Lisa Waltz presents: The Meteor Team: Friends Bring Smiles, But Evil Packs A Trunk

Note from Visionary: Once upon a time, there was a Parodyverse writer named "Lisa". One day she looked under a cabbage leaf, or met a stork, or some such thing... (I haven't really bothered to look into the details)... and became preggers. Now, inexplicably, she somehow decided that raising this child would be a more responsible use of her time than hanging out with us and writing immature little adventure stories for our amusement. I try not to hold this against her.

But can a person truly walk away from being a Parodyverse writer? Or does this place change something fundamental inside each of us? And, if so, would that make a valid defense in a court of law? Lisa would probably know.

In any event, the time came when Christopher (that would be the result of the aforementioned pregnancy... apparently they come out eventually and start talking and behaving like little humans) wanted to hear stories. And not just any stories... stories starring *his* favorite stuffed animals, and pets, and exotic critters.

Stories where they were superheroes.

What follows is one of those stories committed to paper (well, if you print it) for Christopher's sake. Jumping into the middle of it is probably much like jumping into the middle of the Parodyverse... it's sink or swim. (If necessary, try and hold onto Champagne... she seems buoyant.) However, if you squint just right, I think you could see a lifetime of Parodyverse writing at work behind the scenes here. Especially in the various cheap jokes about bodily functions. After all, it was written for a 6 year old, so our maturity levels should align nicely.

So read along below, enjoy her tale (as well as all of her footnotes), reminisce about the days when Lisa regularly posted nonsense for us to enjoy, and learn a thing or two about her current life. Here's a hint: Lots of "Animal Planet".

If people enjoy this, there is the promise (threat?) of more from Lisa to come...

THE METEOR TEAM, BOOK II: FRIENDS BRING SMILES,

BUT EVIL PACKS A TRUNK

Chapter One – A Wicked Introduction

The Evil Baby Elephant was, once again, having a very bad day.

Once again, Jet, the superhero Leopard Gecko, and his Meteor team of courageous, do gooding reptiles, had foiled Baby Elephant’s fiendishly delicious plot to take over the world and make people eat her finest recipes, such as road kill stew, homemade “chocolate,” and prune juice a la pachadenial.

So, today really, really sucked.

Her twin satellites of Doom even got smashed to bits, once again, by Dorilla the humongously huge lizardy thingy. (That is its actual scientific name, Humongously Huge Lizardy Thingy… at least, that’s what Baby Elephant claims loudly whenever questioned on her [ab]use of biological nomenclature. Then she quickly changes the subject.) But what with parts were getting so expensive and the budget for nefarious devices shrinking every year, it was a very poopy thing for old Dorito-Head to do.

Well, it could be worse, she thought philosophically. The last time one of her cunning plans inexplicably failed (In point of fact, she tried to stomp the Keebler Elves in order to gain control of their highly lucrative cookie franchise. When she was caught in the act of scraping an apprentice chip sorter from her feet, she claimed loudly, “It was an accident.” Then she quickly changed the subject.), Baby Elephant lost her dessert privileges for one whole month.(Once again.) Snarf to that.

So it was high time for her to use her full one-half brain (The other half is missing in action. Its existence is slightly less well documented than that of the Yeti.) and to try to create the perfect mad scheme, one that violated all the laws of space, time, sanity and decency in unison and then one after another. (But in no particular order, since B.E. can’t count past three anyway.)

Baby Elephant soon smiled a twisted little smile that was very nearly hidden by her giant intangible tusks. (Baby Elephant has no tusks; she just thinks that she does. She also believes that she is much larger than Dorilla. She even wrote a song about these alleged facts. You would not want your worst enemy to hear it.) She had an inspiration. She also had to go to the little elephants’ room and make some more “chocolate.” Oddly enough, one would have been hard pressed to differentiate between the outcomes of either process.

With a sigh, Baby Elephant bit the narrator and continued on into the next chapter.

Chapter Two – Heroes Take Charge

Jet, the leader of the Meteor Team, called in his teammates, Hotwheels the super speedy corn snake, and Sawtooth the steel-jawed bearded dragon, for a conference. It concerned the very latest information regarding some local bad guys, in this case, a horde of fierce, pinchy alligator snapping turtles, the Snip-Snaps, who liked to mug young newts for their lunch money.

