posted 11-16-98 08:51 PM ET
No, we're not dead. Just...working. Yea, that's the ticket...International House of CWAL, Part 1
The Hum-Vee drove up the street, and halted at the curb. Two people got out, and headed towards a clearing which up until a few days ago had not been a clearing. One of them, the one wearing the flight helmet, fell to his knees and began digging through the rubble.
"Fjorxc, give it up," the other person said. "There's no way anything in HQ could have survived. The BoS levelled it with everything they had."
"I don't care!" Fjorxc shot back. "It's here, I know it is! I gotta find it!" He dug through the twisted pieces of metal and concrete and throwing them aside, taking no heed of the damage he was causing to the skin on his hands. When he came upon an especially large and heavy concrete slab, he had a sinking sensation in his gut. Taking a deep breath, he heaved the slab aside, and the view which greeted him brought him to tears.
Underneath that concrete slab, crushed and mangled by the extreme pressures placed upon it, lay the smoking, twisted remnants of a Betamax. Beside it were the charred wrecks of cassette tapes. One of them said "Alf", another "Captain N", another, "The New Thundercats"...
"NOOOO! It's not fair! It's not fair!" Fjorxc sobbed. "Spare the Betamax! Take me instead!" he wailed, as he threw himself down onto the Betamax's casing. After a few minutes of letting tears flow, he stood up, with a murderous glint in his eyes.
"The Brotherhood of Sid killed the Betamax," Fjorxc said, almost mechanically. "The Brotherhood of Sid must die."
"No, Forksy, don't!" Freerunner said. "I know, I'd like to strangle Talon and YYYH myself for what they did, but you can't let it take control of you! Besides, we signed a peace treaty with them."
"What's your point?" Fjorxc asked, still sobbing.
"My point is that we're new here. We have almost no strength whatsoever. At our current level of preparedness, the BoS could wipe us out with nothing more than seventeen Nerf Crossbows."
"Yeah. And plus, we no longer have a headquarters," Fjorxc said, as he resumed digging through the rubble. "Look at this, it's part of Aura's wardrobe," he said, as he pulled a very expensive-looking outfit out of the rubble. "Whoa, there isn't a scratch on it. Maybe if we're lucky, this'll cheer up Aura enough so that she doesn't go on a manic killing spree within the ranks of BoS. Her entire wardrobe was in here, you know."
"Why's that so bad?" Freerunner asked.
"Well, first off, hell hath no fury like a woman whose entire wardrobe has been vaporized. Do you have any idea how much was on her credit card?"
"Didn't she say it was something like the national debt of the United States added to the square root of the distance to Alpha Centauri in inches?" Freerunner asked.
"Yeah, somethin' like that," Fjorxc said, as he whipped out his calculator. After making a few calculations, he arrived at an answer. "That's about 1.24 times 10 to the 15th power US dollars."
"But there isn't that much money on the entire planet," Freerunner observed.
"A minor detail." Fjorxc brushed off his dust-covered hands on his legs, and stood up. "Well, I believe we're going to need a new headquarters now. Right?"
"You have the most amazing talent for stating the obvious, Forksy. And yes. We'll need a new headquarters," Freerunner replied.
"OK then, what to use, what to use..." Fjorxc stopped and thought for a moment. "Starbucks? Nah, too reminiscent of Irvine. Hardee's? No way, the ultmate evil. Or maybe..."
"Hey, why don't we check out that IHOP over there?" Freerunner asked.
"Yes! An IHOP! Of course! Coffee AND pancakes in the morning! Freerunner, you're a genius!"
"Thank you. But before we actually start on acquiring that IHOP, don't you think we should find some money to get it with?"
"Hmm..." Fjorxc's gaze drifted down to Aura's very expensive outfit, which glittered as the sun reflected off of it. "Hey, I've got an idea..."
"No, Forksy, we are NOT going to sell Aura's outfit."
"Of course we aren't! You think I'm that stupid? I've got something special planned..."
The doors to the IHOP swung open, and in walked Fjorxc and Freerunner. Jolt was accompanying them, as he had conveniently materialized among the remains of the Denny's to satisfy an idea of the narrator's.
"Now, you remember the drill. I give the owner the outfit, and then you do what we talked about," Fjorxc whispered to Freerunner.
"Gotcha," she said, as she went off and waited by the doors. Unbeknownst to Fjorxc or Freerunner, Jolt had wandered off and happened upon a man sitting in a booth. There were two cups in front of him, each holding what looked like coffee. Jolt recognized this man as Victor, who had come into Denny's about a week before muttering something about CWAL.
Jolt was walking past Victor's booth when his arm trailed over the table, knocking the contents of the two cups onto his arm, seperated by only a few millimeters.
"Eew, I got coffee on my arm!" Jolt grabbed a napkin off of Victor's table, and began wiping down his arm. As Victor gave him a passing glance, he noticed that Jolt was very close to wiping up both stains.
"Oh ****!" Victor screamed, when he realized what was happening. "You're about to bring caffeine into contact with anticaffeine! Everybody DOWN!"
