CHAPTER 17: The Police Negotiator’s First Day

What could Brap do?  He couldn't very well surrender... Earth's probe-preferences were universally renowned all over the... well, universe...

The current officer in charge continued his blaring commands through his megaphone.  "COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!   …(WELL WHAT WOULD YOU SAY LENNY?  …FINE!)  COME OUT WITH YOUR HOOVES UP!  …(WELL WHAT DO RHINOS HAVE THEN, BOB?  STUMPS?  …I DIDN'T THINK SO!  …LOOK, DOES IT REALLY MATTER?)  WE KNOW YOU'RE BEHIND THE DUMPSTER!  COME OUT AND YOU WON'T BE HARMED!  …(YES I THINK I SOUNDED SINCERE…  YES I KNOW HE CAN HEAR ME!  …LOOK, STOP QUESTIONING MY AUTHORITY!  …NO!  I DON'T THINK ITS 'HOOVES', I'M PRETTY SURE IT'S... IT IS HOOVES?  …OK… OK! OK! FINE!  HOOVES!)"

Brap decided to throw the dumpster in their general direction and run.

finally, I can #%^* a rice cake

A Japanese research team said Thursday it had developed the world's first 3D television system that allows users to touch, pinch or poke images floating in front of them.

"It is the first time that you can feel images in the air," said Norio Nakamura, senior scientist with the research team at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.

"You can have the sense of touch like poking a rubber ball or stretching a sticky rice cake" when manipulating images, he told AFP by telephone.

By golly, that'll be the first thing I do with this new technology.  I'm gonna grab me some rubber balls and stretch out a few rice cakes.

The technology changes the shape of three-dimensional images in response to "touches", aided by cameras that monitor how the fingers move, Nakamura said.

It is not known when the technology will be put to practical use but its creators see it being used to simulate surgical operations and in video game software allowing players to experience the sensation of holding weapons, sports equipment, or boobs.

It could even use scanned images of to supplement existing realities, said Nakamura.  So like, I could scan the face of Jessica Alba, input her measurements, and have her help me with my sticky rice?  Awesome.

"This technology could create a virtual museum where visitors, including vision-impaired people, can put their hands on valuable sculptures that are usually untouchable," Nakamura said.  It would also be highly advantageous to sticky rice virgins, and allow them the opportunity to put their hands on ingredients usually untouchable as well.

CHAPTER 16: 1.5% Angry

Meanwhile, Fred, the terrorist, former high school chum and general not-on-the-best-terms-with-pancake-cooks-er, was desperately trying to multitask (something the male human is decidedly challenged by).

His brain's pie chart went something like this:

  10%  Think about sex

  10%  Think about getting sex

  10%  Think about the sex he wanted to get

  35%  Do your very best to remember Wally's name.

  15%  Be giddy while telling nostalgic high school stories with Steve

  15%  Be both gruff, angry, and make demands of the customers

  05%  Avoid staring at the vomity fellow.

Now given that the average human, of which Fred was certainly below, uses only 10% of his brain, one can imagine how faceted these thoughts and actions were proceeding.

"Hey... Wil...all...yer...son...chan...eeeHey Steve!  Steve!  Do you remember our teacher, Mrs. Livingstone?  Man was she nuts I... KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM, CAPITALIST SCUM!" Was the general flow of his conversation, all the while staring quite rudely at Ronald, and Amber’s tushie (as she was in quite the delicate position, hiding under one of the tables)

CHAPTER 15: (In)convenient Parking Spot

Brap’s parents had always said he’d been destined for great things.  At the time, Brap had been inclined to agree.  But lately, he’d had his doubts.  His bounty hunting career was supposed to have been a springboard into running his own agency… eventually franchising…  and here he was, 7 years later, dodging projectile weapons and cursing about his cheap, shoey employer.

Brap's escape from the local authorities had gone fairly well...  He'd managed to lay down some suppressing fire, strafed a little, and even did that annoying jumping-while-you-fire strategy, which was impressive for someone of his gargantuan size and lack of toes.

He'd even managed to avoid too much of a scene, and, had it not been for his Deistic MK’s (Mini-Kerblabbimifier*) central cooling unit having decided to all but completely do the opposite of its assigned task, and fusing all of his freonschleps to his garfblongs, he likely would have gotten fully away.

*Kerblabbimify (Ker-blab-um-if-eye): To blow something so completely apart, it is as if its molecules are afraid of one another.  In this case, used more as a marketing tool of a sub-par weapon, than as an actual description of its destructive capability.

But as it was, he had made it to the parking lot behind a dumpster, and was currently cursing about how he'd left his ship parked on a restaurant's roof some twenty blocks away.

CHAPTER 14: Flammable Pancakes

It was a hell of a day to pick. 

That's all Wally could think, as the former Denny’s chef stood on the bar with dynamite strapped to his chest as bits of former other-cooks mixed with pancakes and strawberries cascaded all around him like a particularly disturbed interpretation of a fairly dramatic moment in an opera with lots and lots of fat ladies vying for the top spot.

The ambitiously dynamited fellow, in typical terroristic fashion, was also currently screaming his head off about some viewpoint of which he no doubt felt quite strongly about, and emphatically explaining how he'd enjoy it very much if everyone were a lot closer to the ground.

