CCC&S: The Continuing Story – 5/5

… Trauma in the lead, the others followed the trail he blazed through the wilderness. Trauma rode a fine black steed. It’s muscles glistening in the haze. Tito was mounted on a 12 year-old filly (as is his preference) and Dragon brought up the rear (as is his preference) riding side-saddle on the chicken.

Dragon’s dress flapped in the wind, providing anyone whom was foolish enough to look with a fine view of his scrawny legs. Trauma Groovy’s hair did not move at all… This is a skill unique among the groovy.

As the sun began to set the following day, they came upon the outskirts of Dodge City… The signpost at the main road said “Dodge City – Sheriff 1, town 0”. There was a rather hungry looking buzzard perched atop the sign, which Dragon snatched and threw into his satchel (for later).

Trauma surveyed the surroundings… He saw no sign of treachery, and this bothered him. Something was amiss… The streets were empty, yet it was only 7 pm… This was bad.

“Maybe the Proletariat got them?” Suggested Tito.

“Groovy” replied Trauma Groovy.

“Skiddillywawa” came from a voice from behind them.

They turned to look and saw The Vindicator standing there (with a repulsively large welt on his head where the Pez had struck him).

“Vind!” cried Trauma… “How did you escape from Robin?”

“Escape? He never captured me! I was looking for the book, and a tree snuck up on me and walloped me in the head. I’ve been in and out of consciousness for the last 2 days. I think that it was due mostly to your damned Pez!”

“Groovy”

“Skid- STOP that!” yelled The Vindicator.

“Just give me an ice pack and some aspirin”

“No aspirin or ice pack, I’m afraid…” said Trauma. “All we have is your gym bag with the Binaca, the shades and the inflatable helicopter.”

“Well then, gimme that. I’ll put on the shades. At least if I look good, I may start feeling good. Mind over matter, and whatnot.”

“Rock on!”

“I hear ya brother!”

[writer - The Vindicator - Skinning Tim’s rabbit...]

“Here” said Dragon holding up the dead Buzzard.

“What’s that?” asked Vindicator

Dragon looked at him funny. “It’s a dead buzzard”

“I KNOW that! What’s it for?!”

“Oh! It’s to make you feel better! It makes me feel better when I need it.”

“That’s because you were hungry! You’re an idiot!” Frustrated the Vindicator got up on the back of Trauma’s horse (as was Trauma’s preference!) and they rode on.

“I was not hungry…” muttered Dragon under his breath.

“But you are an idiot.”

Dragon looked up…. where did the voice come from? The rest of the party was ahead of him…. he looked at the chicken. Nahhhh.

[writer - DRAGON!!! -- TBOFRN]

Mean while…

In a large castle, on the edge of town. Oddly looking like a large ranch styled house.

“STOP! Please I’ll tell you anything. Just STOP!” Begged Blade. “Never you little wretch. I do this for pleasure. Besides you have nothing worth telling.” Said the Sheriff holding the vulture feather close to Blade’s left foot. “I do! I DO! Uhh… like I know how they put that soft flowing caramel into the bar.” said Blade quickly. “Really this could prove useful. Very well I’ll untrap you, but don’t try anything. Your shoes are over there.” said the greedy Sheriff. Putting on his shoes Blade discussed.

The basics of the secret (his great-uncle had invented the process). After an hour of intense teaching the Sheriff could finally believe that it was done with machines, and that there was no magic behind it (Those commercials are misleading). The Sheriff then ran off to gather the parts, and ingredients. Taking his chance Blade sprung for the door making a strange springing sound, only to bounce into the Sheriff. “Forgot to lock you up lad. I won’t put any chain on this time though” said the Sheriff, when a overly large man walked in. “Sir we just found out that Robin ‘ood has already bought the rights to the theme of our Theme park. So we need a new prize for the tournament to catch Robin ‘ood, and those strangers.” said the man. “Well then, what could we give away that we don’t really need now. Hmm both the Sheriff, and the man looked at BLADE.” Both the Sheriff and the fat man turned to BLADE, and smiled.

