🚀 go-pugleaf

     There is a realm on the flip side of the waking world that goes by
many names -- the Looking Glass Land, the Dreaming, and the Dream Country
and Interdimensional House of Pancakes are but a few.  It is a dimension of
ever-shifting structure and form, with inhabitants that come and go with
the sleeping patterns of an ever-turning world.  It is the domain of
nightmares, the demesne of vague-yet-unerringly-accurate prophecy, the
domicile of the impossible and unreal.
     It is the Realm Nocturnae.
     Currently, it's getting the metaphysical snot beaten out of it --
or, at least, a part of it.
     "Hold still, vile ruffian!" Mighty Guy, wearing something that looked
like his costume, only with a vaguely Italian twist that made it five times
too large for him, exclaimed.  "You'll not torment this poor soul who just
remembered a class he forgot about all semester and showed up on exam day
naked!"  The ruffian in question, a large brute who resembled, in equal
parts, the poor soul's mother, his gym teacher and his second grade bully,
emitted a loud series of shrieks as he was tossed out of the school.
Mighty Guy, satisfied that he had saved the day, turned away, thus not
seeing the ruffian strike seven more poor souls who were having dreams of
falling.
     Perelle, a low-level dream being who had been part of the school
crowd, winced and looked around for cover.  The walls of the building faded
to reveal that Mighty Guy was standing on a stairway that rose into
infinite darkness.  His costume had shifted into being knight's armor.
Perelle was now standing behind him, wearing a servant's outfit and
carrying a large pack on his back.
     "Forward, faithful servant!" Mighty Guy exclaimed.  "At the top of
yonder stairs lies the end of our quest!"
     "But," Perelle said, realizing his only hope lay in winging his
dialogue, "we shall be climbing all night before we reach the top!"  Under
his dream-breath, he added, "buy it buy it buy it oh pleaseohplease...."
     "Do not worry!  I shall fly us to the top!"
     "No!  Don't-- waaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhh!!"
     Mighty Guy flew up the stairs, hauling Perelle by his arm.
Unfortunately, due to the non-Euclidean nature of the Realm and despite the
fact that Mighty Guy was flying at the proper angle to start with, they
flew into and through the stairs several times during their ascent, which
didn't faze Mighty Guy in the least but severely fazed Perelle to the point
of unconsciousness.
     At the top was a forest scene, with a misty lake in the middle.  A
woman who bore a vaguely disturbing resemblance to a combination of Key Li
Pan, Marie Osmond and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm rose from the water, her
body shrouded by fog.  She held out a gleaming sword and beckoned for
Mighty Guy to approach.
     "Take this sword, o most noble knight, as true ruler of Megapolis and
the outer suburbs," she said, her voice echoing with divine reverb.  "Unite
the city under your--"
     "Look out!" Mighty Guy exclaimed, rushing forward as the sword began
to change into a serpent.  Unfortunately, he had not let go of Perelle, and
when he stopped, Perelle was flung bodily forward, clipping the woman and
causing her to drop the snake, which grew to mythic dimensions and hissed.
     "Not again," the woman gurgled.
     "Again," Perelle sighed, as he struggled to the surface.
     They surfaced to see Mighty Guy contending with the serpent.
     "Stay thee back, vile velour demon!" the Action Arse yelled.  "You'll
not torment me with your Fried Ice Cream imagery!"
     "That's Freudian, you twit," the snake hissed.  "I-- ow!  Stop that!
Whoonf!  Waiiieee!  Ow!  Ugh!  Ack!  Mommie!  Yow!"
     Finally, Mighty Guy began fading into nothingness, and the now-knotted
serpent collapsed into the lake, dousing Perelle and the woman with a large
splash.  When the Man of Petrified Wood had completely disappeared, it
turned to the two and hissed angrily.
     "Can't you *do* something about this?"
     "Look, we don't like it any more than you do, Maurice," the woman
said, as she rose from the lake and caused surrounding fog to collapse into
her and form a bathrobe.  "If you can think of a way to get him to stop
eating hawaiian pizzas before he goes to sleep, let us know!"
     "I think I'm just going to lie down a while, Shiala," Perelle sighed,
woozily.  Shiala pulled him out of the water and started guiding him
towards the edge of the lake.  Maurice, meanwhile, started working on
unknotting itself, all the while grumbling that it could have been in that
Eden gig, if only it hadn't slept in that day.

                                   ==(.*.)==


                                     KENT!