It was a hell of a day, to pick.

Here Wally was, meeting the girl of his dreams, which really, would juuust balance out the day's crap-scale, when one considered the day he’d had, plus the previous year or twenty, and this dope had to decide that today, of all days, was the day to start blowing things up.

"Fred?" Steve squeaked, peeking his head out from the decidedly unprotectively-cheap table of which he'd dove behind moments before in a moderately successful effort to avoid chef/strawberry-shrapnel.

"...UCKING KINGDOME COME!  YOU UNDERSTAND ME!?  I'LL BLOW...  Steve?"

One of the teenagers tittered, then tittered again thinking about the word titter.

"God man, it IS you!" Steve yelped, coming out from his hiding place and walking towards him, "What've you been up to Fred!?  I haven't seen you since... oh yuck, I just stepped in some... God I hope that's strawberries..."

CHAPTER 13: AMBER The Davewally

Meanwhile, back at the diner, the heated, tinfoil-enveloped conversation was reaching a point similar to, coincidently, heated tinfoil.

"LISTEN YOU!  I'M THE ONLY ONE HERE WITH A JOB!"

"AT A STORE THAT'S BEEN DEMOLISHED, WALLY!"

"WHATEVER!  I STILL DON'T SEE WHY -HE'S- THE LEADER!"

"Well," said Ronald, "I'm the only one with any experience in this sort of thing... unless you count running and panicking as experience..."

"AS A MATTER OF FACT, I -DO- COUNT THAT AS..."

Amber, who had just come on shift in time to hear the debate, cleared her throat.

"Ahem, excuse me...  But I have a few requests, a few questions, and a few demands.  Which would you like first?"

"...AS..." Wally stalled, his brain doing its best to shift gears as it took in what could only be immediately described as Heaven, chewing gum.

"The demands seem like the most logical to start with." Ronald said, motioning her to continue.

"AS..." Wally seconded.

"Well, I'd rather start with something else."

"As." Wally prompted.

"He means pick one" Steve offered.

"As." Wally nodded, remembering to blink.

"Well, first off, are you guys for real?  I mean, like, what's with bleedin'-shirtless over here?  And like, are you some kind of swamp-alien, or are you just covered in like, puke or something? 

"A veto to the swamp alien, and, unfortunately, also to the or-something." Ronald sighed.  "And this chap's being chased by a Tentacled Space Rhino, of whom I believe to be an intergalactic bounty hunter."

"Cool." She answered, rather unpredictably.

"I'm Dave." Wally offered.

"Ignore him for now, toots, he's obviously distracted by your heavenly looks and ample bosom." Ronald offered.  "So what's your request then?"

"Well, like, ummm, I was thinkin' that maybe you could like... y'know..."

"..." Ronald said, rather loudly.

"... could like...

help me remember the words to that song they play on that Disney ride?"

Wally suddenly snapped out of his fog. 

Being the assistant manager of a Video Store before making his big move to Wal-Mart had finally paid off in the chick department.  (While granted, this had little to do with videos, it did have something to do with the annoying co-worker he'd had, who'd sang these sorts of songs incessantly)

"It's a small world?" He clarified, suppressing a shudder.

"That's the one." She confirmed.

Wally paused and did his best to look suave, "I think the title is also the lyrics... girlfriend…"  Wally's inner suave smacked him on the backsides of his eyeballs.

"That's it?" She asked incredulously, nonplussed by Wally's rattling balls of eye.

"There might be some unnecessary repetition in there... but yes."

"Such as?"

"It's a small... SMALL world, for example."

"So that's it."

"That's it.  It's a small world after all, repeat, repeat, repeat, and occasionally repeat small more than once." Wally remarked, noting that his inner suave seemed to be diggin' the conversation.

"So...  it's a small world..."

"After all." Wally finished her sentence with a glint in his eye and some food in his teeth.  Their eyes met.  The kitchen exploded.  

CHAPTER 12: MR. SPLOOSH Onomatopoeic Expletives

It's hard to imagine a tennis shoe made of fungus.  Harder still, is to imagine such an object, swearing and cursing in a language sounding very much like small objects hitting a small body of water at reasonably high speeds.  Unfortunately for Brap, of whom was flatulisticly apologizing whenever he could get a fart in, he didn't have to imagine such a creature, as that was who was yelling at him on his vid-com.  (If one were to close one's eyes, and listen to the exchange, one might be reminded of a particularly bad case of food poisoning.)

"What do you MEAN you LOST him!?"  The Fungicidal Tennis Shoe blooped and dripped angrily.

"I'm sorry Mr. Sploosh sir, really, he seems to have brain-cloak technology" Brap tooted, considerably distracted with his laser-cutting-elevator-escape-attempts and his growing need to pee.

"What!?  How'd he figure THAT out!?" The Shoe ker-splooshed.

"Unknown sir.  But I suspect he has experienced, equally well-cloaked accomplices" Brap thbbbed, removing the smoldering top panel of the elevator.

"Experienced accomplices!?  So this WASN'T just a random thing... I knew it!  Someone's setting me up!" Sploosh dribbled and blurfed.

"It certainly seems that way, Sir." Brap grunted, using his tentacles to climb the elevator cable.

