Category Archives: satire

Nocturne 12 – The Flower Planet Rising

While Ged Aero-sensei and Naylund Smith-sensei were busy flying the Super Rooster towards the planet Cornucopea, the White Spider students gathered in the recreation room with the forward view on the holoscreen.   

Mai Ling and Taffy King sat together on the floor, missing their third since Jadalaqstbr hadn’t returned from her mission until after they had collectively left.

Shu Kwai, wearing his white vest and white pants stood on the starboard side of the viewing screen.  Hassan Parker, nude except for the goofy red fez on his head (since he was dedicated to the goofy nudity notions of the Classical Worlds, also known as Space Nudists,) stood next to him.

Gyro Sinjarac, the blue-skinned Nebulon, and his best friend Billy Iowa both wore their cowboy hats, boots, and space-cowboy clothes sitting in the middle of the floor.

Junior Aero, blue-skinned Nebulon, and his beloved young lady friend, Sara Smith.  Stood together at the back of the group holding hands.

The planet kept looming larger and larger in the viewing screen.  It was amazingly green compared to similar planets where life wasn’t merely thriving, but exploding with life.  Most such planets were blue from immense bodies of water.

“So, this is a dangerous planet, huh?” asked Mai Ling.

“Yes, those Throckpods were trying to rip my head off and drink my blood,” said Sara.

Taffy King shivered.  “I hate the idea of plants that can move and talk… and eat you.”

“Yeah, and it will be worse for us than it was for you, Sara,” Mai Ling said.

“Oh, how so?”

“You had your boyfriend there to protect you,” she said.  “Our boyfriends… Taffy’s and mine, are not along to protect us.”

“You two have boyfriends?”

“Taffy loves Rocket,” Gyro blurted out with accompanying giggles.

“But… you, Mai Ling?”

Mai Ling blushed deeply.  “Yeah, um…  Phoenix says of all the girls he’s met before, I’m the one he likes the most.”

Everyone laughed awkwardly, more from embarrassment than anything else.  But no one argued either.  They all instantly realized that Phoenix did treat Mai Ling differently. He wasn’t cruel to her.

“So, what about Billy, Gyro, Shu, and Hassan?” Junior asked.  “Who are they supposed to protect.”

“Well, it’s rather obvious that Gyro and Billy are in love,” said Taffy with a cruel grin.  “And Shu Kwai is more of a monk than a man.  And who’s even gonna get near the naked kid?”

Shu Kwai frowned at the teasing, and Hassan looked quite sad for reasons unknown.

“Well, my clairvoyance is pinging right now with answers to all of it,” said Billy Iowa.  “I see Gyro with an Earther wife and ten blue kids of varying ages.  And Junior and Sara will marry and have a pair of blue twins, a boy and girl… Robert and Valerie, I think.”

“Oh, what about Phoenix and me?” squeaked Mai Ling.

“Well… you do get married… but…”

“Oh, no!  What?”

“You can’t have kids of your own.  You have to adopt… I think.”

“And what about Rocket and me?” Taffy asked.

“One son, Alfred Einstein Rogers.  He’s such a handful you both decide never to have any more.”

“What about Shu?”

“Well, he’s going to be a great teacher, and first among all the White Spider Disciples.”

“Of course he is,” scoffed Taffy.

“And Hassan?”

Suddenly Billy’s face grew pale and the look on his face was the kind of horrified you associate with seeing ghosts.

“No!  Don’t say it.  I don’t want to know.”  Hassan folded his arms across his chest and glared at Billy.

“Do… do you already know it?”

“The curse?  It isn’t really any of your business.  Take your time-snooping nose out of my future.  Don’t you dare tell anyone.”

“Okay.  Okay… I wish I could forget it… myself.”

“I’ll take care of it for you,” Hassan said, putting his first two fingers of his right hand to Billy’s temple and pouring blueish telepathic energy into the side of Billy’s head. That, of course, left everyone so stunned about Hassan’s terrible secret that all the romance and future-children stuff was promptly forgotten.