[writer - Blade]

The streets of Dodge where filled with the Sheriffs men. Trauma, Tito and Dragon dismounted and tethered their steeds to a post. Of course the chicken went about pecking furiously at his reigns.

Standing at the forefront of the sheriff’s men was Prince John. Suddenly from behind the three lone heroes came a voice. Everyone looked to see Robin ‘ood and his men…. quickly overwhelmed by another group of the Sheriffs men hidden in the nearby buildings. (How conveniently they are dispatched, eh?)

Vindicator squinted to take a closer look at Prince John. “Hey!” he cried out, “I know you! Your not Prince John… your our evil nemesis the Evil Dr. Naughty!”

“HA HA!” laughed he, “And I have your Book! The pages of history and all literature are mine to rule!”

“Not if I can help it.” Said Trauma. With lightning speed unholstered his SpiderMan Pez dispenser and peppered Dr. Naughty with orange flavoured Pez. In his final gasps of breath while fading into unconsciousness, he said, “Oh you have be-peppered me with Pez. Oh leotarded one. The Book…. is…. thine.” All the sheriffs’ men now converged onto the three heroes and the now loose chicken. Suddenly! Trumpets echoed through Dodge City and in charged King Richard and his soldiers. Quickly they dispatched Dr. Naughty’s men…

to be continued….

The Vindicator, adjusting himself in his tights, picked his way through the body strewn main street of Dodge City. Standing in a small clustered group, King Richard smiled and patted Trauma, Tito and Dragon on the head.

“I thank you for cleaning out all the rubbish from Dodge.” he said, “For your courage I would like to grant all of you whatever you wish.” Out of the corner of his eye he spotted someone approaching them, and then everyone had seen him too. The green clad man carried a bow and was wearing tights.

“Crimminy Jickets!” Richard exclaimed, and Vindicator made a face. “Wot are ye s’pposed to be then? A faerie?”

“A Faerie?! Stroll on. I’m Robin ‘ood.” The man huffed.

“Robin ‘ood? Never ‘eard of ye.” Richard shook his head, “Wot is ye want?”

“What is it I want?!? Why I was about to save all of England from the clutches of the evil Dr. Naughty and restore your rightful throne.” Robin said.

Richard again shook his head, “Still have no clue who you are son.”

“Robin ‘ood!” Robin ‘ood exclaimed, “You know… steal from the rich, give to the poor!”

“Oh,” Richard crossed his arms, “A common criminal, eh?” Several guards moved towards Robin.

“Wot?” Robin cried in disbelief, “No no no. My band of merry men and I-“

“Organized crime? We ‘ave a stiff penalty for that around here ye know.” Richard responded, and the guards quickly disarmed him and held him securely.

“I was going to free England. But thanks to those meddling kids… you wait Trauma! I’ll get you,” the guards were hauling his flailing body away, “Ye ‘aven’t ‘eard the last o’ me…!”

“Now. Where were we?” Richard continued after the slight interruption.

“Wait!” Vindicator called out, “Where’s Dr. Naughty?”

Everyone looked frantically about, but the body was no where in sight. Suddenly one of Richard’s guards called out. “Look! Up on the roof!” there holding the Book was Dr. naughty. Directly in front of him suspended in mid air was a crackling black and shimmering blue doorway! Saluting and leaping into the portal with the Book, he vanished.

“Quick! We don’t have much time!” The Vindicator announced, and bolted for the rooftop. Trauma, Tito and Dragon (still holding his chicken) followed close behind.

“Sorry to run out on ya like this King. Next time we’re passing through Dodge, we’ll take you up on you offer.” Trauma called back. Leaping into the fading doorway, they soon experienced the ever-familiar sensation of falling. Falling through the blackness they had no idea of where or when they will end up next…

[writer - TRAUMA - Okay... here we go again.]