“Well, Gentlemen,” Jet announced, “It appears that those vicious Snip Snaps have gone too far this time. Not only did they steal a baby salamander’s peanut butter and fly sandwiches, they bit his toes so hard that they swelled up like grapes!”

The others gasped in horror.

“We need to do something about this right away,” shouted an irate Hotwheels, the group hothead, “The little fella could have lost his feet altogether, and he’s sure not meant to be a snake, for heaven’s sake!”

Sawtooth, who tends to be quiet and thoughtful even when angry, ground his razor sharp teeth, slowly shook his head and looked Jet right in the eyes. “I agree with Hotwheels. We must teach those treacherous terrapins a lesson they won’t soon forget.”

Jet adjourned the meeting by saying, “Ok then, we’re agreed. At noon we leave Death Island, our home base, for Tiny Turtle Lagoon on the neighboring island of Atomic Bomb Atoll.”

Chapter Three – Interlude

Now Death Island is a truly unique, and to some, uniquely terrifying landmass. Sitting some hundred miles southwest of Monster Island, the home of Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Gamera, and other more or less famous monsters, Death Island simply overflows with super-powered monsters of various species. Some of these creatures are good. Some are not so good. Some are Baby Elephant. (This happens more often than you’d think.)

Death Island is also the den site of the biggest creature the earth has ever known, the all powerful Dorilla, true King of the Monsters and proud possessor of the most spiky and bodacious tail to ever grace a Humongously Huge, Lizardy Thingy. (Baby Elephant is never right about anything, so let’s get this scientific name issue straight once and for all: Dorilla is a genetically altered Komodo Dragon, the lone member of the species Dorillasaurus raidifierous, which in English translates precisely into… er… um… “humongously huge, lizardy thingy.”) It may be important to note (But probably isn’t.) that one of Baby Elephant’s prime missions in life is to cut of this tail and use it to make something really vile and disgusting to force feed her loyal minions, the dung beetles that swarm all over her smelly little body. Indeed, Baby Elephant proudly refers to these tiny parasites as her “Little Black Things,” (As in the apocryphal song lyrics “Little black things, little black things, running up and down my arms. If I wait ‘til they have babies, I can start a black thing farm.” It should be sung to the tune of Darling Clementine… but why on earth would you want to?) and she is firmly and erroneously convinced that she can one day comfortably retire off the breeding rights to them. She is slightly psychotic. It goes without saying that she votes Republican.

At any rate, the headquarters of the Meteor Team lies within a few feet of Dorilla’s underground home, which is very convenient, since Dorilla is a good friend of Jet and his team and frequently joins them in their adventures. Jet even has a Dorilla-Signal ™ extension in his bedroom, next to the hide box.

The Meteor team also has a wide selection of vehicles, including time and space portals, for making forays off of Death Island. These devices are kept in top condition by Jet, who is a scientific and mechanical genius, and always work perfectly… except when Baby Elephant manages to sabotage them with Joker-brand™ parts that she buys cheaply from eBay or with insane selections from one of Doctor Doom’s frequent rummage sales. All retail and/or wholesale merchants reading this missive should be aware that Baby Elephant has been barred from PayPal for life (and beyond). (An eternal restriction that PayPal’s lawyers assure their client is a legally enforceable response to one of her more colorful scams involving a ouiji board, fifty dead real estate agents, and an English muffin.)

At precisely noon, a small rocket plane could be seen emerging from the Meteor Mansion sally port and heading toward Atomic Bomb Atoll.

Chapter Four: Danger in Paradise

The Meteor Team arrived on Tiny Turtle Lagoon at exactly 12:15 PM. After carefully scanning the beach with the rocket plane’s advanced telemetronic warning systems (and finding nothing more sinister than Nigel Marvin talking to a camera), (Gosh, how we love Nigel Marvin.) the three courageous reptiles slithered down the debarking ramp and onto the warm cottony sand. Suddenly, all three jumped as another small figure plopped down beside them.

“Oh, it’s you,” smiled Jet, “You startled us, little guy.”

“Sorry about that,” responded a little spotted lizard, “But you didn’t think I’d let you fellas have all the fun, did ya?”

It was Dorilla, of course. He had morphed into his miniature lizard form, the one that always gives the bad guys such a nasty shock whenever they try to step on it.

“Hush up and come on,” growled Sawtooth impatiently, “We haven’t got all day.”

