One More Dancer Land That Common Sense Forgot Adventure Tie-In: “Well we can’t just wait here till we find a use for Visionary. We’ll starve to death.” [The Scene: Vizh, Flapjack and Herbert P. Garrick are trapped in a dungeon under the gothic hilltop laboratory of the evil Dr Morbidius. Well, if you’re called Dr Morbidius you’re probably going to turn out evil, aren’t you? And if you’re a mad scientist you’re going to go for a gothic hilltop laboratory, with lots of big levers and electrodes, and a dungeon to keep people in so the parts are fresh when you need them for your experiments. Anyway, that’s where Vizh and co are. More specifically, they’re caught in the middle of the Saving the Future crossover, a wonderful multi-part storyline that everybody should write bits for. Or they’re admiring the workmanship of the gothic iron bars and the quality of the rats, depending on how you want to take the question.] Flapjack: Lovely workmanship. You just don’t see that attention to detail these days. Garrick: They’re just bars. Can’t Visionary pick the locks or something? He has to have some use. Flapjack: I didn’t mean the bars. I meant the rats. Hand-stitched from the finest other rats. I’ve got to take some of these home with me for Christmas presents. Visionary: Hey! I have many uses. I’m thinking of some of them now. Really. Lots of them. Flapjack: Did you see that posing hunchbacked retainer the bad guy has? Have you ever seen such an it’s-all-about-me diva lurch? It makes me sick just watching the way he affects those twitches. No sense of realism. No spontaneous drooling or slurring. No Stanislavsky. No Chekov. Visionary: Lots and lots and lots. Many. Garrick: Well we can’t just wait here till we find a use for Visionary. We’ll starve to death. We need to escape. Flapjack: We won’t starve to death. Did you see those big bubbling vats of body parts? I imagine the doctor’s going to be using us for spares. That looked like a mark three stitch-o-matic pre-owned organ assembler up there. Visionary: Many many… Did you say pre-owned organs? As in owned by people? As in owned by me? Garrick: And also real organs. We have to get out of here. Flapjack: Right. I mean did you see the way that henchman pulled that trap door lever? Only the most perfunctory cackle. Not even a leer or a smirk. Sloppy work. Very sloppy. We can’t let that kind of lever pulling go unanswered. Visionary: My organs are real, dammit. I could bring testimonials. Um, but only if you read Caphan. Garrick: Can we leave your organs out of this, please? We have no time for small problems. Vizh: Small? I’ll have you know… Flapjack: Guys? Forcing me to the be reasonable one really isn’t a good idea. Oh, and someone’s coming. See the shambling monsters made of stitched together other people? Visionary: Okay, my organs are definitely bigger than those. Dr Morbidius: And all donations will be gratefully received. You have no idea how hard it is to get spares these days. Stainlurk: Ha ha! Oh, good one, master! Flapjack: ‘Good one, master’? That’s it? That’s your best toadying? That’s all you’ve got? Garrick: I demand you let me out at once. I’m important. I have an office, and business cards. I have a fax number. Also, for the record, I’m not with these two. Vizh, clarifying: And when he says let us out he’s really meaning let us out all in one go, not body part by body part. Flapjack, clarifying the clarification: But not all three of us stitched together. Sure, it’s fun at first but after a while it gets real old. And when you all need the bathroom at the same time… Dr Morbidius: Do not fear. You will all come to my laboratory in good time. And be improved. Oh yes, much improved. Garrick: Well, it wouldn’t be hard with Visionary. Vizh: You’re getting far too many good zingers in, dammit. Go back to being the butt of the jokes. You’re good at being a butt. Stainlurk: Some of us don’t have to try too hard, Flapjack. Less is more. Flapjack: Yeah, keep telling that to the village maidens, littlehump. Dr Morbidius: I apologise for the delay in vivisecting you, but a priority case just come in. [He gestures to the Frankenstein creatures dragging in Dancer and Amber – what, you thought this was going to be a Vizh episode? Let him do his own tie-ins, the lazy bum.] Dancer: Hi Vizh! Hi Flapjack! Hi Herbert! How’s your mum now? Has the new medication helped? Amber: Dancer, could I remind you that we’re about to be cut up and sewn back together as the bride of Morbidius. This is hardly the time for socialising Dancer: Well, if we’re about to get cut up there’s not going to be time later, is there? Stainlurk, slavering: Depends what you mean by socialising. I’m a man of parts. Flapjack: Ack! Pathetic! You call that gloating? No style. No class. No pace and rhythm. You didn’t even try to leer up their grass skirts. Then sneeze and apologise for your allergies. Then ask if they know there’s something crawling up their grasses. Amber: There is nothing crawling up my grasses. Flapjack: Would you like there to be? See, Stainlurk, that’s how it’s done! Garrick: There are all kinds of characters I could have ended up teaming up with. Sir Mumphrey Wilton. The Librarian. Even Dan Drury. But no, I get the sub-plot with Visionary, Dancer, and the competing hunchbacks. Vizh: Hey, I get the one with Bad News Herb, so don’t tell me about crummy cast lists. Also, now I have to prove that I’m useful because otherwise the story won’t have proper closure. Flapjack: Wait, I have an idea! Pass me those grass skirts. Dancer: Just to be clear, Flapjack, does this idea in any way lead to us escaping from this dungeon, or not? Flapjack: I never said anything about escaping. Just that I had an idea. It was a good idea. Amber: When we’re the Bride of Frankenstein can we tear him to pieces? My parts vote yes. Dr Morbidius: You have no idea how hard it is to get good woman bits. Vizh: I really do. Dr Morbidus: I mean to experiment on. Vizh: ……… Dancer, getting locked in a cage with Amber: You won’t get away with this, you wickedy villain! Dr Morbidius: You say that now, my dear, but later on you won’t have a tongue. Stainlurk: Yes. I’ll keep it for personal use. Nothing can stop us now! Flapjack, wincing: Ooh! Rookie mistake! Narrative suicide. Stainlurk: What? That old superstition? This is the middle ages now. When I say nothing can stop us it doesn’t mean something will stop us. Because nothing really can stop us. We’re that not-stoppable. Vizh: Yeah, about that. I don’t suppose we’re going to find major answers to the ongoing mysteries here in a Dancer story, are we? Not that I’m not enjoying the grass skirts and innuendo. Although more bad things could have happened to Garrick. Dr Morbidius: You expect me to reveal the plot, to explain that I survive here amidst all the dinosaurs and robots and squid-heads and vampires by creating my works of genius, my wonderful stitched creations that defy the very will of the gods, in this hideous dying patchwork quilt of realms where the very boundaries of science and sanity decay? But I am not so foolish as all that! Garrick: Are we proceeding to the getting away from here past soon? Only I was hoping this wasn’t going to have a cliffhanger ending. I have paperwork. Stainlurk: There is no escape from the dungeons for Dr Morbidius! None! Flapjack: Oh, come on. First rule of mad scientist dungeons. Never build a dungeon you can’t get out of yourself. There’s always a secret passage or hidden trapdoor. It’s just a matter of finding it. Vizh: Good point. How about this loose stone here? Garrick: No. I think you’ll find that was the one to make spikes come out of the ceiling and to make the roof slowly rumble down to crush us. * points upwards * Vizh: Oops. Well maybe this one? Garrick: No. That’d be the one to make the floor slowly slide away dropping us into the molten oil. Vizh: Drat. Well then, what about… Garrick: Do. Not. Push. More. Buttons. Amber: Why am I always having to be the bride of something in this place? It’s like I’ve become Sorceress or something. Dancer: To be fair, you’re only going to be half a bride. Other parts of you can still see people. Especially if he doesn’t use your eyes. Garrick: Okay. Ceiling getting low. Hardly any floor left. Push more buttons. Vizh: Say please. Hey, I think this one releases the big rolling stone of crushing. This place has all the classics! [Vizh releases the big rolling stone of crushing. It rolls down and jams the spike ceiling then gets stuck in the top of the boiling lava pit.] Vizh: See, I have a use. I saved us from, um, the buttons I pushed before. Garrick: Must get licence to kill… Stainlurk, crossly: Do you know how long it’s going to take me to unjam that mess? You people have no idea of the maintenance time on deathtraps. Some people have no consideration. Dancer: Well, I think we’ve got about all the jokes we can out of this. Time to really escape. * her cell door swings open * Dr Morbidius: What? How did you do that? Minions, seize her! But don’t bruise the reusable parts! Dancer: I totally scrubbed that graffito off the bathroom wall, so don’t you go telling everybody again. Amber: But how did we escape? Have you got your probability powers back again? Not that I’m complaining, given that we’re surrounded by shambling stitched walking cadavers but it does seem like kind of a cheap ending, even for a Dancer story. Dancer: No, no powers. But while Vizh was distracting everybody with his death traps routine Flapjack slipped out through the real hidden trap door and got to the control panel. And it’s a bad idea to let Flapjack at a control panel. Flapjack: I’ve got levers and I’m not afraid to use them. Dancer: So well done, Vizh. Otherwise we’d have had to do the old dropping-the-grass-skirts routine as a diversion. Garrick: And once again the fake man screws up a perfectly good plan. Flapjack: I wonder what this lever does? And this one and this one and this one? Dr Morbidius: You think me that foolish? The panel is designed to only operate to the sound of my voice! Vizh: Your voice? The one you’re using just now? Dr Morbidius: ……………………. Damn Stainlurk: Fear not, Master. I shall disassemble this upstart worse than Brian Bendis on a team comic book! Flapjack: Hey, you coded every stitched together body part, doc! So if I yank the Sort lever like this… Stainlurk: Noooooooooooooooo! [Fx of wrenching squishing tearing gooey sounds of lots of jigsaw monsters… sorting themselves back into their original piles] Vizh, Garrick, Dancer, April: Yuck Flapjack: I’m too classy to make a joke about Stainlurk going all to pieces. I’ll just pocket a few bits of him to mock later. Dr Morbidius: My creations! My beautiful creations! Vizh: * thumps him on the nose * Dr Morbidius: My node! My beautiful node! Amber: * stamps on his foot * Dr Morbidius: My foot! My beautiful foot! Garrick: * punches him in the kidneys * Dr Morbidius: My kidneys! My beautiful… Dancer: * also kicks him * Dr Morbidius: * folds into tiny ball of agony * Flapjack: There goes his lab equipment. Stitch that, mate. Well, I’m guessing you’ll need to. Amber: We’d better go. We were following a mysterious column of smoke in the hopes it got us back to the main plotline. Vizh: There’s a main plotline? Dancer: But this is better. Listen to this radio broadcast, everyone! It’s like the perfect end to a tie-in episode. Crackly valve radio speaker: …skrawk!… hear me? This is HALLIE at the Lair Mansion. Is there anybody there? Hello…? Jarvis? Enty? Finny? Lisa? Even spiffy? Hello? Vizh: Jarvis! That explains everything. I know where we are now! We’re in… France! Garrick, glaring at Vizh: And still the President won’t authorise superhero shoot-to-kill. Continued by HH Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Sarah Shepherdson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Sarah Shepherdson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.