TASOD: The Final Chapter Until the Next One. A.K.A. "Loser: The Motion Picture." "Tell a Story or Die: The Final Chapter Until the Next One." Written, casted, and everything else by MIKE "LOSER" BALDOUMIS and DAN "LOSER" WHEELER From June - September 1994 A.D. Starring (as character reference).......... Airball: WOODY HARRELSON Cptn. Bug Ysklowiaks KEANU REEVES Ambassador Skippy DAN AYKROYD Ambassador Amy SEAN YOUNG Leah Stein SHERILYN FENN Heuer LORI LAUGHLIN Ray ROBERT DAVI Cptn. Rex Kramer ROBERT STACK Lucky BRUCE CAMPBELL Fladge Zomax CHARLIE SHEEN Zippy TOM ARNOLD Sandra ROSIE O'DONNELL Willie Mays Hayes WESLEY SNIPES Fernandez EMILIO ESTEVEZ Dilberg ALEC BALDWIN Malarky HARVEY KEITEL Gen. Stew Leonard LUKE PERRY Cptn. Billy Rightstuff DONNIE WAHLBERG The Baroness SHANNON DOHERTY Cptn. Sanity DANA CARVEY Wesley CARY ELWES General Stew Leonard MORTON DOWNEY JR. Special Guest Stars: The P-Dim BK guy JAMES EARL JONES Kristen ELIZABETH HURLEY The Holy Loser LESLIE NIELSEN Brunhilda *INDUSTRIAL LIGHT and MAGIC* Wolfgang SOME GEEKY RED-HAIRED 11-YEAR OLD Dan Wheeler KEVIN BACON From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 20-JUN-1994 10:25:15.64
He was walking down the hallway of his house, looking out into the distance over the trees, and a thought hit him. He was getting old. Mike Airball, ruler of the world and all around genius, had seen a lot in his days. He had seen the fall and splatter of Zippy, he had seen the great Omyo purge, and the destruction of Tallman. He had even been around different spots in time. Now, he realized that he was getting old. He figured that maybe he should think about settling down, having a few kids to carry on the Loser tradition. The terrible space transport accident that occurred a few years ago was still fresh in his mind. One minute, Dan was there, the next, he was God knows where. Mike was about to take a bite of his chocolate frosted sugar bombs, the breakfast of Losers, when he heard an urgent message on his CB radio........ From: WCSU::BALDOUMIS001 "Strangeloop!!!!!!!!" 21-JUN-1994 17:39:47.12 "BBBshshsyhshshshhshthshshshtshshstsshstshhsts!!" -Went the radio. "What's that? I can't understand you." Replied the Lord, Mike. "I SAID, Bshshshshshhshthshhsthshhshtshshtshhshhtshhshts!" Answered the radio. "Oh, that's what I thought." "SIR!" Boomed a voice. "WHAT?!??!" Yelled Mike, as he accidentally spewed mushy Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs onto the table. "Ummm... Sorry to interrupt your breakfast, sir, but we think that you should REALLY see this...." Just then, the cleaning droid zipped out of a small panel in the wall, and began wiping off the table. "Well, can't you just relay a holo-image to me? I'm wearing my pajamas." "Sir, it's REALLY important." "Okay, okay.... Five minutes. Loser Supreme out." The droid, finished with it's job, scurried back into it's little pantry. Mike zipped into the bedroom, and threw on his uniform. On the way out, he happened to glance at that picture of Dan he had been saving. Suddenly, his metabolism was cut back in half. "Sigh. Being God just isn't fun anymore." Mike jumped into the matter transrelay-hyperjump convector connecting his room to Loser base Prime, which was kinda slow that day. The zip thru the sub- etha took a whole 2 seconds longer than usual, thus requiring 3 full seconds of transit. "Jeez, I hate commuting." Muttered Mike. "LOSER PRIME ON THE BRIDGE!" Yelled an officer, and all the officers that were busy working, suddenly stopped, and slouched into their chairs as if they were goofing off. "At work." Went Mike, lethargically. The Loser officers went back to what they were doing. "I can't stand seeing him like this." Whispered an officer to the officer next to her. "He used to be so hyper." "I know. Ever since Dan disappeared, he's become so, mellow. It's wrong." "SIR!" Yelled young Loser officer Ysklowiaks, approaching Mike with a Loser salute. (Note: For those unaware, a Loser salute is putting your fingers in shape of an "L" on your forehead.) "What was so urgent that you made my cleaning droid wipe up perfectly good half chewed Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs?" "We've intercepted a message on a strange, paranormal frequency. We have just deciphered it, and.... well..... you should read it." "Belgium." Muttered Mike, as he picked up the datapad. The message scrolled: "Dude... I'm in trouble... It's Zippy... He's back, and doesn't look too happy... Is there any soda here?" Mike put down the datapad, and stared blankly at the viewscreens for a few moments. From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 22-JUN-1994 17:23:39.06 The message was slightly confusing, seeing as it didn't call Mike "Loser" at the beginning, and there were no other signs of who sent it. Mike looked the message over completely, and then had some of the bridge officers do some work. Within minutes they figured out that the message had come from Skippy, the Loser Republic's highest placed ambassador and delegate. Skippy had been assigned to scout out possible base locales, farther out in the solar system, near the outskirts of explored space. "Sir, the message seems to have originated from a lot closer than where Skippy was