Category Archives: humor

Canto 123 – Who Can We Trust?

Jadalaqstbr, more often called Jackie because Zaranian names are hard with no vowels at the end, was impressed by the way Alec had taken charge of the situation.  She knew no one really liked or trusted Alec.  He was abrasive and often not worthy of trust.  But he had seduced her more than once by using his telepathy to invade her mind… more than three times already actually.  And she liked it.  There was something both sweet and sad about boys who were that pathetic and secretly needy.  She had always had a soft spot for guys like that.  Her own father had been like that before he died.

  And she could teleport him to five hundred feet in the air and drop him on his head if he did anything really bad.

Jackie noticed Taffy was the one who retrieved the

fallen helmet.

“Do not touch the inside of that!” said Shen Ming-sensei with a frightening suddenness.

“Um, okay…” said Taffy, holding it gingerly.  “Why?”

“Ah, so you see… I remember all of this now… when I could not recall any of it before…  The Avenger helmet was created over 400 years ago to have an intelligence of its own.  I overdid the wisdom circuits, however, and it blew out a morality capacitor.  So, instead of using it to make our commanders smarter in battle, it simply went insane.  We locked it away for four hundred years.  It grew more and more insane with each passing year.  Not only that, it can absorb the skills of those who wear it and amplify them.  So, not only does it have Jai Chaing’s superior bow skill, it has Hassan Parker’s Psionic telepathy.”

“Oh!  You mean it could take over my mind?”  Horrified, Taffy dropped the helmet.

“Ah, this is better.  So, perhaps a telepath should be the one to take this thing back to Mistress Li in the storage basement.”

“Right now, only Hassan and Alec are here with telepathy,” said Mai Ling.

“Ah, yes.  Perhaps giving it back to Hassan is not the best of ideas.  It did have him under its evil spell just moments ago.”  Shen Ming smiled crazily as he shook his head no.

“Um, okay…  I will take it to the storage basement,” Alec said rather hesitantly.

Jackie decided that if Alec was going to take such a risk, she was going with him to teleport him away the instant the evil thing showed the least sign of doing something bad.

Shen Ming and others walked towards the infirmary with Hassan while Alec and Jackie, with the helmet, started towards the stair to the palace basement.

Jackie was admiring Alec’s handsome face and not really paying attention to what Alec was looking it.  He turned the helmet over and over in his hands, peering inside at the neural contact points.

“I wonder how this thing makes people put it on their heads?”

Jackie suddenly turned and looked directly at the former Black Spider student ninja.

“Hassan is the second strongest telepath on Gaijin.  It must have a special power of its own,” she said.

No sooner had she said it than the helmet began to vibrate and glow.  A powerful, dominating voice blasted through her head, probably doing the same to Alec. 

“Put me on your head!  You are in my power!” the voice directed at Alec.  “Jackie, take off all your clothes!  I am your master!” It directed at her.

She could see Alec struggling to disobey the voice, but the helmet slowly raised his hands above his head and slipped it into place on him, the fifth most powerful telepath on Gaijin.

And her own hands no longer obeyed her.  She watched with horror as she completely undressed herself.

“We must escape to the Black Spider Castle!” the helmet said.  The helmet did not sound like Alec.  It seemed to have a voice of its own.

As much as it terrified her to see herself obeying the helmet, Jackie flung her clothing away and started to run.  Alec, wearing the horrid, three-horned helmet ran after her. Where was she going?  She didn’t know where the Black Spider Castle was, but apparently her bare legs did.  She was headed to the last place in the universe where she wanted to be.  And she was going there at high speed.

Canto 122 – The Hidden Powers of the Avenger

In the central courtyard of the Palace of a Thousand Years, the Avenger made its reappearance atop a young, completely nude boy.  He ran into the courtyard full throttle, and suddenly pulling up in front of the animal handler, six of his young apprentices, and six mardenschmauz six-legged riding beasts.    The Avenger then hit them with a mind-blast, proving that whoever was under the helmet was a powerful telepath.  He did not, however, kill them.  He merely put all seven people and six hexipedal riding beasts into a deep and restful involuntary slumber.

Of course, it was obvious that it wasn’t Alec under the helmet.  Alec was especially aware that it wasn’t him, as he rushed to the scene of the attack knowing it had to be stopped, and most likely only by another telepath.

Besides Alec knowing that he wasn’t the telepath in the Avenger helmet, he knew it wasn’t Sara or Junir, because the naked body wasn’t a girl, and it definitely wasn’t blue.  Besides, he was beginning to know and befriend the only Space Nudist among the students of the White Spider, and he now recognized Hassan Parker’s skinny butt and tiny penis.

Alec’s own telepathy was at least strong enough to protect him from any attack against him that naked Hassan could muster, in spite of Hassan’s telepathic superiority.

“Halt, Hassan!  You must take that evil helmet off.  You don’t want to hurt anyone.”  Alec stood in Hassan’s way.

“I do not know this Hassan you speak of.  I am the mighty Avenger!  I have returned because of the foul crimes of Shen Ming.  The wronged ones must be avenged!”

Others gathered around the scene of the Avenger’s sleep attack.  Taffy King and Mai Ling arrived from across the courtyard.  Jadalaqstbr teleported to Alec’s side and slipped her soft hand into his.  And Shen Ming-sensei hustled across the green, lifting the skirts of his orange ceremonial robe with both hands.

“Bow before me, infidels!  Or be destroyed in the name of Shen Ming!”

“I did not ask for any destruction in my name,” muttered Shen Ming, low enough that Alec almost didn’t hear him say it.

“So, Shen-sensei, the Avenger has now become Hassan?” Alec asked.

“Of course!  Why didn’t I remember?  It’s the stupid helmet!” Shen Ming said with a chuckle.

“You mean, it’s controlling his mind?” Alec asked.

“Undoubtedly.  It is what it was designed for.”

Alec looked at Taffy and Mai Ling, both of whom had fearsome Psionic powers of telekinesis and no telepathic mind shields.  If Hassan took over their minds… Oy!  Everyone could die a horrible death.

Not willing to take chances, Alec ran towards Hassan the Avenger and forcefully applied his best roundhouse kick to the side of Hassan’s head, then reversed direction and kicked him in the midsection with the other leg.  The helmet, once dislodged, flew through the air and landed in the grass more than two meters away from anyone.

Hassan was lying on the ground, still as death.

His heart in his throat, Alec leapt to Hassan’s aide.  His own telepathy was healing-centered, and though Fangwoman of the Black Spiders had only taught Alec how to use it to inflict pain, he knew only too well that it could be reversed the way Sara Smith did it to heal instead of harm.

The green healing energy radiated from Alec’s hands.  He poured his power into Hassan’s potentially damaged skull.

Slowly, Hassan opened his eyes again and came back to life.

“Alec, you freed me!  That evil helmet takes over your mind.  No matter how hard I fought it, it made me do things I did not want to do.”

“You have always been nice to me and helped me, even when I was horrible to you,” Alec admitted.  “I couldn’t just let the Avenger thing do harm to my only male friend.”

“Alec, you have definitely changed,” said Taffy King, smiling at him.

“Yeah, maybe so… But please don’t tell Phoenix.  I don’t want him to lose respect for me.”

“Oh, no worries there,” Taffy said about their old Black Spider classmate, “He doesn’t respect you, and probably never will.”

“Well, good then…” Alec muttered, though the disappointment from realizing the truth of that stung him deeply.