Category Archives: satire

Canto 126 – Enter the Spider

The Black Wolf snuffled along the streets of Kiro, past apartment complexes, Shinto shrines, manga cafes, noodle shops, child-care centers, accounting firms, Zen Gardens, and the once-famous clown college where the zaniest members of the Harlequin Brothers that Gaijin entertainment had once been saturated with.

Phoenix and Rocket Rogers in his conspicuous white cowboy hat followed at a discreet distance.

Finally, they arrived in front of a run-down athletic shoe factory.

“Is this it?” Phoenix asked.

“You don’t remember it?” Rocket asked.

“They obviously moved locations after Alec and Taffy and I became White Spiders.  Too risky to keep using a place we could take all of you directly to.”

“How did Alec know where to go, then?”

“Good question.  Do you think the rat might’ve been betraying us all along?”

“No.  I think it was the helmet.”

“My nose says they are inside this building.  Jackie was very afraid when they entered,” said the Black Wolf.

“We are going in, but we will split up inside.  Freddy, can you find Alec and Jackie for us?  Maybe even set them free if they are imprisoned here?”

“Yes, I can Phoenix-kun.”  Phoenix nodded, and the Black Wolf disappeared around the corner, sniffing out a possible entrance for a small black wolf.

“And what’ll we do?” Rocket asked.

“We see if we can locate the Avenger helmet.  But carefully so we don’t fall under its spell.”

“Right!  We definitely need to find out what that evil thing is up to.”

“It will mostly likely be in Fangwoman’s greedy hands.  She is the highest-ranking Black Spider after Jinjiro’s death and Bres’ banishment from the planet.  But be warned, she is not the most evil one there.  You need to leave Bone Daddy to me.”

“Bone Daddy?”

“He’s a wraith, not a humanoid.  His people have see-through flesh that makes them look like walking skeletons when they’re naked.  And they can alter their density to be stone hard or phase through solid walls.  Oh, and anything in between, so never let a wraith have a chance to grab any of your internal organs by hand.”

Rocket visibly shuddered. Of course, Phoenix knew that Bone Daddy would be the critical fight for him.  He would have to beat him in single combat or all the White Spider students would eventually die at his hands, not just Freddy, Rocket, and Phoenix.

Canto 125 – Spider Hunting

Rocket Rogers, Phoenix, and Friashqazatla, better known as “Freddy,” were gathered in Shen Ming’s office when Tempi, the messenger boy, came in breathlessly explaining what had happened to Alec and Jackie in front of the palace courtyard. Shen Ming nodded seriously.

“What did Alec do?” asked Phoenix angrily.

“It seems, my young friends, that he put the Avenger helmet on his own head.  And then he made young Jackie strip naked and run away with him to the Black Spider Palace.  Tempi says the people in the courtyard could not stop him.”

“I always knew that Alec’s conversion to the White Spider’s service was the least likely to hold,” growled Phoenix.

“Gosh darn it!  Now I need three brave caballeros to go attack the Black Spider Palace and bring them back.  Especially the naked, pretty one.”

“We will do it, Shen Ming-sama.  We’ll burn them out of there.”  Rocket’s enthusiasm was almost too much.

“But we won’t burn our two classmates,” amended Phoenix a little more darkly.  “At least, not the pretty naked one.”

“Good, good, young ones.  If you make an oopsie and burn down the Black Spider Palace accidentally, don’t be too upset about it.”

A wide grin split Shen Ming-sensei’s face as the three boys left the office.

Phoenix was a little bit anxious about this test.  Going back to the Black Spider Palace would not be an easy thing.  He would be going back to a place where terrible things happened.  But it was also the place where he would probably have to face Bone Daddy once again.  And this time it would be different because he had betrayed his master, the wraith assassin from the planet Darkworld.   And facing up to that betrayal was going to hurt.

Phoenix looked at his two companions.  He was entirely confident of Rocket’s loyalty and friendship.  But Freddy?  Rocket had an arm around the younger Zaranian.   He would be loyal to Rocket, but there were things Phoenix wouldn’t be able to order Freddy to do if the need arose. 