supposed to be. It appears that the source of the signal originated somewhere within the asteroid belt. There may be something wrong, I think we should send out a team to go look." Ysklowiaks said. "Good point." Mike replied "See to it personally, there shall be no one to stop us this time!!!" Mike sat down and pondered where he had heard that line before. Ysklowiaks ran down the corridor to the Loser ready room. There were a minimum of 40 Loser commandos ready at all times. He selected 4 of the best officers, and primed up one of the new 'Gooden' class starship. The ship could hit speeds of up to .098c. It was rumored that the new 'Dibble' class prototype could reach .101c, but it still had a lot of problems with breakdowns. The Gooden departed from Earth gracefully with the five young commandos aboard. Little did they know that peril lurked right around the corner. From: WCSU::BALDOUMIS001 "Strangeloop!!!!!!!!" 23-JUN-1994 11:11:29.53 Somewhere within the asteroid belt, the warning lights all flashed hectically as the ship dropped unexpectedly out of hyperdrive. The sensors indicated an automated guided missile system. The ship dropped from hyperspace, and the threatening attack instantly appeared on the ship's radar. "Shields up! Evasive maneuvers!" Yelled Ysklowiaks, collectedly. Ysklowiaks, "Bug" Ysklowiaks to his friends, was always a "cool" character. Not "cool" in the pathetic Winner sense of the word, but "cool" as, he always knew just what to do, and when to do it. In fact, he was Dan's favorite and most promising recruit, before the accident.... "Compensating with the Holtzberg maneuver...." Went Fernandez, the top new pilot among all of the commandos. Rumor had it that he could fly a shuttlecraft into someone's nose and out his ear, but no one really believed it. Fernandez popped the Gooden into a lower gear, and ran the stabilizers straight down, sending the ship into a loop. Bug, not strapped in, fell to the ceiling, bruising his upper arm. The missiles whizzed right by the ship, as the emergency gravity generators were shut off. "SIR! We have avoided the missiles, but they appear to be turning around! New impact time estimated at 21 seconds!" Went Dilberg, the navigator. "This sucks." Went Bug. The crew, turned and looked almost absolutely shocked, as no one had ever actually seen him nervous before. After a slight pause, Bug yelled "Prepare to fire hypopulse!" The crew froze. The hypopulse was still a rough theory, and it involved a nuclear fusion ripple generated through a backwash of the navigational array. It would not only blow out the array, by possibly destroy the ship. Not only that, but there was no guarantee that the pulse would actually fire, and if it fired, if it would actually destroy the missiles. Dilberg quickly accessed the array overload function, and typed in the security. He then transferred the control to Vib, the mute weapons man. "FIRE IT!" Yelled Bug, with about 3 seconds to spare. "WAIT!! STOP!!" Countered Dilberg suddenly. The ship remained silent for the next 8 seconds. "They're gone." Went the navigator. "Just before you tried to fire, the missiles just like..... vanished." More silence. An alarm suddenly went off, making 4 crew members wet their pants. "INTRUDER ON THE BRIDGE!" Yelled Bug, for he was the only one to remember to go to the bathroom before they left. The image of a man, glowing red, was indeed standing right on the bridge. "Hey you damn Losers!" Went the stranger. "I have something you want, you have something I want. I think we will make a trade." "Who the Hell are you?" Went Bug, still cool and dry-pantsed through this whole schpiel. "General Leonard. I am in control here! Bring me your rotten leader. Bring me Airball!" "Drop Dead." Replied Bug. "Look at your viewscreen, Damn Loser." The viewscreen had the venerable Loser, Skippy Hofmann, chained to a metal wall in an art-deco dungeon. With him, was his lovely wife Amy, and their adopted son, Wolfgang. Wolfgang, now 11, was of course the son of Dan, adopted after the accident.... Bug remained cool, the rest of the crew was astonished. "How the heck did you.... who are you?" Muttered the still cool Bug. "That is for me to know and you to find out! Now shut up and bring me what I want!" Bug couldn't take anymore. He jumped on the terminal, and executed a flying leap straight at the intruder. To his astonishment, he phased right through him, and to the floor. "You have 24 hours. And then we force them to watch M-3DTV (You figure it out) until their brains explode." "Bastard." Went Bug, who looked cool even lying on the floor. "WINNERS RULE!" Bellowed a voice, as the stranger vanished as quickly as he appeared. The alarms stopped, and the lighting in the Gooden returned to normal. "Belgium." Said bug. From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 23-JUN-1994 14:59:33.50 The Gooden was left alone...... Bug thought about the encounter that had just occurred and got a sickly feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. He frantically looked down at the navigation console and realized that he was at least 6 million light years from Earth. He calmed himself down, and typed a query into the computer; 'display projected transit time