"Huh?" Jolt asked absentmindedly. Shrugging, he wiped both the stains off his arm and stood there, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing happened.
Still nothing happened.
Look, I said nothing happened! Isn't that good enough for you???
Then, something happened. The caffeine and anticaffeine stains on the napkin seemed to mix together. When they came in contact, they seemed to start to boil, in preparation for releasing a massive amount of energy.
"Eeep!"
Outside of the IHOP, all was peaceful. The occasional car drove by, a BoS aircraft periodically swept overhead, and squirrels and chipmunks frolicked on the walls and window ledges. If they had looked inside, they would have noticed Jolt turn quite sick at the prospect of dying again.
*BOOM!*
*CRASH!*
*SHATTER!*
*SPLAT!*
*EVERYONE VISIT WWW.ALLHAILLOTHOSFORHEISAGODAMONGMEN.COM!*
*YEEEARGH!*
While a caffeine/anticaffeine reaction is generally believed to produce far less energy than a matter/antimatter reaction, scientists the world over agree that it still produces one hell of a bang nonetheless. The initial shock wave blew Jolt's arms, legs, and head off, shattered windows in a 200-meter radius, and produced a sound audible in Baltimore with ultra-sensitive listening devices. Then the explosion, small as it was, expanded outwards. Fortunately, due to the relatively small amounts of caffeine and anticaffeine involved, it didn't have much of an effect.
Meanwhile, Fjorxc was oblivious to all this as he stood in the purchasing line. When his turn came up, he stepped up to this register and said, "Hello there. Would you be interested in a trade?"
"Uhh, I don't think so," the pimply-faced kid from the Simpsons replied. "I'll have to ask my manager." The pimply-faced kid ran off, and brought the manager back quickly.
"Hello, what are you talking about?" the manager asked.
"Well, looking around, I couldn't help but notice that your franchise has just sustained severe blast damage for some reason. And I was interested in taking it off your hands."
"What? You want to buy the place?"
"That's right. How much you want?"
"Fifteen thousand dollars," the manager said.
"Well then, have I got a deal for you! If you give me this IHOP, I will give you this exquisite, very expensive outfit. It's priceless, almost."
Normally the manager would rebuke an offer such as this, but the narrator, getting impatient and wanting to move the story along, took control of the manager's mind and took the situation into his own hands.
"Why..certainly..I..will..trade..you..for..the..IHOP," the mind-controlled manager said, rather mechanically.
"OK, here ya go," Fjorxc said, as he passed the outfit over the counter. "Pleasure doin' business with ya."
"It..was..a..pleasure..doing..business..with..you..as..well." And at that, the manager lurched out from behind the counter and towards the door.
"Freerunner! Do it!" Fjorxc whispered.
"Excuse me sir," Freerunner said, stopping the manager.
"Yes..what..is..it..miss?"
"Well, I couldn't help but notice you've got one of those really expensive outfits. It looks nice, it really does."
"Why..thank..you."
"But take a look at it, it's all folded and creased and dirty. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
"Of..course..not."
"Wouldn't you much rather have this nice, crisp, new ten dollar bill? Of course you would. Here you go," she said, as she placed the $10 in the manager's palm and took the outfit.
"Thank..you..it..was..a..pleasure..doing..business..with..you." The manager then left the store, followed by the rest of the patrons, including Victor, who had decided to go and resume his search for CWAL. After a little while, the narrator ceased his mind control of the manager, who snapped back to his senses.
"Hey, what am I doing out here? What happened? Hey, cool! Ten bucks!" The manager then looked around, and wandered off down the road.
"Well, very good work, Forksy," Freerunner said, who was looking out the window.
"Thanks. Hey, wait a sec...where's Jolt?"
"I would guess in Irvine, because he usually respawns there." Almost the instant Freerunner closed her mouth, a loud noise came from the bathroom. This was followed by Jolt running out of the bathroom and slamming the door behind him.
"Hmm. Maybe it has something to do with the teleporter," Freerunner surmised.
"Maybe. Hey, you know what I just realized? We should actually go and buy defenses for HQ this time, so the BoS won't come and level it again."
"Good idea. But where could we get weapons of the grade we need? Not even Bob sells guns like that."
"You're right, he doesn't. But fortunately for me, I know someone who does."
The proprietor of the stor sat on a stool behind a counter, photosynthesizing a meal from a discarded tanning lamp while flipping through the latest edition of "Playprotoss". When he heard the door-opening bell chime, he immediately stood up and tossed the magazine into a corner, where it landed on top of several thousand other copies.
"Hey there, Forks!" the proprietor said.
"Hey, Exile. Don't be offended if I seem a bit irritable or anything. It's a long way from Hunt Valley to Houston, and my Betamax and the Perfect Wall got destroyed."
"Geez, sounds pretty bad," Exile said. "Say, you still need to sign fifty thousand new Orca replicas."