Canto 134 – Meanwhile, the Rebound…

King Killer stared out the main viewport of his Flagship, the Sherman Hemsley, looking intently at Grand Admiral Cloudstalker’s new flagship, the Giant Leaf-eater.

“It seems like such an insult for legendary pirates like Arkin Cloudstalker to be flying a dinosaur-shaped space ship. Certainly, the brains behind this new fleet coulda come up with something more respectful. It’s so silly… and green!”

“You are complaining for Cloudstalker?  Or f0r yourself?” asked Wicked Wanda.

“Yeah, yeah…  I’m not happy for me either.  His just has to sit there like some kinda brontosaurus, and he don’t have to charge about like a bison in a stampede.”

“You didn’t have to accept a triceratops ship, you know.  And that thing Cloudstalker has is a brachiosaurus.  There never was such a thing as a brontosaurus.  It was actually an apatosaurus.”

“So, you are now the ship’s dinosaur expert?”

“You know I’m not.  I’m your fleet communications officer… and paramour.”

“Yeah, I know it.”

King glared around the bridge at all of the snickering crewmen.  All seven of them on the bridge of the Hemsley.

“What?  You subordinates have opinions?” He growled menacingly.  Everyone ceased laughing instantly.

And then a gray and black trash dumpster materialized on the bridge of Admiral Killer’s flagship as if some gigantic material synthesizer pieced it together from random atoms there.

“What’s this on my bridge?”

“Um… a dumpster?” a timid crewman ventured.

They all heard the familiar snap-hiss of a sealed airlock opening, and then the thing morphed into a 1950s telephone booth.  It was almost a familiar sight to Admiral Killer.

“Dr. Hooey?”

The character who stepped out of the time-ship Star Wars was completely unrecognizable to King.

“Yes, it’s me.  I ran into some difficulties in Outpost’s near future.  I had to be reborn again, as Galagoans do, but at least I get to be younger in this body.”

“Um, why are you different from the old Hooey?”

“I understand perfectly,” Wicked Wanda said.  “Having been a holovid star myself, I definitely understand the need to change faces as you start a new season.”

“So glad you get it, old girl.  Forgive me if I turn out to be a bit cheekier than the old me.”

“So, why is the new you even here?” demanded King.

“Ah, yes!  To make sure you, Admiral King Killer, don’t give up in the coming battle of Outpost.  All you have to do to win it and establish the New Star League, is do what you intended to do before you started to have second thoughts.  If you just do the things you were supposed to do all along, the plan Ham Aero carries out will work and you all will be victorious.”

“Um, ah… what?”

But not even Wicked Wanda could interpret that one for him.  Because when did the second thoughts he was not supposed to have actually begin?  Were these old second thoughts?  Were they second thoughts that happened after the present time?  And what the heck were the first thoughts he actually had to do to win?

“Oh, never mind.  You’ll figure it out when the time is right.”

“And if I don’t figure it out?”

“Well, I guess, then, that the universe we know dies this time… once again.” King Killer glared at this new Hooey.  Yes, it really was a new Hooey.  Just like the old Hooey, only dumber.

Canto 132 – Comeuppance

 Phoenix dissipated his fire-sword and turned towards the Black Spider leaders and their fire-fighting crew.  There was an ironic smile on his face.

“You may have noticed that this entire place is now on fire.  We, the three of us have decimated your ranks already.  And we did not come alone.  We brought Jai Chang and the army of Shen Ming.  Jai-sensei needed a chance to prove himself faithful to the White Spider.”

Instantly Jai Chaing swooped down from the rafters, shooting his arrows as he leapt.  Fangwoman, still wearing the helmet, took the first one through the heart.  Three more fell to his arrows before the other warriors took their first shots.

Reacting as quickly as he could, the Green Phantom dropped himself through a trap door in the stage floor.

“Now you must kill me.  I was your sensei, and I deserve an honorable death at your hands.  Let the student now become the master.”  Bone Daddy lowered his head, ready for the final blow.