"Well, don't expect any help, Brap.  We're over-budget on this thing already...  Just find him!  And add a two credit bonus into your contract if you can bring him in alive!  I simply MUST find out who he's working for!" Sploosh splashed.

"Thank you sir.  Out." Brap thuh-thubbed, ending the conversation and smashing his way into the surveillance room.  "Cheap little..." he silently boofed, accessing the monitors and checking on the police's progress.

CHAPTER 11: Tree-Huggin-Hippie-Crap, Crime Families & Produce

"...So," Wally put fourth, after the waitress had given them their third round of coffees, remarked twice more about her wasted life, sniffed the air and coughed quite obviously, made a few offhand remarks about deodorant sales at Wal-Mart (to which Wally was happy to see their advertising was working) and finally handed them their check (of which, Wally was absolutely certain he'd have to pick up; being the only one who wasn't either homeless, and/or wearing freshly stolen and ergo walletless pants) "To sum up, YOU'VE been to outer space," he continued, gesturing to Ronald, "YOU, have an alien BOUNTY HUNTER after you," he snapped, pointing at Steve, "and SOMEHOW, this makes Mr. Super-Bum, no offense..."

"None taken, though my name IS Ronald, in case you'd forgotten" (Wally had)

"...To come to the conclusion, that our entire solar system is, somehow, in danger, and that we're the ONLY ONES who can save it."

"Well it sounds silly when you put it like that" Steve quipped, sipping up the remnants of his strawberry smoothie and making that immensely irritating (or immensely arousing, depending upon the species) noise that it tends to make under such circumstances.

"THAT'S BECAUSE IT *IS* SILLY!" Wally seethed, adjusting his tinfoil hat and causing many an eyebrow, that, indeed, if collectively put to the test at that exact moment, could have, with teamwork, lifted upwards of five to ten pounds (which, granted, isn't a lot, but it's a fair bit to lift with one's eyebrow), to arch in his general direction.

"will-you-keep-your-voice-down!?" Steve stage-whispered at Wally, making the universal "be-quiet" (or, again, depending on the planet, "lower-your-mandibles-so-I-can-lick-your-ovipositor") symbol.

"Well, perhaps then, Ronald, if-you'd-be-ever-so-kind," Wally spat, obviously having had his fill of the whole thing, and also, to the trained observer, obviously having wished he'd ordered his own strawberry smoothie, "You'd care to explain it, AGAIN, to those of us who think that, mayhaps, just a tich, you're full of shit." He finished, twitching as Steve slurped up, what appeared to have been, a thoroughly enjoyable liquid experience.

"It's like this," Ronald began, calmly, "The fellow chasing Steve is an intergalactic bounty hunter.  You can tell by his weaponry and..." Ronald made little circle motions with his hands to give the impression that he was making a vague statement, “... his... joi de vive.”

"Fine.  Intergalactic bounty hunter.  Why not?  Do continue."  Wally pressed, glancing sideways at a nearby table’s smoothies.  Was he the only one who hadn’t ordered one?

"Now, based on his performance thus far, he's probably not all that expensive of a bounty hunter.  As we've all seen, he's been woefully unsuccessful at capturing and/or vaporizing our friend Steve here."

"And this is where your idea spreads a little thin." Wally pointed out.

"...Which leads me to believe he's been hired by either a rather cheap, alien, crime family, which would mean Steve had somehow pissed OFF a rather cheap, alien, crime family…"

"Which I shall admit is unlikely, despite his current odor" Wally shot.

"...Or that he's been hired by a non-profit, to use a colloquialism, tree-hugging organization that can't really afford anything better."

"Ok.  And due to that leap of logic..."

"... Due to that leap of logic, it is my belief that he's been hired to save Steve and bring him back to the Eco-Saving-Corporation before the rest of his species is obliterated."

"See, now this is where you sound like a git." Wally interjected.  "If it was some alien equivalent, save-the-whales, Green Peace crap, they'd save any random handful of humans, and be on their jolly way chaining themselves up to other solar systems to stop other aliens from blowing them up for financial gain."

"This is why, however unlikely, we must come to the conclusion, that Steve has, in fact, pissed off an unerringly cheap alien crime lord and, perhaps, his whole family."

Wally paused.  "Wait!  Wasn't your point exactly opposite that just before?"

"Well yes, but if I'd started with the theory that an alien crime lord had sent a tentacled intergalactic bounty hunter after Steve for an, as of yet, unknown transgression, you would have rejected THAT, instead of arguing FOR it, now wouldn't you?" Ronald said smugly.

"So... wait, what?" Steve interrupted, having been distracted by the roundness of a passing posterior. 

"Just what, exactly, DID you do last night Steve?" Wally decided to ask.

"Oh man!  It was a blast!  I was like... ummm... hm." Steve trailed off.

"...Yes?"

"Er... ah... I don't remember."

"Nothing?"

"Not a speck."

"What about before you were drunk?"

"That was a day... or so... before."

"Or so!?"

"Er, yes."

"You don't, I suppose, recall any ALIENS at this party?"

"Er, no."

"But then, you don't recall any HUMANS at this party either."

"Other than myself?"

"Other than yourself."

"Well then, er... no."

"...Just for the record?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember yourself being at the party?"

"Well!"

"Well?"

"… no."

"Ah."