Our not so heroic heroes once again feel that familiar falling sensation, and then land with a thump, “Ooph”, “Hey get off you geek”, “Hey this chicken tickles”.

All, ”Shut up about the chicken!”

“Sorry.” replied Dragon.

“Hey the portals still open” said a confused Trauma. “Ahhhhhhhh” clink.

“Blade! what happened to you?” asked Dragon.

“Well hmmmmm. nothing I just got lost, but I saw you’s guys jump into the portal so I ran for it to. No way I was getting stuck for a booby trap prize. Where are we?”

“That’s what we forgot to do look around.” said the Vindicator.

“Whoa” all.

“It looks like a space ship,” said Dragon. “Whoa”.

“Hey you.” said a voice, which belonged to a fat little man.

“Are you smart?”asked the man.

“Well most of us” said Tito looking at Dragon, and the chicken.

“You make our ship.” said the man, as he lifted a small little device…

[writer - Blade Sorry I had to!]

Dragon looked at the chicken, which pecked his nose. “Ouch! That didn’t tickle!”

“He talks to the chicken?” asked the little man.

“Yeah and occasionally the chicken replies” stated Trauma.

“Enough about the bloody chicken! What’s this device thingy?” Shouted Vindicator and snatched a small metallic object from the little man’s hands. “Why…. it looks like a…..nahhh…..but it does…a Pez dispenser! Hey Traums! Check this one out!”

‘I’m going to kill him every time he calls me that!’ thought Trauma as he strode over to Vindicator.

Dragon had walked over to a nearby window…the chicken stretched out to peck the ship’s hull and only succeeded in stunning himself. “Awww…. poor chickie…..” cooed Dragon as he soothed his pet….

[writer - DRAGON!!! -- TBOFRN]

“I say we kill everyone on this ship.” Whispered Trauma. Tito nodded, “But first we have to learn from them how to operate the thing.” In agreement they both strode up to the aliens. After a lengthy explaining process, they managed to convince the stupid aliens to show them how to operate the equipment. Telling them they had to be familiar with the operations to understand how to help them. Help them, smiled Trauma. What saps.

It was a four day odyssey in the learning of the ship. But being quick studies, they learned it. On the last day, in the trust of the aliens they stood before the captain. “Well your ships almost repaired.” lied Tito. As a matter of fact the ship was fully functionally and slightly beefed up. “Thank you my friends.” Smiled the captain.

“Yeah… whatever.” Trauma pulled a modified Pez dispenser and ripped several projectiles into his torso. Killing him. His face was stone cold as he repeated the bloody carnage the remaining bridge crew. After the last corpse was still, Trauma turned to Tito and bowed slightly. “Its all yours Marshal.” and grinned. Taking the command chair, Tito appraised the view. “Carry out extermination contingency now.” Through the ship a deadly gas cut own the unsuspecting aliens. Their bodies later jettisoned into the vacuum by reprogrammed Sanitation Droids.

[writer - TRAUMA - groovy.]

Then enter Blade and Dragon both looking a little annoying squirming about. “You guys notice that there’s no bathrooms in our quarter’s. Where the hell do we go!” said Blade. Then Trauma entered the room, also looking as if he had found out the news. “Well that’s OK we can work with this.” said the Vindicator. Needless to say our heroes solved that small problem. As Dragon came out onto the bridge, a large ship decloaked in front of our heroes newly upgraded Packlet ship. Tito looked to his crew, and smiled…

Tito looked at his crew and smiled.

“Ok,” he began as he settled into the command chair,” everyone to your stations. We can change these later but for now: Trauma, you take weapons control. Dragon, you take the helm, and you – the albino midget with the funny looking nose, take communications.”

“But Marshal,” advised Dragon,” that’s no midget, that’s a chicken.”