to Earth orbit.' The computer pondered for a minute and showed this: "Projected transit time, 73 million years, 143 days, 4 hours, 16 minutes." "Ummm guys, I have some baaaaaad news." Bug started..... MEANWHILE, Back on Earth...... Mike was taking an afternoon nap when the yellow alert alarm woke him. "Lord Airball, will you please report to the command center." A nasally voice declared over the speaker. "Oh, Flagner, what is it now?" Mike whined. "Why don't you come to the command center and find out?" Mike beamed back to the command center, and was directed to a communications console. He immediately recognized Bug's transmission code. Informed Flagner, "Lord Airball, this is a priority 2 message from outside the solar system, we're using our holonet and boosting the power to dangerous levels, but we're still not sure if this is going through." "Boost the power you Loser!!!" Mike screamed at the operator. In a quiet, scratchy voice, the radio buzzed. "We have made contact with a powerful being seeming to be a Winner, he has demanded that we turn you over or he will kill Loser Skippy and his entire family. His location, as well as our last location before we re-appeared here is somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. Power levels are almost dead now, sorry I couldn't help more. Bug out." "Oh, belgium. That really sucks. That sucks worse than a Zippy fart." Mike turned to a junior officer. "Get me Kramer," he said, with calm in his voice. MEANWHILE, At the underground Moon colony of Cone..... The apartment was all but empty, but the identity of the previous owner was obvious. There were Sesame Street curtains, and G.I. Joe wallpaper. An old IBM computer with a demo of DOOM sat on a desk in the corner. There was a Steinway grand piano, looking rather dusty and unused, and a few dusty posters of unrecognizable baseball players. The door creaked open, and a woman in her late 30's stepped in. She had dark hair, and wore a flight suit over a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt. She turned some lights on, and the mere presence of electrical power seemed to kick dust all across the room. She walked over to the piano, and stared blankly at the keys, then over to a desk. There, on the desk was a picture lying face down. She moved for the picture, hesitated, and lifted it up. A young man, not more than 25, and a female about the same age were in the picture. The man had red hair, and wore a Loser Military Supreme Commander's uniform. The female had straight brown hair, and wore a lab coat. In the corner of the picture was the date 1999. "You know Dan," the girl said to the walls, and to no one in particular "The only reason I didn't not like Chris was because she _was_ such a nice person, but other than that, your love affair with her should never have happened. If Wolfgang hadn't been your son, I would have gladly accepted your proposal for marriage..." Quietly, a Loser officer roamed into the room. "Miss Stein? I'm Capt. Eraser off the moon police force. I have no problem with you being here, but there is a storm coming, and I just wanted to warn you that it's a rather violent one. I just wanted to advise you not to return to your ship until it blows over." She looked at him for a minute. He seemed like a nice enough man, probably barely out of his teens, but then again, it seems like everyone was lately. The Loser training started them young. "Yes, thank you, I'll be out in a minute, if you don't mind I'd like to be alone here." She replied The officer closed the door behind him, and she quickly made her way to the bedroom. Most everything had been taken out when Dan had disappeared, but she hoped that there was still one thing left. She looked under the bed, and found a bookbag. Maybe there was hope after all. From: WCSU::BALDOUMIS001 "Strangeloop!!!!!!!!" 23-JUN-1994 21:16:11.67 "This is a problem. Problem." Muttered Mike "No problem at all." Bellowed a voice, briskly strolling into the command center. "CAPTAIN ON THE BRIDGE!" Yelled an officer, and everyone stopped working and looked relaxed. "Enough of that now." Exclaimed Mike. "It was funny the first zillion times." "-He's just become so drone. It's just wrong." Whispered an officer to his cohort. The crew began working again. "I understand that there is a possible Winner threat surfacing once again. Is this true?" Asked Cptn. Rex Kramer, Loser General extra ordinaire and all- around fun guy. "Yes, and it looks bad. I'm stumped........ Dan would know what to do." "Relax, my Lord. I brought someone who I think might cheer you up." Assured the Captain. Just then, he marched into the room. He had not changed one tiny bit, not a wrinkle on him. He must have been in his 40's by then, but he didn't look a day over 20. He approached the General. "Hey, Mike." Went Ray. "I heard you found some more Winners for me to tear apart." Mike managed to muster a grin. "Wow! This is actually.... cool." He actually looked happy for the first time in a while. "Well, Commander, any ideas?" Asked Captain Kramer, impatiently. "Yeah. We're Losers....." "Uhhh.... You're Losers." Interrupted Ray. "Yeah, well, the rest of us are Losers. So, let's act like we should." The Commander played the message from the Gooden to the new arrivals, and then conjured up a course of action. "Well, we can't accomplish much from down here. We shall send out two ships. We shall send the Dibble to scout out the area of the last coordinates of the Gooden, and then Loser Transport Q-77 to follow. Operative Heuer.." Heuer turned, and malingered up the small staircase to the meeting of the Loser Supremes. "Hi." She uttered. "Heuer, I need your logical skills with me, to assist in the locating of whatever anomaly it may be that displaced the Gooden. Are you up for the challenge?" "Sure." She replied with bizarrely crooked grin. Heuer was a close personal friend of Mike's for several years, since college, actually. They always enjoyed each other's wit and company, but never seemed to get terribly close. "Okay. Excellent. Captain, assemble a crew of 5 of your best men. You will be in charge of the transport. Heuer, Ray and I shall pilot the scout." "Sir, I cannot let you go out there. I mean, you're Loser Supreme and all." Warned Captain Kramer. "Yeah, LOSER Supreme. What would be a more Loser thing to do? Duh??!" Mike suddenly had a fire that had been vacant for some time now. "Losers! Keep us monitored! There are no Winners, and there SHALL BE no Winners! Ever again!" The central command crew let out a cheer. "Now that's more like it..." Whispered that same guy again. MEANWHILE, out on Moon Base Cone, Leah grabbed the bookbag, and went to open it, but for some reason, she just couldn't do it. She looked over at the piano where she would play, and Dan would sing, and hundreds of Losers would gather 'round the base just to listen. A tear began to form in her eye. "I can't." She thought, as she threw on her helmet and took off from the base, to run to her ship. "Wait!" Captain Eraser screamed. "The storm! It's not safe to leave the oxosphere! Wait for the storm to pass!" Leah ignored him. MEANWHILE, Out in deep space.... "Dilberg! How much time do we have left on life support?" -Asked Bug. "Uh, 96 minutes, sir." He replied. "Malarky, How's that emergency power generator coming along?" "Ummm, not too good, sir. Those Winners really did a number on us." Silence filled the ship. Suddenly, Bug broke. "AND WHERE THE HELL ARE WE???!!!!!" The crew stopped, and looked amazed. "Sorry. We'll think of something. We're Losers." Bug regained his cool once again. From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 24-JUN-1994 13:57:50.74 "Sir, I think I have something..." Dilberg exclaimed. "Well, give it to me" Bug retorted. "Okay, you know when we were seeing the image of that slimy Winner, how he glowed red and all...." Dilberg said as Bug nodded, "well anyway, I've gone back over our flight computer's records during that time and figured out that there was a high-level low-intensity graviton field in direct proximity of our ship then. Most energy fields of that type mean nothing, but I was one of the aids to a science team that was working on space folds as a means of transport. The surge patter is a close match to some of the old tests we used to run." "Pretend I'm stupid and know nothing about what you just said." Replied Bug. "We got moved a long way by a very new propulsion system." Dilberg calmly said, as he checked a few more readings. "Oh. Any idea on how to get us back?" "Yes, but it could be risky." Dilberg said, just a little more calm than before. "Ummmm.... not that we're going to die from lack of life support in a little bit if we _don't_ risk it or anything." Dilberg and the rest of the crew smiled. MEANWHILE, Back at Loser base Prime on Earth... Mike got his flight suit on. The suit looked something like an old Halloween costume from Mike's candy-going days, but it was a fully functional life support space/battle suit. He walked out of his ready room to find that Ray was standing there, in the latest designer flightsuit, with lifeguard sunglasses. "Ugh, I almost said you look like a Winner, but I remembered who you were under all that." Mike said, trying to keep from laughing. "I'll find those slimy dicks-for-noses if it's the last thing I do. I helped you guys beat the Winners once before, and I'll do it again!" Ray announced, nearly breaking a hole in the wall as he gave a punching gesture. Heuer walked out of her ready room in her plain grey flightsuit, and a package of microtext math books under her arm. The three of them gave a nod, and started to walk to the fastest ship designed yet. The U.F.L. (United Federation of Losers, obviously) Dibble was an ugly looking ship, but it surpassed even the Gooden for pure speed. It used to have serious problems with long-distance trips, but after a breakdown the Losers had cured that. At least, they believed so. Mike climbed in the commander's chair, Ray in the pilots seat, and Heuer took the science station. Mike took a breath, and then gave the signal. "Okay, initiate the launch sequence. Let's see what this bucket of ooze can do." MEANWHILE, At the other end of the base...... Rex Kramer had assembled his group of men. Otto, the pilot, was dressed in a flight suit that was so tight, he looked almost like he was a plastic inflatable man. The four others were young, but eager Losers. Fladge Zomax was the weapons