There was a decidedly long (but not dangling, thanks to Wally's generous contributions) pause.

"I think I remember oranges... But I could be making that up."

CHAPTER 10: A Big Fat Rhino

Things were not going well for Brap.  Oh sure, he'd had a momentary glimpse of hope when he'd seen the surveillance cameras.  He'd even convinced a slightly less terrified fellow to explain to him just where the camera's data was stored.  But that was when everything had gone down hill (that is to say, it went badly.  Going down hill isn't always necessarily a bad thing.  I'd imagine many skiers and tobogganers would agree that everything has its, like, place, and its all totally like, relative and stuff)

After his discussion with the less-terrified-fellow,  Brap had tried the elevator which, had he bothered to read the warning, possessed nearly the exact inability to carry his weight for more than the exact amount of time it would take to wedge him between floors before stalling and dying altogether.  That was bad.

Someone had called the police.  That was bad.

He had to pee.  This whole thing was just downright bad.

"Stupid planet." Brap brapped.

CHAPTER 9: RONALD: ORIGINS

Ronald cleared his throat.  Ronald wet his lips.  Ronald took a sip of his coffee.  Ronald thought for a brief moment about a children’s book he’d written, that had rejected due to unnecessary repetition and redundancy.  Ronald cleared his throat, wet his lips, and put his coffee down.  "My name is Ronald Bellwether.”  He began, “A lifetime ago, I once led a flock of government agencies.  FBI, NSA..."

"RRSP..." Steve mumbled to himself, having gone back to his doodling.

Ronald paused the very briefest of pauses, and then continued like a go-kart after hitting a pylon, "...Dur...ing my...  time with... these various organizations, both shadow and otherwise, it was deemed my responsibility to cover up this country's first contact with a crash-landed alien species, in 1947.

"Oh yes, Roswell’s famous Weather Balloon” Wally rolled his eyes, “how EVER did you come up with such a believable tale...?"

"Well, actually, the alien looked exactly like a weather balloon, and kept commenting on the weather.  It just seemed appropriate.  The point, however, is that I was given the option, after everything simmered down, and he showed us how to make microwave ovens, to go... with him."

"With him."

"Yes."

"You mean, into space."

"Well, that's somewhat like saying you hitchhiked to get onto a road, but... yes."

"So for the record, you're a homeless man wearing a tinfoil hat who's been abducted by aliens."

"I was hardly abducted.  I packed a toothbrush, some chips..."

"My point is, that this is completely unbelievable!"

"Well then I'm not even going to tell you the rest."

"What?  What rest!?"

"Well, I'm on Earth now, aren't I?"

"I think that's debatable." Wally mumbled.

"You're very argumentative."

"You're very smelly!"

"Yes he is.  Are you ready to order yet?" The waitress interrupted.

"What are your specials?" Wally queried, doing a very impressive, albeit unintentional impression of a genetic crossbreed between a mole and a ferret.

"We don't have any specials, but we do have a deep fryer..."  The waitress paused, seeing a woman walking outside with a tiny wiener dog held by a short leash.  "...we..." The waitress continued, obviously having an emotional moment that was completely and utterly lost upon the table of tin-foiled smelly fellows.  “Look, we don't have any specials and I have a wasted life.  Do you need more time?"

"Er...  perhaps just some coffee refills." Ronald suggested.

CHAPTER 8: Pirates with Pigs

Denny's Diner, (or, as some kept insisting they call it, "The War Room") table four.  Crayons litter the table, mixed with napkins and pirate ship coloring pages, some stained by one of the various cups of coffee they'd ordered, and all with various renditions of a gray, somewhat rhinocerssy blob; often with frowny eyes, and usually chasing a bleeding stickman (and in one, wearing a pirate hat and yelling "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!", as Steve found it difficult to stay on task when crayons were involved)

"So..." Wally began, as nonchalantly as he could muster.  "Now that we've gotten all THIS out of the way..." he said, making a vague motion towards the chaotic table, "I think it's time we learned just who Super-Bum, no offense..."

"None taken"

"...Is, exactly."

"Oh yeah!" Steve paused, looking up from his attempt at a parrot, which really, looked more like a giant, green pig with frightfully thin legs, "I was wondering about that too!"

CHAPTER 7c

****

Brap looked around the desolated Wal-Mart as though suffering from Carkeywallet Syndrome (A rather common virus that, once contracted, a person will look for a lost object in the same place more than once, as though it could have teleported there in their absence.  Advanced stages of this disease will cause a person to look in ridiculous places for said object, and eventually blame others for its misplacement) and lifted one of the orderlies he's already scanned.  "Bla bla bla, something about a giant me... sigh..." and then, he saw it:  The surveillance cameras.  The store was littered with them!  Surely THEY had seen his prey's escape!

CHAPTER 7b

****

"...But why is it after you, specifically!?" Wally whined, as Steve recklessly drove the SUV in a manner that one can generally only do with a vehicle when it isn't one's own.  "Slow down will you!?  This thing's new!"

"Slow bloody GET OUT OF THE WAY down!?  Are you JESUS bonkers!?  There's a giant alien after PUT YOUR DAMN TINFOIL BACK ON MAN!  IT CAN READ whoops, lookout, MINDS!" Steve screamed, his manner of speech nearly as erratic as his driving.