“I don’t care if he’s afraid of fighting, but okay, fine, Vindicator, you take communications, and Blade, you monitor ship’s systems and check the external sensors.”

Tito picked up a nearby newspaper and folded it under his arm,” …while you guys are setting up your stations, I’ll be, uh, busy,” he said as he began walking toward what appeared to be a bathroom.

“We don’t have time for that,” said Trauma, ”the alien ship is hailing us,” announced Vindicator.

Blade looked forlorn, ”Now my juniper bushes will be ruined. Why couldn’t it have been rain instead of hail. Why? Why, oh why?”

He was ignored.

Tito ordered,” Put through the audio of their transmission.”

The message blared through, ”Unidentified vessel, we detect that your drives are functional and since you are trespassing in our territory, we order you to depart immediately. In other words, if you are still here a minute from now, we will spread your guts across this entire sector.”

Trauma announced,” Tito, we have the biggest guns, I say we kill’em!”

Tito nodded, ”Of course but not so fast, let’s improve our chances with some well chosen treachery. Initiate Plan B.”

Dragon, Vindicator, Blade and the chicken were not aware of Plan B since they had not been part of Tito’s and Trauma’s crew on a spaceship in a different continuing story. They asked in unison (well, the chicken pecked inquisitively):”what’s Plan B?”

Trauma explained, ”Basically it’s to lower their defences with sweet talk and then blast the crap outta them.”

Tito was caught up in explaining it also in his colourful and offensive way: ”You see guys, successfully ambushing a spaceship is kinda like getting some chick to boff ya. You gotta slowly get her legs open by saying you love her and all that while licking her earlobe or innocently massaging her shoulders (or upper BACK -get it?) and as soon as her legs are open far enough you hafta jump in there before she regains conscious- I mean changes her mind, and hide the sausage if you catch my meaning…”

Unfortunately before the crew could comment on Tito’s prosaic analogy the audio blared again, ”You have thirty seconds remaining!”

[writer - ...TITO SUAVE!!! (...so much machismo, you can even smell it!)]

“Open communications channels…” said Tito.

“Open sir!”

“Alien Vessel… As your sensors have already told you, our engines are fully functional. However, we are severely short of Bilithian crystals and are unable to return to our own solar system. Could you assist?”

“…”

A moment’s silence passed as the alien ship’s captain considered this.

“Blade, go to engineering and remove half of the Bilithian crystals from the Hyper-Space chamber.” Barked Tito…

A moment later, just as Blade was returning from his duties (convenient, eh?) the ship’s computer registered a light scan..

“Ship’s computer just registered a light scan, sir.” Said The Vindicator redundantly.

“Alien vessel… We have determined that you are truly operating with an insufficient supply of Bilithian crystals. Prepare to receive a fresh supply via Trans-Mat beam.”

A menacing grin spread across Tito’s face… Trauma heard the light glint off his teeth… The Vindicator slapped Dragon in the back of the head for no apparent reason.

[writer - The Vindicator - Floating through the Ether...]

Feeling rather useless…Dragon went on aimless wander through the Ship. After a few mins he wandered into a dead section of the ship (well…the whole ship was dead except for the bridge). He heard a muffled “help me”…. looked at his chicken(just in case) and the chicken was straining to hear it as well. Opening a door to a closet he saw a beautiful woman tied up and gagged. He immediately loosened the gag and was surprised to see who it was.

“Aren’t you the…” started Dragon…

“Yes…the woman with the Rose tattoo” she replied.

“You really have a rose tattoo?”

“Yes…would you like to see it?”

Suffice to see she was untied and both Dragon and the chicken saw what few people have ever seen first hand! After throwing a nearby, convenient glass of water on Dragon, he awoke from his fainted stated along with the Chicken.

“Wow” came a whispered word.

“You can say that again!” said Dragon, who immediately looked at the chicken!

[writer - DRAGON!!! -- TBOFRN]