expert. He could shoot the mucus out of your nose with a submachine gun, without scratching your face. (This was of course, just another rumor.) The twins, Larry and Sheila Outer, weren't experts at anything, but they were good at almost everything. The last in the group was a young Loser who seemed to have all the luck in the world. He wasn't particulary smart, and he didn't have a lot of common sense, but, he hadn't been killed yet, and that was a big plus considering all that he had been through. " Are you ready Lucky?" Kramer asked "You talkin' to me?" Lucky replied. "Ummm....no, but I want you to get on the ship." "Oh. Okay." A LITTLE WHILE LATER, At the Moon base Cone....... "Well, we have to get a report on her, she just seemed to have disappeared." Eraser said. "Well don't look at me you butthead, I didn't let her go!!" The sensor operator yelled back. Retorted the Captain, "Who are you calling a butthead, you pathetic pimplebutt?!" Soon a few more of the people in the room were yelling at each other. Suddenly, a thought passed through Eraser's mind.... "Wait a minute" He shouted, "We've been friends for years up here, what are we doing yelling at each other???!?" "Sir, I read a strange energy wave coming from a stray asteroid that appeared on our scopes three minutes ago" The sensor operator said. "How come you didn't tell me before?" asked Eraser. "I was too busy yelling at you." MEANWHILE, Just above the Moon's surface...... Leah had struggled to get to her ship, and when she had reached it, it was even harder to lift off. But, she was a skilled pilot. She set her coordinates for the Loser asteroid base on Ceres, and engaged the drive. After an unexpectedly abrupt flight, the ship dropped down to emergency manual control. "What the..... Holy Loser!" Exclaimed Leah when she saw it. It was way too perfectly round and shiny to be an asteroid, and it was indeed heading right towards her. Leah then steered the ship to the left, attempting to avoid the mysterious orb. However, the orb just steered along with her. "That's it.... I have to get out of here!" She quickly began to plug in some hyperspace coordinates. Then, when she was finished, she went to punch in the drives. However, she was suddenly distracted by the strange green glow that had somehow formed around the orb. "What......" Before she could finish her thought, a quick, intense flash emanated from within the strange presence, temporarily blinding her. "Holy dog snot....." She muttered to herself, as the world seemed to end. The sensation of blackness and quiet had her fearing the worst. Thoughts of her own death passed in her head, when a dark shadow appeared right in front of her. She was no longer in her ship, and the readings on her flight helmet read that there was a breathable atmosphere where she was. She took off her helmet and was instantly hit with millions of memories. Her brain struggled to grasp all that had been dumped on her in the past few seconds, for there were people now standing in front of her. From: WCSU::BALDOUMIS001 "Strangeloop!!!!!!!!" 24-JUN-1994 18:46:47.80 She estimated about 15 soldiers, all dressed in identical designer armor. It Looked like they would have been the latest fashions, if fashions still existed. This armor had big bucks written all over it. Literally. "RESISTANCE IS USELESS." Bellowed one of them. Leah sat and pondered the situation for a few good seconds. Reaching deep into her thick core of intelligence, she carefully formulated the ideal phrase indicative of her predicament.... "Uhhhh....." Said Leah, enlighteningly. "COME WITH US." Wailed out another guard, obnoxiously. "No way. I'm not your type." Responded the Loser. The guards took no notice of this, and forcibly grabbed her and dragged her down the hall. They stripped her of her flight suit and tools, leaving her with just her sweatshirt and shorts. They also took Dan's bookbag. Leah tried to scream, but it hurt too much. The Winner goon squad then flung her into a room, and sealed the door behind them. "THE DOCTORS WILL BE WITH YOU IN A FEW MOMENTS. DON'T EVEN THINK OF TRYING ANYTHING." Was the last thing that she heard, before the titanic crock-o-lock fused the door, savagely. The room was completely white, and horrifyingly empty. There was nothing. The room was perfectly square, and inhumanly clean, with no features of any sort to be spotted. Leah fell to the floor and shut her eyes. MEANWHILE... Just off Loser base Prime....... The Dibble was space borne. The ship roared like a lion, yet purred like a kitten. It felt like the Ferrari of space ships, yet it looked more like a sanitation truck. Still, it was fast. Not long after it's departure, the radio buzzed. "Loser Transport Q-77 is up and awaiting your instructions." Went captain Kramer, ready for anything. "Excellent, dude. Heuer is sending you coordinates now. We are going to go and scan around the asteroid belt for hyperspace anomalies. Our friends are out there somewhere, and we will NOT let them go." Mike sounded wired. "Understood!" Went Captain Kramer with a grin. "UFL Dibble engaging hyperdrive on my mark." Ray punched in the hyperfusion drive charger. "ZIPPY!" Went Mike. Ray sorta laughed, and the Dibble just vanished into thin