"Is that bum flagging us down?" Wally queried.

"Ronald!  Shit!  I forgot all about Ronald!  Open the side door!"

"What!?  He's not coming in here!  He's covered in his own vomit!"

"No! No!  That's MY vomit!  Look man, just let him in!  He's the one who told me about the tinfoil in the first place!" Steve paused, wondering if he should be driving, but deciding firmly that it was a tad too late for that decision to be made.

"A crazy bum... of whom you'd thrown up upon... told you to wear tinfoil on your head, and you listened to him!?"

"It seemed perfectly reasonable at the..."  Steve's brain refused to continue his sentence, however, as it was using all of its processing power to record Ronald, and the fact that he seemed to be doing some form of gymnastic routine over the tops of nearby traffic, finishing, after an excessive, but seemingly necessary amount, of spinning, flipping, and the like, with a decidedly soft landing, upon the roof of Wally's SUV. 

It wasn't just impressive, it was down-right inhuman.  "...at the..." Steve's brain chugged and stalled, attempting to re-establish resources to driving, breathing, and speaking again all at the same time, much like an older tractor of whose fuel tank would constantly flood.  "...At the..  the... uhh..."

"Holy shit!  Did you see that!?" Wally paraphrased.

"At the... What!?  Of course I saw it!  He just… he just bounced off of… and he flipped… and now he’s…  and…  HE LANDED ON OUR FRIGGEN CAR!"

"SUV!"

"WHATEVER!"

"WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY, SUPER-BUM!?"

"The name's Ronald, actually." Ronald muffled, knocking on the skylight, and, after a pause, making the universal roll down your window motion with his hand.  It wasn't totally applicable in this situation, but he felt it would get his message across nonetheless.

Wally pondered, paused, pontificated, persevereated, and finally, persevered in pushing the presumptuously pink button that Ronald was badly miming his desire to be pushed.

"Ah, thanks." He said, sliding in.  "Sorry about the vomit.  Nice car."

Wally sighed, "suv."

It was around now, that common sense, having been shoulder checking its way through Wally's need for excitement for most of the car-chase (or rather, car-reckless-driving, as it didn't seem that anyone, short of the local authorities, very likely, was chasing anybody) and having promptly made it past Wally's insecurities and social anxieties, and finally, making it to the proverbial floor, and proverbial podium from which to speak.

It seemed that he was in his vehicle, and it was being driven by someone else.  This alone, was somewhat of a concern, as his insurance wasn't made out for anyone else.  Add on top of that, that the person driving, was doing so only by definition, and, really, was doing so quite recklessly, and that added an extra notch (onto whatever common sense keeps a record upon via notching). 

On top of all this, not only the driver, who, by the way, was only partially dressed with clothes stolen from Wally's own department store, and of whom smelled to high Heaven (which really is a silly phrase and an even sillier concept, when you consider the likelihood of bad smells in Heaven), but also, his vomit-encrusted companion, who, for the record, also did not smell the nicest, and, finally, Wally himself (who smelled just fine, except for the nervous perspiration one would expect under such circumstances), were all wearing tinfoil on their heads.

It was around now, that, had common sense possessed an actual podium, and some notes with which to shuffle upon it, that it would have done so, to create a dramatic pause in which one was supposed to reflect.

There was also the, common sense continued, small issue of super-bum and his nonchalant vaulting over traffic, and the rather unprecedented event of being chased by a, for lack of any better explanation, space-alien... 

"Um..." Said Wally, in an effort to both express his feelings, and to give his common sense a breather (and possibly time to shuffle its notes).

"Quiet!" Steve yelped, swerving to miss one of the new Volvos with all those shiny expensive bits on the side.

"It's just that..." Wally pressed.

"Wally!  Please!  I'm trying to drive!" Steve pressed back, dawdling for a time upon the nearby curb in an effort to avoid vehicular homicide.

"I think we can slow down now," Ronald paused, as though just realizing he'd forgotten to buy milk when he was already at the proverbial checkout counter, "...Steve"

CHAPTER 7: BRAP Deity Bonking Super Bums

Brap surveyed the suddenly large collection of screaming simians, and used a tentacle to grab the nearest, who was murmuring some form of greeting, and began probing its mind.  "Welcome to Wal-MooaaaAAH!"

He'd seen his prey... and... the rest was wiped out by the fear of a giant, tentacled rhinoesque creature picking him up by his skull.

This was going to be difficult.

Not as difficult as some of the other piss-poor jobs he'd been on, mind you.  Finding the two-inch Cephalopod terrorist on an entire planet of twenty foot Geraphelopods, now that, had been challenging.  Or it would have been if not for the Cephalopod’s allergies...

"Welcome to Wal-Mart!" Another of the pesky bipeds interrupted.

CHAPTER 6b

****

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE ANY BLOODY TINFOIL!?" Steve screamed at the trainee, who'd recently acquired an infuriatingly time-wasting stutter.  "I'm suh-suh-sorry Sir, It's my first week, and I'm not shu-shu-sure if we..."

"DO YOU HAVE ANY BLOODY IDEA..." Steve paused, realizing that the trainee quite likely didn't, as he'd put it, have any bloody anything.  “...Right, can I talk to your manager?" Steve said, leaning against the counter as nonchalantly as a bleeding nudist can muster.