“So, if we are going to track Alec and Jackie, we are going to need a good tracker,” Phoenix said.  He and Rocket both looked at Freddy.

“The Black Wolf, huh?”

Freddy sniffed the air and immediately transformed into the small black wolf form his Psion power allowed him to become.

“This way!”

Canto 124 – Throckpods!

Ged and Naylund together brought the Super Rooster down smoothly in a wide golden field of grain.  The Ugly Pod remained in low orbit, but Luigi the Onion Guy and Carrot Mabutu had come down to the planer with Ged and his students.

In a matter of minutes the field of wavy grain was populated with a huge circle of evil-looking vegetables that had stems of six to eight feet in height.  Their so-called “heads” were either a bushy orb of purple thistle-down or sunflower-like blossoms.  But all of them had eerie, human-like eyes.

“What are these things?” Ged asked Luigi.

“THrocKpodS!  (best possible translation… though maybe, WeEds!)  Two different bRands… (possibly cAtagories)” Luigi said.

“What’s with all the capital letters in wrong places?” Ged asked.

“Dunno, Ged-Aero-sensei.  I programmed it with my Psion ability, all by intuition,” Gyro said by way of an excuse.

“Well, we better go out there to talk to them,” said Ged.

“Ask them to take you to their leader,” added Naylund.

“I foresee trouble, Ged-sensei,” said Billy, using his clairvoyance.

“Can you be more specific?” Ged asked.

“Sorry.  That is as much as I can see.  I think it depends on who we send out there to talk to them.”

“I will go myself.  Junior and Sara are both telepaths.  They will go with me.  Does that change what you see, Billy?”

“No.  Not better.  Not worse.”

“Okay.  Extreme caution, then.  Junior, you will take the point with Gyro’s translator.”

Junior, wearing his white ninja cloth armor, led the way out through the airlock and down the ramp with the stink translator held out in front of him.  Sara in a white top with ninja-armor pants followed close behind him so she could also see and hear the translator.  Ged, giving them only minimal space ahead of him, followed them defensively from behind.

A thistle-headed Throckpod immediately moved in front of junior.  It held up leafy branches, showing off wickedly sharp thorns as it’s weapons.

“Why are you threatening us?” Junior asked.

“I’m a superior Throckpod!  Servant of the almighty Grain-Master! (Best translation.)  I must oppose any who have no chlorophyl to sacrifice!  (95%  certain of translation.)”

Ged was surprised at how much clearer the Throckpod’s voice came through than either Luigi or Carrot.  What made this one so different?  Besides the creepy, human-like eyes?

Suddenly, a branch shot forward and slapped away the translator device.  Junior fell backwards to avoid a lashing pair of thorns.  Sara was not so lucky.  She stumbled forward directly into the grasp of a sunflower-headed fiend.

“What does it mean by no chlorophyl to sacrifice?” Ged asked, knowing the translator was now face down in the dirt.  He didn’t expect an answer.

I aM aFraiD he meAns blood!… no, life force… poWer?? (no direct translation.)”  Luigi was standing, or rather, onioning resolutely next to Ged.

Sara cried out as the sunflower-headed Throkpod began ripping her clothing off as if it were some kind of sex-crazed manga villain.

“This long-head-fur one will do nicely (rough translation)!” Gyro’s stink translator was still working extremely well at a distance.  “We will tear off her blossom (possibly meaning head) and suck out all her sap (93% likely meaning blood.)”

Ged was not going to let that happen.  He immediately began to change shape, into a giant green plant-eating armored ape like the ones he once had to hunt on the planet Misko Skoogalia.

“Let her go!” Ape-Ged roared.  He leapt on the two offending Throckpods, rending their stems with his green gorilla hands.  Then he proceeded to stuff the pieces of the Throckpods into his green mouth and noisily eat them.

It was then that he tasted a weirdly familiar genetic pattern.  He couldn’t quite place it, but he knew it definitely wasn’t plant-based. Meanwhile, Junior had gathered up Sara, and he carried her back into the ship, aided by Luigi who bounced along like a basketball rather than running… having no legs to speak of.