air, at least that's what it looked like to everyone else. JUST THEN, on Loser Transport Q-77.... "Uhhh.... Radio message for you, sir." Uttered Lucky, polishing a grenade. "Play it." Instructed Kramer. "Bsshththhshhshshstshtth.... This is moon base Cone! Commander Stein just vanished from our radar somewhere in the asteroid belt! You must tell the Supreme one! We think that we can track this anomaly thing." "Oh, Debbie Gibson! They just jumped into hyperspace..." MEANWHILE, Way out in the middle of absolutely nowhere...... "How much time, Malarky?" Went Bug, getting a TINY bit antsy about now. "'Till what, till we die, or 'till we figger this thing out?" "Both." "Life support says 44 minnits. Dilberg... any luck findin' that thing?" "Ummm....WHOA! Big energy surge off port bow! I found it.... Oh shinta.." A huge bright blast seemed to just pop out of nowhere off the side of the ship. The bright blast suddenly vanished. "SIR! THERE'S A SHIP HERE! WHAT DO WE DO?!?!" Yelled Dilberg. "Why did I get out of bed this morning?" Asked Bug. MEANWHILE, in some totally white room infested by bad Winner vibes..... All was quiet, and somewhat peaceful. Life was so stupid now. How could something as wonderful as ridding an entire planet of Winners, end up like this? Leah thought quietly to her self for several minutes, that seemed much longer. Suddenly a stirring noise around the outside of the door started up. She quickly scurried to the back of wall of the white room, not knowing what was on the other side. Slowly, the door opened. Leah almost fainted. He stood before her, 6 feet, 200 plus pounds, of absolute coolness. His hair was woven by professionals, his clothes cost more than her shuttlecraft. "Hey, you don't know me, do you?" Went Zippy, with a sinister grin. Leah just stared. Her heart rate was dangerously high. "I'm Mark. You Losers used to call me Zippy. I hated that. A long, long time ago, one of you stinkin' Losers, a first grader named Wilbur with the head of a yak, to be exact, shot me with some kind of gun, turning me into a huge, hideous monster. Then my Dad brought me back, but you got rid of him, too. But I'm still here. See, my molecules never spread that far apart. They just drifted in space, close together, into some crazy anomaly. I ended up here, back to my normal self. Now, I must undo all that you have done." Leah, again, knowing that her every word be crucial, spoke her true thoughts. "I..uhhh....you....zlorfik..." "I know what your thinking. Your friends will save you. Well, they seem to missing one crucial piece to their puzzle." Zippy signaled to someone down the hall. As he stepped into the doorway, Leah's jaw dropped to the floor. He was wearing the height of fashion in flash slacks, a smooth designer shirt, and a truly classy sport jacket. His hair was woven and loaded with expensive chemicals, too keep each and every strand simply perfect. It was even dyed, to make it look less red. "You're gonna help us get the Loser Supreme, babe. Oh, and thanks for the bookbag." Dan winked and gave a totally hip and trendy hand gesture. Zippy backed away and locked the door back up. Leah could hear them laughing as they walked down the hall. Her blood rate couldn't take any more, as her brain overloaded with oxygen, and she fainted. From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 27-JUN-1994 22:45:05.33 MEANWHILE, Somewhere out near the rings of Saturn.... Skippy was struggling to get out of those obnoxious ropes that held him helpless. He hadn't felt this yucky since he went out with Jackie the bitch back in high school. He looked over at Amy, and she was a pretty pathetic sight too. Little Wolfgang was sitting there making faces at a spider that decided to cross in front of him. "Dood, this really sucks, I wish I could get out of these ropes", Skippy complained. "But Skipster, why didn't you just say so?" Wolfgang piped up, as he squirmed out of his ropes. "My piano training lets me move my fingers so I get out of stuff like this!" Skippy and Amy just hung there speechless. Within minutes, they were free. MEANWHILE, Somewhere out in the middle of absolutely nowhere..... The bright blast was replaced by the ship that it had dropped in out of hyperspace. It was an ugly ship, nothing like the Gooden or the Dibble, or any of the Loser ships. It was a nasty color of burgundy and dark blue. Upon closer inspection, the new ship made the Gooden look tiny. A soothing grey light appeared, and the Gooden started to move toward a small tunnel in the new ship, and was slowly being drawn inside. "Oh, frack, what are we gonna do now?!" Exclaimed Dilberg. Replied Bug, "Umm, I dunno, panic?" The Gooden smoothly sailed into a position near some kind of sign. "Sir, I have a reading that there is oxygen out there, and there is some type of computer trying to access our doors." Malarky reported. "Our doors? Wow, this is too heavy for me." Bug said. Sure enough, the door of the UFL Gooden opened on it's own, and our fearless crew found themselves parked next to some type of multi-media system. Pretty lights glowed all around, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, a large booming voice was heard. "You may dispense with the pleasantries, I'm