"That'd be me." Wally replied.

"Wally!?" Steve whirled, suddenly very concerned about his nakedness, and doing his very best to cover it up with a nearby art magazine, which, ironically, seemed to have both a very zoomed in, controversial photograph, and the related cover story of the controversy surrounding Michelangelo’s David, and the showing thereof to school children.

"...Steve?" Wally blanched, "What the hell are you doing?"

Steve opened his mouth to explain, paused, lifted his finger to speak again, paused, and finally put the disappointed finger back down.  "Look, do you have any tinfoil?"

"Aisle 7, look, where are your clothes man!?" Wally pressed, sensing that this was, perhaps, exactly the sort of thing that wasn't returning to his office and watching old people change.

"AISLE 7!  OF COURSE!  Look, follow me, and keep your head down man!  Come on!" Steve squealed, trundling off towards 7, flailing the magazine at a shocked someone who, in Steve’s opinion, had looked somewhat alienish.

If you asked him, even now, why Wally had followed him, why Wally had always followed Steve, he wouldn't be able to tell you.  In high school, he could have mustered a weak "to be popular" response, but it was utter tripe.  There were no bullies now, no social pecking order to invisibly climb, and yet, there he was, running after Steve's naked, glass-embedded tush, keeping his head down for unknown reasons, as his employees all gawked at the decidedly abnormal turn of events.

Steve tore up the isle, grabbing the tinfoil and donning a makeshift hat as quickly as possible.  "Pants!" He stage-whispered at Wally "Can you get me some pants?  Where can we hide?"


And there it was.  That "we" word.  Perhaps it was just Wally belonging to something greater than himself.  (This, admittedly, wasn’t difficult for Wally.)  Perhaps that's why Wally, after giving directions to the underground parking lot, and his overcompensatingly-large, sports-utility-vehicle, had ran off in search of something discounted for Steve to wear.

As Wally grabbed the pants, he noticed that the snow globes were priced incorrectly.  And, oddly, reflected therein, was a giant, tentacled rhino creature, who seemed to be intent on crashing through Wally’s previously uneventful store.  Taking a leap of logic, Wally assumed that this, was quite likely what Steve had been running from, and promptly headed for the parking lot.

CHAPTER 6: WALLY Rebirth of the Social Pecking Order

Wally Wallerson Jr III (oddly enough)., idly tapped his office desk with his fingers, as he half-heartedly watched the surveillance cameras in the women's changing room. 

Wally's parents had once told him that he'd been destined for great things.  At the time, he'd been inclined to agree.  Though lately, he'd had his doubts. 

He wasn't sure if it was because the changing rooms were empty, or because he felt he was wasting his life away, but his security officer's report of a naked, bleeding man screaming about tinfoil and aliens, had been just the sort of thing he'd been hoping for.

"Sir?" The security officer repeated.

"Yes, I heard you.  Thank you.  I'm coming down."


"Do you think we should call the police?" The security officer verbally nudged.

"Hm?  No.  No, that's fine.  I'm coming down." Wally replied, shuffling his way to the elevator.

CHAPTER 5: Squelchingly Sieged Cheerleaders

If ignorance was painful, you'd see a lot more cheerleaders in libraries, which, would consequently, all have to be bigger; both to accommodate its new perky residents, and their plentiful admirers. 

Similarly, if this had all taken place in one of these non-existent cheerleader-infested-libraries-of-above-average-size, and shocked bewilderment made a noise, everyone would be sternly telling Steve to shush. 

In this thread of reality, however, Steve's bewilderment simply made him stare at Ronald, well, bewilderingly.  Luckily, he didn't need to come up with anything more to say, as, at that point, it became clear that the Rifle-Toting-Tentacled-Rhino had, indeed, been chasing him, but, entirely likely due to his bipedal-ness,  lacked the foot speed of the Earthen species he so resembled, and, was just arriving now.

"You're right, he IS gray..." Ronald squinted, bringing Steve's attention to the beast.

Steve's entire body, had it had eyes, would have collectively rolled them.  "Oh son of a..."

"Shush!  They have good hearing you know." Ronald whispered.

"Oh come off it!  The bugger's obviously seen me by now!" Steve snapped, trying to convince his aching limbs to start running.

"Ever seen that movie Jurassic Park?"

"What?" Steve snapped, trying to massage life back into his legs.

" Jurassic Park.  Movie... Rampaging dinosaurs... Lawyers getting eaten when they're acting stupid and doing things like, for example, not-shushing when they're told..."

"What are you talking about!?  C'mon lil' legs, time for your walkies..."

"This helmet here.  It makes it so he can't see me."

"... I CAN SEE YOU PLAIN AS DAY!" Steve yelped, understandably distracted by the Tentacled Rhino bearing down on him.

"The Rhino species, tentacled or otherwise, has horrible vision.  Thusly, I hypothesize that this weapon-using-unpurplish version is no different, and has, like its purplish cousin, developed a form of telepathy used to track its enemies.  After all, he's using a weapon.  I'd say that's a step up the evolutionary ladder from the Earth-Rhinos; of whom, last I checked, are still using the bash-it-with-your-head strategy.  Try your best not to think.  I'll meet you at Wal-Mart."