“What is that?  Some kind of old movie reference?  You may not like it, but I choose to honor you with love and forgiveness.  We will take you as our guest in a lead-lined cell.  We will heal you, and give you the chance to redeem yourself among the White Spiders.”

“Phoenix, no.  You dishonor me.”

“I do not.  You just don’t understand… yet.”

Bone Daddy slumped unconscious to the floor.  Fortunately, a wraith cannot phase while unconscious.

“I have the boy Freddy,” said Jai Chang, holding the unconscious child in his arms.  Of the three White Spider commandoes, he was the only one that needed attention from a healer.

Rocket, Jackie, and Alec were all roused and led safely out of the burning building.  Two soldiers carried the limp form of Bone Daddy out too.

Shen Ming himself retrieved the Avenger Helmet.

“Ah, I must be careful with this thing now.”

“Am I right in thinking you are the reason the Avenger helmet turned up on Jai Chang’s head, Shen Ming-sensei?” Phoenix asked.

“What?  Me, guilty?  Although I am admitting that it all worked out rather nicely for our worst enemies.  Fangwoman is discovering new dimensions.  Bone Daddy is now our permanent guest.  And Green Phantom is now in hiding, needing to recruit many new evil ninjas to his stupid way of thinking. 

“And, ah, so… we have cleaned out the Black Spider Organization in Kiro pretty well.” Shen Ming’s crooked smirk told Phoenix it was all true, but he was not unhappy about it.

Canto 127 – The Black Spider Theatre

Rocket had swiftly grown to trust Phoenix in ways that were hard to explain.  The two pyrokinetics had spent so much time transferring pyro-tricks back and forth with the aid of telepathy by Junior, Sara, or Hassan that he felt like he knew what the inside of Phoenix’s mind fully felt like.

He was surprised when they both ducked through a small, obscure doorway and found themselves in the dark wing of a mostly-dark stage.

Fangwoman was standing at the very front of the stage, wearing the Avenger helmet, holding both arms up and speaking loudly to about four hundred Black Spider ninjas in full ninja cloth armor.  Not only were there the ninjas in the audience gallery, but they were surrounded by a couple of thousand lit candles.

“Come, my minions!  Now is the time to strike!  The Palace of a Thousand Years is in chaos!”  She shouted into the candle-lit auditorium.  Strike in the name of Shen Ming!”

“Why would we fight in the name of Shen Ming?” asked one confused minion.

“Because Shen Ming has earned our anger!  He betrayed us and locked us away!”

“No, he hasn’t,” said a female ninja in peach-colored armor.  “If anyone has betrayed us, it would have to be Jinjiro, or Bres, or even Phoenix.”

“He betrayed us by locking us in a hole for a hundred years!”

“No, he didn’t.  You must be talking as the weird helmet.  The helmet was locked up in the Palace.”

“Oh, why am I arguing!”  Fangwoman launched three iron ninja stars faster than anyone could react.  The three ninjas who had spoken fell dead with the throwing stars partially protruding from their foreheads.

“We have to stop them before they get to the Palace,” Rocket whispered.

“Don’t worry, Rocket, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  Do you see all the candles in here?”

“Yes, but I see all the ninjas too.  We’re way too outnumbered.”

“Just follow my lead.”

Phoenix gestured at the far wall.  All seven hundred and fifty-three candles on that wall suddenly shot flames upward as if they were flame-throwers.

Phoenix gathered all the flame and heat into one tight column of fire, and then brought it down on the heads of around a hundred of Fangwoman’s minions.

Some died screaming.  Others managed to pat out the fires on their clothing.  Still others seemed to be wearing flame-proof armor.

Rocket gestured at a near wall to accomplish the same effect  It appeared at first that he had set about a hundred and twenty ninjas on fire.  The effect was very similar to what Phoenix had achieved.  However, more than twice as many put the flames out, and three times as many proved to be fire-proof.

“Well, this should prove difficult,” said Rocket through gritted teeth.’

“Oh, yes!  Difficult, but glorious fun!” laughed Phoenix. It was going to be a long, hot night, Rocket thought as he began to grow his fire-form around himself.