“Sorry,” Jet and Dorilla chorused meekly. The team then covered the ground from the beach to the jungle as quickly and efficiently as is possible for three lizards and a hyperactive snake. They intended to steal up upon the Snip Snaps and subdue the tyrannical turtles before they knew what hit them. Unfortunately, when they arrived at the decrepit palm tree hut that was the villains’ regular hideout, no one was home.

Well, almost no one.

The Snip Snaps had left them a gift… a huge, rabid conch shell came bursting out of the hut, screaming “ths;riuops?Dgje[‘awnf’”(Rough translation: “Do you know the location of an inexpensive hotel?”) as it came at them with its deadly stinging barb dripping toxins and thrust out for combat.

The heroes sprang into action. Hotwheels fearlessly threw himself across the path of the ravening mollusk, causing it to trip and fall forward, directly into the jaws of Sawtooth, who revved his teeth into lightening fast motion.

“ZzzzziiiiIIPPPPP!” The lethal stinger shot off harmlessly into the undergrowth. Jet and Dorilla each grabbed a side of the snarling Conch and held it motionless between them.

“Now that will be quite enough of that,” Jet murmured to the Conch. “Good work, everyone. Hotwheels, would you please call Sea Animal Control and have them send around some deputy control officers? This critter is too crazy wild to be of any use to us in finding out where his owners, the Snip Snaps, are hiding.”

“Yessir,” Hotwheels shot off in the direction of the rocket plane.

“Sawtooth, let’s see if we can find some vines to tie this devil up with. He’s strong as a team of ocean oxen on steroids.”

Nodding affirmative, Sawtooth scurried deeper into the jungle, leaving Dorilla, Jet, and the insane seashell alone in the clearing.

“Do you want me to take a look around while we wait?”

“Sure thing, ‘Rilla, that might not be a bad idea at all. I can handle Conch-Boy here by myself.”

As soon as Dorilla disappeared into the canopy, however, a low, evil laugh came swirling out of the jungle darkness, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It was accompanied by a horrible, sickening stench that would have made a vulture rethink its choice of career. Jet shivered impulsively. All his gecko instincts warned him that evil was afoot… stinky evil… no, even worse, stinky DINKY evil.(There is nothing so vile, so blasphemous, so utterly offensive to man or beast as stinky, dinky evil.) He wondered what would happen next. So did the writer.

Chapter Five: Stinky Dinky Evil Is Afoot

Baby Elephant shifted her position slightly so that her “massive” bulk would be more thoroughly hidden by the jungle foliage. She stifled a belch, a futile gesture since the gas soon rumbled lower down and entered the atmosphere as a “bottom burp.” Just for the record, this is Baby Elephant’s delicate, ladylike way of referring to her thunderous flatulence. (Speaking of sour intestinal emissions, have I mentioned that Baby Elephant is severely delusional and has high regard for the Bush family?)

At any rate, Jet, that meddling leaping delgado… um, make that “leopard gecko,” (You see, Baby Elephant has problems with big words, to be defined as any word containing more than three letters or one syllable.) clearly sensed her presence. This could cause problems. Best to deal with him immediately.

“NOI!” Baby Elephant jumped out and screamed,“NOI! NOI! NOI! NOI! NOI! NOI!!!!”

This proved to be a masterstroke. The brave lizard hero stood no chance against the puny pachyderm’s sonic assault. The hideous noise vibrations were a form of doomsday weapon against which even the mighty Dorilla had no defense and could be stunned senseless. (Sawtooth said it best when he commented tersely, “Her noi’s annoy.”) The only worse sound in the whole universe was Baby Elephant singing just about anything, but especially holiday carols.

As the last “NOI!” spewed out, the poor superhero and his captive conch fell unconscious into the deep grass. Instantly, a pack of dung beetles, the nefarious Dung Beetles of Doom, poured out of the shadows and dragged them away to Baby Elephant’s Castle of Despair. (Otherwise known as the abandoned Sears refrigerator box at Death Island dump.)

Now it was time to deal with that mutated Dorito…

Chapter Six: Terror From the Shadows

Pushing his way to the top of the tallest tree on the atoll, Dorilla first inspected the azure blue sky and then the jungle below. What with the thick growth of rain forest, there was little to see beyond the top of the canopy itself. Dorilla could have morphed into his full size and towered above the entire island, but that would not have provided a better view through the treetops. Plus, he might step on everyone. That sort of thing tended to make him unpopular. With a shrug, he started back down the trees, landing with a soft “Whooomph” in the clearing where he had left Jet and his captive only minutes before.