"Huh? Oh yeah, for your catalog thing. What're you making them out of, anyway? It must be some pretty cheap stuff, if you can afford to sell them for fifteen hundred bucks."
"Mainly old Coke and Pepsi cans painted yellow. Actually, one out of ten thousand is a real Orca. It gives a sense of competition. Boosts sales that way."
"Hmm, I'll bet. Listen Exile, I need to talk to you about purchasing some weapons?"
"Weapons?" Exile asked. "Well then, I'm your man, er, Protoss! We've got everything here at the ExileMart! Antimatter missiles, Gauss rifles, psi blades, everything! And from Exile Labs, we've got the new line of Storm Stars, and the latest version of the Ni Torpedo! Want me to check my price list?"
"Not really, but I have the feeling that you'll do it anyway."
"Damn straight!" Exile replied. "Now let me see...I can sell you thirty-five wings of the new TIE Defender for $5 million...thirty-five thousand laser cannons for $10 million...or thirty thousand turbolasers for $15 million."
"Thanks Exile, but I've already written down what I need. Let me see here..."
"Say, what's this for anyway? You goin' off and forming a mercenary group?"
"Nah. CWAL's started a new branch in Hunt Valley, and I need to buy some defenses for HQ. It's an IHOP."
"Ah. May I just suggest buying one Imperial-class Star Destroyer along with all its needed Stormtroopers and TIE fighters?"
"We don't need THAT much," Fjorxc said, as he continued rooting through his pockets.
"Okaay then, one standard Imperial garrison base close to the IHOP should keep ya happy," Exile said. "Lessee, it comes with TIE fighters, stormtroopers, scout troopers, 1 AT-AT, and 5 AT-STs."
"No, that's all right, Exile. All we really need is some semi-automatic particle cannons and AP lasers. For now."
"Awww, you're no fun. OK, I'll have them to you by Monday, but you need to get $50,000 to me by the 25th. I was gonna throw in a free Death Star too...oh well."
"Only fifty thousand? No prob, Exile!"
"Like I said before, you're a friend of mine. Just tell all your friends who need weapons of destruction that aren't as insanely powerful as Maggottonian designs but aren't weak either about ExileMart! Open 24 hours a day! Galactic Selections Abound!"
"Thanks a lot, Exile. Hopefully these'll keep the BoS at bay."
"BoS? Whazzat?"
"The Brotherhood of Sid."
"Oh yeah, those militiant dudes. They're pretty cool. Well, I gotta go and process your order now, so see ya later. I'll have those weapons installed by Monday night."
"Okay then, Exile," Fjorxc said. "See ya later." Without another word, Fjorxc exited the ExileMart, powered up the Orca's engines and zoomed back to Hunt Valley.
"QUICK! FREERUNNER! I NEED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS BY THIS FRIDAY!"
"Calm down, Forksy...what?" Freerunner asked a hyperventilating Fjorxc.
"I just flew down to Houston and bought a bunch of base defenses off of Exile! I thought I had fifty thousand dollars in the bank, but then I remembered I spent them on Betamax tapes!"
"Yep, that is a wee bit of a problem, Forksy."
"A wee bit? A WEE BIT?" Fjorxc started hyperventilating even more. "This is way beyond 'wee bit'! This is 'scared s**tless'! You think I want Exile's goons after me?"
"Yes, that would be a bad thing indeed. So what should we do? Got any ideas on how to raise some money?"
"Hmm..."
About twenty minutes later, Fjorxc was standing atop a cardboard box, wearing the type of hat that people who have games on the midway of the CNE wear and screaming into a megaphone. "Come one, come all! See Jolt, the Amazing Cannon Fodder! You tickle him, he laughs! You prick him, he bleeds! You cut his head off, he reappears within five seconds! Come one, come all!" Fjorxc's advertising gambit had worked, and there was now a moderate-sized crowd standing in front of the tree to which Jolt was chained.
"All right little boy," Freerunner was saying to the next person in line, "you just take this gun here, point it at Mr. Jolt's head, and press this trigger here. Don't worry, you technically won't hurt him." The boy spent a minute or so lining up his shot, then depressed the trigger. A stream of bullets flew towards Jolt's head in slow motion, and transformed everything above his neck to bloody pulp. In a few seconds, Jolt conveniently respawned in the exact same location.
"That'll be five dollars," Freerunner said.
"Wow, that was neat! Thanks a lot!" The kid paid up, and ran off.
"Heheheh...NEXT!"
"Come one, come all!" Fjorxc continued to yell. "Decapitate him, shoot him, cut off his legs, it won't matter! He likes it! Remember folks, he will always come back, and it's still perfectly legal!"
Several hours later, Fjorxc and Freerunner were sulking in the Hunt Valley jail.
"'Perfectly legal', Forksy?" Freerunner asked.
"Shut up. How was I to know that they'd interpret the charges that way?"
To be continued whenever I feel like finishing it.
Fjorxc the Maniac(CWAL Hunt Valley)
May the Fjorxc be with you and a happy new year.
"Give me Alpha Centauri or give me death!"