"Wal-Mart!?"

"To get you some tin foil of course."  Ronald paused, glancing down “And some shorts at least.  Hm.  And some band aids...  oop!  You'd better start running!"

Steve's legs, possibly just to spite him, listened to Ronald and took off, narrowly dodging a searing blast from their increasingly aggravating pursuer's weapon.

As the giant, tentacled Rhino chased after the man Ronald planned on calling Steve as soon as it was convenient, he couldn't help but let his mind wander to different times.  Similar times...  He shook his head, getting entirely too used to the fact that every movement caused vomit to squelch off him like fiery bales of hay launched at a town under a particularly nasty siege.  Now was not the time for reminiscing.

Pulling out a few carefully selected items from his bag of crap, Ronald, pausing to check the skies and wind currents, made his way to the Wal-Mart.

CHAPTER 4: Spittin' Introductions

Strange indeed, are the occurrences required, to make a man seek to don vomit-encovered clothing.

Stranger still, the occurrences required to make a man desperate enough to want, and to attempt to steal, lice and flea-infested clothing off a homeless man, with the intent to wear them.

These occurrences had, however, happened in the mind of Steve.  As these were the rails that his current train of thought rode upon.

As he rose up, and swung at the man, however, he couldn't help but be a little disappointed when Steve felt his shoulder dislocate as he was flipped, rather painfully, onto the soggy ground he'd just gotten up from. 

As he stared up at the drenched man who had effortlessly done what many movie stuntmen take quite a few takes to get just right, he quickly surmised that perhaps, this was not a man to be trifled with.

Ronald stood, or, from Steve's perspective, floated up-side-down, at about 6"1, obviously weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 190lbs, and, apparently, knew how to dislocate arms when they were presented to him in a hostile manner.  He wore the traditional, albeit with an usually high level of recent-vomit-stains, homeless person rags, and, even had the typical crazy-guy tinfoil hat.  But there was something about him...  Something that made Steve want to know his story.  Without getting up, Steve presented his un-dislocated left arm in an effort to shake the man's hand.  "Hi.", he moaned, and, as an afterthought, "My name's Steve."

"Ronald." Ronald spat, shaking the proffered hand.

"Homeless?"

"Yup." he expectorated.  (Don't make me start quoting Bill Nye again… Spit!  It means spit!)

"That helmet there to keep aliens from reading your thoughts?"

"Yup."  he spat.

"Got a spare?"

Ronald paused, both from the apparent lack of sarcasm in the query, and in the remembering of asking the naked stranger a similar question, but decided he was far too vomit encoated to make large statements, nor to appreciate irony to that extent.  "Nope." he spat some more.

"Stop spitting on me?"

"Nope."  He expectorated again.

"Pop my shoulder back into place?"

Ronald paused again, shrugged, and bent down and snapped Steve's shoulder back into its socket, emitting a very pleasant scream from Steve’s lips.  Ronald smiled, dripping.

"Help me up?"


"Sure." He dripped, yanking him up to a standing position.

There was an awkwardly, dangling, pause.

"So." Ronald started, keeping his eyes up, "Large-tentacled-purple-rhino-lookin' fellah?"

"Er, no.  He was gray."


"Ah."

CHAPTER 3b

****

Despite the situation, Steve began to make a witty comment.  It was, however, at that exact time, that his hangover decided it had been bloody well patient enough.

Even as Steve's vomit spewed onto the homeless man, Steve's throat burning, his stomach clenching painfully, Steve couldn't help but note the irony of, despite his nakedness, having had something to spare, and give, to the fellow after all.

Ronald's reaction to the vomit was akin to the first Apache who'd been shot at by their Caucasian invaders.  There was a moment of paralyzed shock, then recognition, and then, he took to the ground.  It wasn't the best action he could have taken, as, the large amount of running, and the excessive amount of vomiting, that Steve had indeed promised his hangover, was causing Steve's legs to give out from under him, which, as luck wouldn't quite have it, caused the flow of pickled Cheetos to follow Ronald's descent, leaving him thoroughly, and completely, drenched.

Ronald had few things.  Indeed, very few people even knew his name and most regarded him as an inconvenient thing that they had to witness every few days or so.  But Ronald's few remaining morsels of dignity appeared to have been entirely dissolved by Steve's stomach acid. 

Ronald slowly rose to his feet.  His eyes, had they been able to open fully, would no doubt have been able to shoot through solidified sugar cane or, at the very least, cause many a wincing.  He paused, wiped his vomit-covered-face with his vomit-covered sleeve, noted the redundancy, waited for Steve to finish his purging, and, then, decided to ask, from his experience, the most obvious of questions:

“Problems with the missus?” Ronald spat.

CHAPTER 3: RONALD Apache Vomit & Lions

Ronald had had a full life.  He'd been everywhere, done most of everything. His parents had always told him that he'd been destined for greater things, but lately, his path, though always having been rugged, had been sent on a serious detour about twelve years ago, and, currently, he was the only hobo native to the neighborhood. 

As Ronald raised his hands both to adjust his tinfoil hat, and to shade his eyes from the sun, he stood up from his park bench; His facial expression not entirely unlike a Roman boy during his first day of watching the lions and their Christian dinners, as if to say "hey, hold on a second..." as his eyes followed the naked (with exception to his left foot, anyway) newcomer. 