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.

Canto 120 – Space-Walk

Junior Aero found the antique vacc suits somewhat clunky and uncomfortable compared to what the Aero Brothers had available on the Leaping Shadowcat.  Not that he’d had one on more than once, briefly.  But they had rigid sections in the thighs and upper arms that restricted fluid movements and joints that didn’t allow flexibility.  And there was no intelligence at all ln the helmets or in the systems circuitry.  It was like wearing the stupid Nebulon Danjer suits, one-piece protective organisms that Nebulons wore in space.  But even though levels of stupidness were the same, the current space-wear had none of the fluid movements that the totally stupid Danjer-critters allowed.

Ged was the one taking the lead.  He held the hand-rocket that moved them all through weightlessness in space.  All four students were tethered behind him.

Billy Iowa was tethered directly behind Ged.  Sarah was attached to his suit from behind him.  Junior had fastened his tether cord to the metal loop on the lower back of her suit.  And Gyro brought up the rear.  After the boobie-spotting plan hatched in the little blue guy’s evil little brain, Junior felt it was right to put him as the rear end of the line.  For a Nebulon, Gyro could be a real little rear end.

Stars filled the universe outside the airlock, nothing but perfect silence besides. 

The alien “seed-pod ship” was lit by Gaijin’s yellow star and Junior noticed how flower-like it really seemed to be.  Could it be just some sort of wandering interstellar organism?  Junior really didn’t know.  Still, it was no more deadly than anything else they had faced on Gaijin.  Even stiller still, it was certainly no less deadly either.

Ged signaled the start of the journey across open, airless space with the first blast from the hand rocket.  The line jerked each student forward in turn.

Sara turned and signaled that everything was okay.  Junior gave the “OK” sign back.

As they neared the big blossom-looking appendage, the scanner pad that Ged was holding identified the structure as an airlock.

As Ged drew near enough, prehensile tentacles of some sort reached up to take hold of him.

“Ged Aero-sensei, do we run for it?” Billy asked over the comm system.

“Let’s allow it to perform its apparent function,” their master answered.

Junior then watched in horror as the tendrils latched onto Ged’s suit and pulled him inside.  It looked for all the universe like the thing had eaten him.

“Ooh!  I don’t know about this!” said Billy, alarmed as the thing slowly consumed him next.

“Does it hurt, Billy?” asked Gyro.

No sound, of course, came back in reply.

“Sara, can you pull them out again?” Junior pleaded.

Sara didn’t answer as the blossom-thing swallowed her next.

Then it was Junior’s turn.

“Shneejara sohk nahl, Junior-san,” saluted Gyro as the thing grabbed Junior by the feet.  That meant in Nebulonin, of course, “It has been an honor adventuring with you, Junior-san.” Then, the moving, living tendrils were all over him.  He could feel them pulling at his suit, twisting, turning, and then, horrifically, popping his helmet off.  Slime covered his head and slid down into his suit.  All he could see was a faint reddish glow through the tendrils’ translucent flesh.  He sincerely hoped the slime was not digestive juices.

Scherzo 12  – The Debate in the Ready Room

In the ready room where the borrowed Tech Level 9 Vacuum Suits were stowed, Tiki Astro, Gyro Sinjarac, and Billy Iowa were all three busy trying to figure out how best to carry out their orders.  They had to prepare the five clunky-sized duro-steel deep-space suits to fit one normal-sized adult and four child-and-youth-sized bodies.

“It is going to be a difficult refit,” said Tiki, millions of calculations whirring through his Metaloid mind as he was thinking and talking.  “Gyro, you and Junior Aero are both ‘Nebulons, so you are really no bigger than ten-year-old boys of the humanoid persuasion.”

“Well, I don’t think you need to insult us just because we’re Space Smurfs,” said Gyro.

“You are calling yourself that name again, Buddy,” reminded Billy.  “That’s an insult to your race you know.”

“Oh, yeah… sorry.”

“No need to apologize to me.  I’m a Space Texan… I mean, Space Cowboy.  And neither of those names is an insult.”