                            a three part miniseries

                                  part three

                             "Mouth of Megapolis"

                                      by
                                 Gary W. Olson


                                CONTINUITY NOTE:

               Lightning flashed, illuminating Drake Drakeworth's
          dark, fiery eyes, which at that moment were in a jar on
          Drake's shelf.  Igor Simmons, Drake's girl friday,
          chuckled quietly as she once again convinced the pizza
          company next door to deliver ten pizzas to the King of
          Spain.
               It was then that the door opened, revealing the
          stunning and slightly banal form of Michelle Flanders,
          a development Igor reacted to by quickly switching the
          television program over to 'My Three Azaleas.'
               Meanwhile, elsewhere in the castle, bread moldered.


                                   ==(.*.)==

     Commander Frank shivered slightly as he awoke.  After a few minutes of
wondering at the strange refrigerator he had woken inside of, he got his
bearings and extended a meaty hand to the latch to let himself out.  The
door swung open and the Beefy Battler slid out, the various trays and food
products he had had to share space with sliding out his back, which
reformed once those items were past.
     From elsewhere in Mighty Guy's abode, he heard the sound of a shower,
and surmised that was where his friend and host was.  He looked about the
kitchen, which was decorated with a mind-bending assortment of cutlery
(mostly broken), microwave ovens (mostly broken), unwashed dishes (mostly
broken) and half-eaten food (mostly moldy).  It was about as dysfunctional
as a functional kitchenette could get, Frank mused -- even moreso than his
own.  It also made locating the doorway that led out damn difficult.
     Eventually, the good Commander did make his way into the living room,
which was awash in kool-aid boxes (mostly crushed), pudding snack
containers (mostly stacked), tv guides (mostly shredded) and pez dispensers
(mostly dispensed).  The sound from the shower stopped, and minutes later
Mighty Guy, wearing his purple-and-orange costume, over which was his
awesomeantium dress slacks, emerged, toweling his hair.
     "Good morning!" Kent exclaimed, causing Frank's body to ripple with
the sound vibrations, the only way Frank had been able to find to deal with
Mighty Guy's Mighty Loud voice.  "Did you sleep well?"
     "As well as could be expected," Frank replied, as he continued to take
in the strange sights and even stranger scents of the living room.  "Do you
really *live* here?"
     "Yes!" Kent replied, proudly.  "I moved into this, my Bachelor Pad of
Solitude, soon after returning to Megapolis as it's full-time protector!  I
was amazed that it was so affordable!  In fact, Mayor Rucknall personally
recommended this suburb to me!"
     Frank looked out the window at the large pools of toxic waste that
were bubbling up from random parts of the lawn and sidewalk.  People in
radiation suits were running around waving geiger counters at the scenery
and frowning.  The towers of Megapolis were visible in the distance to the
south, but no other buildings could be seen between them and Kent's house.
     "Anyway," Kent continued, as he put on his violently magenta dress
shirt and eye-hurting orange-tie with pea-soup-green spots, "are you ready
for today's show?"
     "I am," Frank confirmed.  "Got food dye, condiments, and Brut inside
me, ready to come to the surface on cue."
     "If only more of us could say that," Kent mused.  "The world would no
doubt be a better place!"
     "No doubt.  Are you having breakfast?"
     "Yes!" Kent confirmed, heading for the kitchenette.  He clipped the
wall without noticing on the way in, and then again on the way out.
"Leftover pasta, with added pez!"
     "Don't cook much, do you?" Frank asked, as he sat on the sofa.
     "Regrettably not!" Kent admitted.  "Though if you want me to heat some
lasagna up, I can always use my Mighty Hot Vision!"
     "No!" Frank exclaimed.  "I mean, no, that's quite all right."
     "I shall have to be getting to the studio!  Feel free to watch some tv
and ingest some pez while you wait for your time to depart!  I left some
notes on the coffee table for you to peruse!  They will give you adequate
background for bluffing your way through the grueling interview I have
planned!"
     "Um, thanks," Frank commented.  Mighty Guy nodded and flew through
the front wall, blowing chunks of plaster and brick onto the startled
people in radiation suits, who Frank guessed hadn't been informed that
Mighty Guy lived there.  He shrugged, flipped on the tv set and breezed
through the channels, looking for something that would pass the time.
     Strangely, all the morning talk shows were reruns that day.