Ronald noted that the fellow obviously wasn't armed, nor even well equipped, but, even the Roman lions had been cautious, and thus, he readied himself to defend his humble roost.

Even as the words came out of his mouth, Ronald realized how silly a question it was.  But habits were hard to break.  "Got anything you can spare?" He asked the bleeding, limping, naked man, who was headed directly towards him.

CHAPTER 2: Inspirational Nudity

One would imagine, "I'm going to kill you" or something along those lines, would be the most intimidating thing a giant, tentacled rhino with a gun could yell in this type of moment.  However, it became readily apparent that, although its facial features displayed the typically stern I'm-going-to-maul-you look that was all-but-patented by the Earth-species he resembled, his voice was, even under the extreme stress of the moment, still somewhat comical.

As a huge blast of flatulence exploded from its face, mixed with a nasal whistle and what could only be described as something akin to classical music being played entirely by an orchestra who had collectively decided to represent the chaos of today's modern living by playing their instruments only with their feet, while various members of the audience were lit on fire, Steve was left with a decision to make.

He could, on the one hand, attempt to run.  Surely that was what the Rhino fellow (whose sentence was just winding down into a low puff of gas) expected.  On the other hand, he could do the completely unexpected, and start disrobing.  It was these kinds of brilliant ideas that had made him a hit at many a frat party, and he was thankful as ever, for the inspiration.

As he was, with exception to the miraculously and odds-deifying-ly donned sneaker, only wearing a robe, the act of disrobing, was as literal, as it was abrupt.

Flatulistic cacophony erupted out of the Rhino's mouth as it reeled in pain, franticly covering its nostrils with its tentacles.  Even as Steve used the distraction to dive into the nearby kitchen, he couldn't help but feel a little insecure.  Apparently either the fellow had an extremely sensitive snout, or Steve was taking post-party-body-odor to a whole new level.  Catching a whiff of himself as he ran, he conceded that it was entirely likely to be a mixture of both.

Steve, partially due to his mixed states of traction & elevation, was slipping and falling across his kitchen, looking every bit like he was attempting some perverted version of a Slip ‘n Slide commercial rather than running for his life; desperately, he took cover behind the closest counter.  His hangover, quite unhelpfully, (not that hangovers were ever known for being anything other than malicious), decided that, in lieu of recent events, it had better hurry up and get on with the vomiting before Steve's stomach was atomized.  Steve was, however, able to overpower his hangover's desire to decorate his walls with random bits of badly chewed Cheetos, beer, and one of those little toys you find in a cereal box, with the single thought that he probably had only seconds to live; if he was lucky, and that, if, the hangover kindly waited until Steve was out of harm's way, he would let it vomit all it wanted then. 

Delighted with the opportunity to have unchallenged amounts of reverse peristalsis, the hangover agreed, and went silent.

Now might be a good time to mention that the motion an esophagus (that little tube thingy that connects your mouth to your stomach) makes when swallowing, (that's what you do [hopefully] after you chew food) is called "peristalsis".  Apparently the author was the only fellow who paid attention to Bill Nye the Science Guy, and thus assumed everyone knew that; when, in fact, it's the single line EVERYONE questions. 

...Anyway:

Steve, his instincts telling him to imitate any of the various action heroes he'd watched over the years, took off in a crouched run.  His annoyingly external genitals flopping from side to side took considerably away from the overall stealthiness and coolness of his run, but, under the circumstances, he felt he did it quite well. 

(The hangover bitched a little about the running, but decided it would just give an extra dry heave later, in compensation.) 

The drunkenness, seeing the hangover's inability to purge him from Steve's system, decided that convincing Steve's head to be suddenly attracted to the nearby walls and floors, certainly didn't help matters, though the drunkenness was quickly reprimanded by the hangover, as the two battled for dominance like a particularly frantic pair of high school nerds in a particularly titanic game of Risk, or perhaps Parcheesi.

The sound of the tentacled menace’s screeching farts interrupted Steve’s inner working's bickering, and worked with Steve's instincts, in assuring him that he might live, if he just kept running.  Seeing a brief glimmer of hope, and the chance to do something very action-heroish, he dove through his nearby kitchen window, and out onto the lawn below.  In retrospect, something best kept in the movies, and left to stunt men trained for that sort of thing.

Steve's skin, having remained fairly quiet throughout all this, decided now was as good a time as any to vent its protests about all the slicing that had been going on, but found its protests relatively unheard, due to the testicles and their crushing.

Steve's pain was nearly euphoric as, while landing, he managed to not only slice a great deal too much skin from his body, but also sprain his ankle with the large amount of pressure he had put on it with his testicular region.  In fact, the only thing that kept his testicles from being sprained in the process, was that he was pretty sure they were an unsprainable body part altogether.

His head reeling, he managed to not pass out, and, indeed, even managed to get up, trip briefly over a rather evil-looking garden gnome, and resume running again.

Three painfully naked, blood-stained blocks later, Steve's pace finally began to slow.  It didn't appear the beast was chasing him, and his everything hurt. 

[Alternate Titles]

Unsprainable Body parts

Personified Bodily States

A man/Flopping Action Hero at war with himself, and a large rhino

Perverted Children's Toys

Ow.