s no truth to the rumours of you and her skinny-dipping in Off-Central Park.”

“Where the hell does Paradopolis Today get these flaming stories?!” Vizh explodes exasperatedly.

Pricilla checks the byline. “Some guy named Flapjack, if you can believe that. It’s got to be a pen name.”

“Akiko Masamune has whacked people for me before,” scowls Visionary darkly, glaring at the magazine. “Well, not so much whacked as chased out of town, but all the same…”

“So you’re denying the allegations of your comrade CrazySugarFreakBoy! that you are, and I quote, and idiot-savant fu…”

“You can’t believe everything you read in those gossip rags,” Vizh assures her. “It’s pretty much all made up to fill column inches.”

Pricilla: “There are some pretty weird claims in these. For example, it says that Yo is an alien, that Space Ghost has an alcohol problem, that Lisa once dated a whole marine platoon, that Sir Mumphrey Wilton is actually over a hundred years old, and that Goldeneyed has fathered a love child on an internet porn star.”

“Er yes. Well you can’t always believe everything they print.”

Pricilla sighs. “I’m being too pushy, aren’t I? I always do this. I scare guys off with the fifth degree.”

“Well, like you say, a girl has to be careful. I mean, I also had a bit of a background check done on you,” Vizh admits. “Not that that makes me a girl,” he adds hastily.

“Oh,” Pheobe frowns. “And…?”

“And I know you’re a mutate, registered for the minor power to make ketchup bottles splodge out in one big meal-destroying lump. Maybe not the greatest super-power ever, but then again there’s a superhero out there whose power is to hold objects horizontally at arms’ length for extended periods of time.”

Pricilla: “So you decided to go slumming? Try and score a little mutie rough?”

Vizh: “No, really not. Just because you’re a mutate doesn’t… I’m not looking for… I’m not the guy who appears in those gossip rags, Pricilla.”

Pricilla: “Shame. He seems to be kind of a stud.”

Vizh: “Now my head just hurts. The killer poisoned blowfish is starting to seem like a good menu choice.”

Pricilla: “It’s just that I can’t help but notice that you spend a lot of time palling around with… well, folks that lots of people would call second class. Computer beings and gender-challenged thought beings and aliens and pyromaniacs and stuff. Are you hoping to look good by comparison?”

Vizh: “They’re my friends, that’s all. I don’t think of them as anything else really.”

Pricilla sips her Dr Pepper. “You know, I almost believe you. I’m almost buying the nice guy act. You may be the most prejudice-free guy I’ve ever dated. So what do you think about De Brown Streak?”

“Josh? He’s a nice guy if you get past the he-irritates-the-hell-out-of-me-the-way-he-chases-women part.” Vizh thinks again. “Wait a minute! Is that what this date is about? You’re using me to get at Josh? Teach him a lesson that he’s not God’s gift to women?”

Pricilla shakes her head. “I admit to being a bit curious about Josh, but not how you’re thinking.” She leans in, causing Vizh to spill his drink onto his pants. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Is it that your mutate power is to impersonate a woman but you’re really a man?” Visionary worries. “Because we all laughed at spiffy that one time but…”

“No. I’m all woman, Visionary, I promise you that. Then again, when I’m leaning forward with this décolletage you can probably judge for yourself.”

“Not that I was looking. I just… was worried that one of your buttons was losing a thread. Yes, that’s it.”

“Worried or hoping?” Pricilla teases. “Anyway, can you keep a secret? Cross your heart and hope to get eaten by the Yurt if you tell?”

Vizh: “Well, I guess I can, unless it turns out you’re part of some secret mutate cabal out to take over the planet and subjugate us poor homo sapiens in slavery for the rest of our miserable lives or something.”

“Ha!” Pricilla laughs falsely. “As if. What a wag you are, Visionary. The very idea. No, here’s my secret. I’m a twin.”

Vizh perks up. “You have an equally hot twin sister? Er, I mean, another charming young lady such as your…”

“Yeah, I get the sentiment. No, my twin is a brother.”

“Ah. A big possessive brother who doesn’t like you dating men from gossip magazines?” Vizh swallows. “Only when I said you were hot I just meant that the Javanese cookery is very spicy.”

“My brother doesn’t even know he has a sister. We were separated at birth by a freak exploding milk truck accident. It’s the kind of thing that could happen to anybody.”

Vizh nods. “I know it’s happened to me quite a few times since I started fostering Kerry.” A new worried thought occurs to him. “It’s not me is it? You’re not my long-lost sister?”

Pricilla laughs. “No. I’m real dammit. And also, you know… black?”

Vizh: “Oh yeah. Well now you know why I’m the most prejudice-free guy you’ve ever met. I may also be the dumbest.”

Pricilla: “But I am curious about my long-lost brother… and that’s why I was asking you about De Brown Streak.”

Vizh: “You think Josh may be able to help you find… No, it’s okay. I’m with you now. No need to stab me with that fork you’re gripping.” He hastily moves the ketchup bottle to an adjoining table too.

Pricilla: “You can’t tell Josh. You promised to keep a secret. You can’t tell him yet, until I’m ready to cope with it all.”

“Because you disapprove of him joining the Lair Legion and not fighting for the ‘mutate cause’ as an outlaw? But honestly, Pricilla, DBS is doing just as much…”

“You promised.”

“I did. Okay, I’ll keep your secret. And I’ll fill you in on what I know about your secret brother if it helps you gain the confidence to let him in on the need-to-know.” Vizh sighs. “I knew there had to be some reason a beautiful girl like you needed a date with a guy like me.”

“Oh Vizh, don’t think like that. There were all kinds of ways I could have got to know about Josh. This was the only one that gets me to know you too. And believe it or not, I’m kind of enjoying our time together. Especially since I know now that you don’t have romantic attachments to any woman on the planet, despite what Parodiopolis Today said on February 9th.”

“February 9th issue?”

“Faking Orgasms: We Rate the Top Twenty Vixens to Test Drive Visionary.”

“Flapjack is so dead…”

“But you’re not that guy, right? You’re not having torrid affairs with Lisa and Yo and Dancer and Baroness von Zemo and Hallie and Laurie Leyton and Asil Ashling and…”

“Er, well I’m not really seeing anyone exclusively just now…”

Pricilla smiles as she plays with her fork. “Good.” And she thinks, But it’s best for those Caphans, the waitress, the computer girl, the lawyer, the clone, and the thought being all to have nasty accidents anyway, just to be on the safe side. Oh yes.

Vizh: “Are you okay? Only you got a strange look on your face, so I wondered if your salad had a slug in it or something? That happened to me one time, but Yo wouldn’t let me move it because it seemed so happy grazing on my lettuce.”

Pricilla: “I’m just fine, Vizh. I was just thinking. I’ve shared a secret with you. You should share one with me.”

Vizh: “A secret? What kind of secret? I know the override codes to unlock the secret levels of a Bautistamat Microwave Oven.”

Pricilla smiles at him and shuffles closer, leaning even further forward. “Nothing as terrible as that, Visionary. I was just wondering if you keep a spare toothbrush I could borrow? For the morning.”

To be continued



dial-80-47-193-113.th.lond.access.as9105.com (80.47.193.113) U.S. Company
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6/Windows 2000 (1 points)
[ Reply ] [ New ] [ Email ] [ Print ] [ RSS ] [ Tales of the Parodyverse ]
Follow-Ups:

Echo™ v2.4 © 2003-2005 Powermad Software
Copyright © 2004-2005 by Mangacool Adventure