                                   ==(.*.)==

     "Turn right up here," Jay Leno whined.  Phil Donahue put on the turn
signal of the slate-grey volvo his minions had stolen the day before and
started turning right.  "No, left!"  Phil cursed and swung around the other
way, clipping a taxi and a cement mixer as he got onto southbound Weyer
Street.
     In the back seat, Bizarre Guy fidgeted, despite Oprah Winfrey's
incessant injunctions to stay still.  Keeping his huge frame scrunched up
enough to not poke through the ceiling of the boxlike car was not an easy
task, made more difficult by the fact that Oprah, Jenny Jones and Jerry
Springer were also in the back seat.  The rest of SNUCCI's leadership was
following in an extremely crowded Chevette.
     "I see the building!" Jay exclaimed, pointing.  Phil nodded and sped
through several intersections, blatantly disregarding the signals and
oncoming traffic.  A few dozen collisions later, the volvo spun into a
parking space outside the service entrance and sputtered to a stop.
     "We're here!" Phil called.  "Everyone out!"
     Amazingly, Bizarre Guy managed to get out without damaging the car in
the slightest, though he did accidentally smush Jerry Springer into a
compact ball, a fact that the other talk show hosts agreed was no big deal.
The Chevette pulled up behind the Volvo and they watched as the other
undead talk show hosts piled out, often bearing the limbs of others that
had come unstuck during the drive.  While waiting for them to get things
sorted out, Phil decided to remind the Megapolis Maroon about his part in
the plan.
     "Remember, you come out and sit on the stage right when the show
starts.  I don't know how Kent thinks he's going to cover being both Kent
Clark and Mighty Guy during the show, but you can bet he has some kind of
plan.  These do-gooders, enemies of Cthulhu that they are, always do!"
     "Outdeed!" Bizarre Guy answered.  "I hears and obeyed!"
     "Of course you do," Phil said.
     "Look!" Jay exclaimed.  "Up in the sky!"
     "Is it a meteor?" Oprah asked.
     "Is it an incoming bomber?" Larry King inquired.
     "No," Phil growled.  "It's--"
     SHA-BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!
     "At last, I have arrived!" Mighty Guy exclaimed.  "I see once again
that I have arrived undetected, and may proceed into my place of work
secure in the knowledge that no one who sees me will realize my true
identity!"  He looked around, seeing a wide assortment of limbs and car
parts.  "I do *wish* the local hospitals would take more care in disposing
of their medical waste!  Perhaps I should write a stirring op-ed piece
about it this weekend!"
     With that in mind, he sauntered around the corner and headed towards
the front door.  Bizarre Guy, who had cleverly hidden himself behind a
dumpster the moment he saw Mighty Guy approach, emerged and surveyed the
damage.  He quickly found Phil Donahue, who was lying face down on the
cement, his limbs scattered nearby.
     "In the glove compartment," Phil said, calmly, "you'll find an
emergency sewing kit and a large bottle of U-Reanimate-It gel.  Bring them
here and reattach my limbs."
     "Hey, looks!" Bizarre Guy exclaimed, having lost interest in Phil and
taken interest in a discarded newspaper next to him.  "The comic sections!"
Phil groaned.

                                   ==(.*.)==

     "Is it just me," Lienna Banks asked, "or are all the members of the
audience famous talk show hosts that look like they've been put together by
a child with modeling glue?"
     "It must be a friday," Flores Lame surmised.  "Has Mighty Guy shown
up yet?"
     Before Lienna could answer, Kent Clark stepped into the studio.  "He
shall be in shortly, Flores!" he exclaimed, damaging some of the non-nerf
portions of the set.  "Truly, today shall be a day to remember!"
     "That's for certain," Flores said, cryptically.  She fingered a small
lead box, passing it from hand to hand nervously, as though it made her
anxious.  Percy walked up, looked down at the box and looked up again.
     "Where's Timmy?" he asked.  "The show's about to start, and I want to
be sure of exactly where he is before he can do anything to ruin my plans
to retake the Daily Plante-- er, water the plants.  Heh."
     "He went downstairs a bit ago," Lienna noted.  "There he is now."
     "Hi, guys!" Timmy 'composed of $1.86 in chemicals, generally
considered an overcharge' O'Larson said, chipperly, as he approached.
Lienna, Flores and Percy saw that the languid behavior of the past weeks
was gone, and that tentacles were dangling from his hands.
     "Timmy!" Percy exclaimed, sternly, indicating the lad's hands.
"Didn't I warn you that could happen?"
     "I just went downstairs," Timmy said, defensively.  "There were these
undead people in the alley and they asked me to reattach their limbs.  They
said this was just a side-effect from the reanimation gel."
     "How many times have we warned you not to reanimate undead beings?"
Percy asked, angrily.
     "None."
     "Um... then consider this the first!"
     Percy's words fell on deaf ears -- already Timmy was skipping away in
the general direction of Camera One.  He wondered why Timmy's lethargy had
gone away, and wondered if he could make it return, preferably with the
assistance of blunt instruments.
     "Okay, places everyone!" Flores ordered.  "Show begins in five
minutes!"

(continued in part two, following...)
--
Gary W. Olson    swede@shell.sojourn.com    swede@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
                      http://www.sojourn.com/~swede