The clearing was completely empty… with no signs of struggle.

Dorilla sniffed the air. It smelled icky. Not just regular icky, but icky icky. Maybe even triple icky! Sort of like a long dead ferret with a particularly unpleasant B.O. issue. Unfortunately, the reek was all too familiar. Before the champion of Truth, Justice and a More Equitable Tax System could react further, Baby Elephant again leapt forth and delivered a resounding “NOI! NOI! SNARF! NOI!” Within a second, Dorilla toppled over, completely stunned. He too was dragged back to the Castle of Despair. (The Castle of Despair is also the recording and broadcast studio of the surprisingly unpopular children’s TV program, “The Happy Elephant Hour: starring Baby Elephant, Queen of the Universe.” The studio audience consists of all the little children that she has managed to kidnap on any given day. Her guest stars include a T-Rex, who has episodes, and a group of mentally challenged proboscis monkeys that Baby Elephant often employs in recipes that call for “jubilated monkeys’ meat.”)

That left two heroes to conquer as they returned from their separate assignments.

Easy as caramel cake with icing and three kinds of sprinkles. (You do not want to know.)

And it was, thanks to all the NOI’s. (“NOI” should be pronounced such that it rhymes with “BOY”*)

*WARNING: “NOI” should never be pronounced.

Chapter Seven: At the Castle of Despair

“You know,” said the now conscious Jet “There really isn’t room enough for all of us in here. Do you want us to kinda line up outside instead?”

“No way, Jose!” snapped Baby Elephant. “I want you to sit quietly while I explain my evil plan, including all its weak spots and, of course, the best way of eluding my security devices. I also wanna take a few moments to gloat and generally act super obnoxious and unsympathetic to the readers.”

“Oh, ok, fair enough,” agreed Hotwheels. “But don’t forget that we get to pretend to listen as we plot our imminent escape!”

“Yeah, whatever, just as long as you don’t figure out how to run away any time soon,” replied the deeply pathetic Baby Elephant.

So there they all sat. The Meteor Team, Dorilla, Baby Elephant, and the Dung Beetles of Doom. Well, no, they didn’t exactly sit. They sort of all squashed together in a messy heap. (Sadly, it had been a dorm size refrigerator unit.) Despite her delusions of grandeur, the Evil Baby Elephant did not run a class operation.

“So, here goes,” explained B.E. “First I lure you into a trap using the Snip Snaps and their pet grinch. (She means conch, silly beast.) Then I sing my NOI song to you and knock you out. Then I tie you up with unbreakable ropes and … ahem, did I remember to tie you up with the unbreakable ropes?”

“No,” said Sawtooth.

“Nopers,” said Hotwheels.

“Don’t think so,” said Jet.

“Did your nice Mama Elephant drop you on your head?” asked Dorilla. (Yes, she did.)

There was a moment of silence.

“Um, would you folks mind waiting right here while my henchbeetles get that silly old rope?”

“How many times?” Continued Dorilla. (Three.)

Realizing that she had just made a potentially fatal error, Baby Elephant attempted to correct her unforgivably dim mistake by “NOIing” as loud as she could.

However, this strategy was swiftly thwarted as Hotwheels leaned over and tied himself in a knot around her trunk. This timely act not only stopped her from singing, it also caused her trunk to fall clean off. Once again.

“Uh oh,” chuckled Jet. “I think we better call for Dr. Ben…” (Dr. Ben used to be a super villain himself but found the good practice insurance far to expensive to keep up with. He, therefore, became a general practitioner who treated anyone or thing for a buck. Preferably in cash. Under the table. You can forget all that HMO crap. After all, a reformed baddie has to make a living.)

“Ooooooooh Noooooooh, keep that maniac awaaaaaaaay from meeeeeee!” screeched a seriously frightened pygmy pachyderm. (In order to save money, Dr. Ben is known to conduct surgery using nothing more than duct tape and a rusty staple gun that he got from one of Dr. Doom’s rummage sales.)

But it was too late. Dr. Ben already had her insurance card on file. With payment at a fixed rate guaranteed by Medi-Snare, there was no stopping him now...

to be continued?

Post By Lisa Waltz (posted via Visionary) Mon Jan 29, 2007 at 07:45:02 pm EST	Subject Lisa Waltz presents: The Meteor Team: Friends Bring Smiles, But Evil Packs A Trunk

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