“You are bigger than the Nebulons, but you are smaller than Ged Aero-sensei.  Your suit will have to be cut down to size too,” said Tiki.  “We best get started cutting and repairing.”

“Oh, no need for that,” said Gyro.  “My powers make it easy to shrink the suits to fit just by Psion ability alone.”

“Oh, right.  I am not familiar enough with how your powers work to add that to my calculations.”

“You don’t need to worry about the computer science-y stuff.  I can handle the modifications without that.  I just reduce the spaces in the atoms themselves with Psionic squishy-power.”

“Cool,” said Billy.

“Watch me fit this suit for Billy.”  Gyro’s hands began to generate a reddish glow.  He then touched Billy with one hand and the space suit with the other.  The glow transferred something unseen from Billy’s body to the bronze-colored vacc suit.  The suit immediately shrank to Billy-size.

Billy then tried the suit on.  Gyro had tailored it to fit perfectly without cutting it up and putting it back together again.

“That is much more efficient than the way I thought we would have to do this.”  The robot-boy tried to smile, but, being a Metaloid and clueless about how humanoids actually did that, it looked more like a pained grimace.

“Why do I get the sense that you have something evil in mind, Gyro?” Billy asked.

“Um, well… Sara’s the only girl on this mission.  I was just thinking…”

“She can read your mind better than I can,” Billy reminded him.

“But not if she doesn’t suspect anything.  And she does have mammary glands that the rest of us don’t have…”

“Breasts, you mean.”

“Yeah, um… I mean, I could just tell her because of those… well, she would have to be topless to make it fit right.”

“Is that actually true?” Tiki asked.

“Yes… um, kinda…”

“Tiki can’t read minds, and even he knows you’re lying,” Billy warned.

“Yes, but… well, for a chance to look at her perfect mammary glands…”

“Yeah.  She’s seen all of us naked.  But we never got to see her,” ruminated Billy, not-so-innocently either.

                                    *****

When Ged Aero-sensei brought the rest of the team into the ready room, Gyro and Billy were already suited up, all except for their helmets.

“Gyro has an easy fix for resizing the suits,” said Billy.  “All he has to do is read you by putting a hand on your shoulder and then resize your suits with his other hand.”

Junior Aero was wearing only a t-shirt and briefs, so Gyro demonstrated by slapping a small blue hand on his ,shoulder and then shrinking the vacc suit to the perfect small size.

“You have a really amazingly useful Psion power, Gyro-kun.  You are adapting to White Spider training really well,” said Ged Aero-sensei. 

Gyro grinned with obvious pride.

“He does have one small problem though,” said Billy.

“What is it?” Junior asked.

“Um… Sara, er… in the front you have… um…” Gyro gestured helplessly with both hands in front of him.

“The word in Nebulonin is spahnkharas,” said Junior helpfully.

“Oh, my breasts.  What about them?”

“To, ah… to shape the suit properly, um… you need to… take your shirt off?”

“Is that all?”  Sara quickly pulled her shirt off over her head.

Gyro’s eyes grew larger by a couple of sizes.  He reached out his small blue hand.  It was trembling.  He placed it on her shoulder hesitantly, never moving his gaze from those two gorgeous…

“Gyro, what’s wrong with you?” asked Sara, doubt creeping into her voice.

Gyro smiled.  “I can see your naked front parts, Sara.”

Sara smiled back at him.  “Just do what you have to do, Gyro.  Or I will ask Junior to remove your… What’s the word in Nebulonin, Junior?”

“Spahnschloop ar nembhis,” said Junior.

“Yes, your personal private parts.  With those gone you won’t be able to think that way so much anymore.”

Gyro turned a bit blue-white and quickly finished resizing and reshaping her vacc suit.

Once they were all suited Gyro and Billy were the last to place their helmets on.

“Gyro, honestly, that worked amazingly well,” said Billy.

“Yes, we got to see something quite beautiful,” Gyro answered.

“Put your helmets on while you still have all your spahnschloop ar nembhis.  She’s a powerful enough telepath to know what you are saying even though she has her helmet on,” warned Tiki.

“And don’t you forget it!” both boys heard her say in their minds.