here to take your order!" "Ummm, I don't get it, what do you mean?" Bug asked, in a calm voice. "I shall repeat, welcome to AstroBurgerKing. Can I take your order!" Bug smiled to the rest of his crew, as they started to pull out their wallets. "Thanks, but we'll go inside. Is this a free parking lot?" MEANWHILE, In some totally Winner room..... He was sick and tired of pushing brooms and mops. He was sick and tired of having to do everything those Winners said. Most of all, he was sick of the fact that he was generously athletic, and because the Winners got thier hands on some neat technology, he had to do what they said. While cleaning the hallway floors of the upper level of the complex, he noticed that one of the cell doors was accidentally left unlocked from the outside. Due to an extreme amount of curiosity, he opened it, and peered inside. There was a woman, with dark hair wearing a shorts and a sweatshirt. MEANWHILE, Inside the totally white Winner room..... She woke up feeling rather scared. She didn't remember where she was, or how she got there, but she had a bad feeling. She looked up to see a dark man with a mop and a butt-ugly hat peering at her from the doorway. "Oh no, you're another one of those Winners, aren't you?" She asked. "No Ma'am. My name is Willie Mays Hayes, and I can help you get out of here, if you promise to take me with you." MEANWHILE, Back on the AstroBurgerKing.......... The large guy behind the counter looked a lot like the guy from the NYNEX Yellow Pages commercials. He also had the same deep voice as Darth Vader though, strangely enough. Bug and crew got a nice meal, while a bunch of unusual looking technicians completely repaired the Gooden. Bug thanked the man, and then said to him, "This is too much. I mean, what's the bill for all this?" "Bill? AstroBurgerKing is a non-profit trans-hyperdimensional organization. What do we look like, Winners?" Bug squeezed his eyebrows, and then just grinned to the man. He then signalled to his crew. "Guys, let's ditch before he changes his mind." They briskly dashed for the Gooden, smiling and waving at the man behind the counter along the way. From: WCSU::BALDOUMIS001 "Strangeloop!!!!!!!!" 28-JUN-1994 16:57:23.72 The Gooden launched effortlessly and set course to follow the AstroBurgerKing into the anomaly, with hopes of returning to familiar space. The now replenished thrusters roared forth. Just then, in front of them, the immense AstroBurger King entered the anomaly. With a huge blast of light, it dissapeared just quickly as it appeared. "I have the subspace disturbance locked on, sir." Went Dilberg. Suddenly, Bug yelled. "ALL STOP!" The crew bolted forward as Fernandez pulled the emergency brake. "Uhhh... Sir..... why did we just stop?" Asked Dilberg. "Just listen to me for a second. Doesn't this all just seem a *BIT* strange to you? I mean, think about what just happened today." "Lessee..." Went Malarky, "we were off lookin' fer Skippy, when we got sucked out here, met a slimy red Winner, and had our primary controls knocked out. Den, wit 20 some odd minnits left of oxy-gen, a huge pan-dimensional floating restaurant and ship-repair joint pops outta nowhere and fixes us up. So, big deal. In New York, stuff like dis is normal." "You need help." Went Bug. "So, help me den." The crew had a quick snicker at this, and then rationalized. "Sir," went Fernandez, "if we try to fly home normally, it will take us 73 million years. I skipped breakfast today. Personally, I can't go that long." "He's right," Went Dilberg, "we have little choice." Bug added, "It's just that, I mean, yeah, that anomaly took us here from our sloar system, but where in malarky did that AstroBurger King come from? That anomaly must be hooked up to a *whole* lot of stuff, and we don't know how to control it." "I didn't make da Burger King." Went Malarky. "Figure of speech." retorted Bug. "Hail Mary?" Asked Fernandez. "Yeah, yeah." Went Bug Ysklowiaks. "We gotta do what we gotta do." The Gooden cringed forward into the anomaly. A huge blast of light surrounded the crew, suddenly it was dark. "Whoa." Want Bug "Holy Loser Garbanzos...." Went Dilberg. "It's unbelievable!" MEANWHILE, On the Dibble........ The autopilot popped the ship out of hyperspace. Heuer started ticking away at her keyboard, as Mike grabbed the pilot's seat. "If there's anything out here, we'll find it." Went Mike. "Mike," Went Heuer, "I've picked up a message for you. It's here, I mean, it's like it was here before we got here kinda here." "Well, play it then," The message was staticky, but comprehensible. The voice was that of captain Kramer. "Sir, we found out after you went into hyperspace. The crew on moon base Cone have located a U.F.O. Miss Stein went out into the asteroid belt, and has apparently vanished. Do not continue your search. Do NOT continue. Just wait until we get there. The best description we have for the U.F.O. so far is that it is apparently some shere that looks like a stray sattelite. You MUST avoid it, if necessary. Kramer out." Just then, Ray entered the cabin. "What's going on?" He asked. "Oh, we're supposed to be looking out for some weird sattelite or something." Answered Mike. Replied Ray, "You mean like that one?" "Farg..." Said Mike, as just then, the Dibble vanished into a flash of light. MEANWHILE, Somewhere in the inter-dimensional Winner headquarters..... "How do I know I can trust you?" Asked Leah. "You're wearing a Winner uniform." "Yeah, they MAKE me wear this schwag. The Winners like to keep us 'little people' in our places." "You just said 'schwag.'" Noticed Leah. "Yeah, so?" "That is just such a Loser word." "I know. I guess, I guess........ I am a Loser." Leah grinned at her new speck of hope. "Look, this level is guarded by 8 guards, 4 at each end of the hallway. I have security clearence to all the wings, because I'm the only one in this whole station that isn't too stuck up to clean the floors. Every 8 hours, they change guards. When they do, there is usually about 5 minutes where the guards go and sign out, and the new ones sign in. I can try and sneak you through then. If I get you out, can you get us a ship off this station?" "I don't know. I had my ship, but I don't know where it is." "I do. Take this watch. I'll be back at exactly 2:00:00. The Winners said that they would make me an officer in due time. I've been mopping floors for 5 years. In that time, I've really grown to hate all of them. I'll return for you soon, but now, I have to go." "Thanks!" Said Leah. "No problem.... I'm a..... Loser." MEANWHILE, Somewhere in the vicinity of Saturn...... "Okay. We're down." Went Skippy. "Now what?" "We get out of here." Said Wolfgang. He started looking all around the room for clues. There was a huge screen, with a timer ticking on the bottom. It read about 90 minutes, and was ticking down. There was a door, but it was sealed shut. The only control was a small keypad. "We're doomed." Went Skippy. "Nahh... Amy, do you have a hairpin?" Amy just shrugged, and pulled one out of her hair. Wolfgang grabbed it and began to tinker with the buttons. "Wolfgang, your 10 years old." Went Skippy. "What can you possibly know about picking computer locks......" BBSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHT Went the door, as it slid open majestically. "Thanks." Said Wolfgang, returning the hairpin. "Definitely Dan's kid." Went Skippy. They left the room, which led to a fligt of stairs going up. At the top, there was a hallway. Out across the hall, was a huge window, in which one could watch Saturn and it's beautiful rings. "I think we're on a base on Mimas." Noted Amy, recalling her astronomy. The hallway was empty, with 2 sealed doors on either end. "Where to now, Skipper?" Asked Wolfgang. "Anywhere but here." He replied. From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 29-JUN-1994 17:36:47.84 "Okay," went Skippy, "We can check behind door #1 or door #2, and personally I don't feel like getting the booby prize" "Talk to Jackie for that..." Muttered Amy under her breath. They headed right, and then ducked into a seemingly unoccupied room. Little Wolfgang spotted a computer terminal, and began to tinker with it. Within a minute, he managed to summon up a map of the base. There were quite a few unmarked rooms, and quite a few that they were positive they didn't want to visit. "Okay!" Noted Skippy, "to the hangar bay... we take a left, 2 rights, a left, and a right. I really don't feel like ending up in sludge processing." Suddenly, they heard a shout from out in the hall. "HEY!! YOU LOSERS!!!! STOP!!!!! I'M SUPPOSED to be GUARDING you!!!!" A fat, ugly boy yelled. The three Losers took off into the hallway, rushing right by the guard. but Skippy, being the best in the galaxy at screwing things up at the worst time, didn't quite follow the planned directions. He ended up in a place that he didn't want to be. Wolfgang, being rather short got lost in the fray, and ended up in the hangar bay where he thought Mark and Amy were going. "Where are we?" Skippy asked. "It looks like.... some crewman's quarters..." Amy replied. "Oh, flagnar! Where's Wolfgang?!??!?" "I have a bad feeling about this" From the next room over, they heard a hideous little high-pitched voice say, "Daddy? Is that you?" MEANWHILE, In the hangar bay....... Little Wolfgang was a smart child, he figured that if he should get lost, he should find his own way back to safety. He managed to sneak aboard one of the emergency pods, and eject himself. However, before leaving, he managed to locate the power cable supplying the weapons, sever it, and flood the toilets just for good measure. With a push of the control lever, he was in outer space, and hopefully heading for safety. MEANWHILE, Back where Skippy and Amy were....... (From the next room) "Daddy, I neeeeeed you! Hey, it's flushing by itself!!!! Hey!!!!! AAAAWWWWHHHHAAAAAAHHHHAAAAAWWWWHHHHAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Daddy, where are you?!!" The sound appeared to be moving closer to them. MEANWHILE, on the Gooden....... It was spectacular, like nothing they had ever seen before. It was immense, purely incredible, and it was what was going to get them back to Earth. It was a mile long Volvo. It had the wheels taken off, and replaced with thruster jets. It had a bridge up top, and there was already a tractor beam bringing them into the hangar bay. "I thought you boys needed some help, I was just passing by, dimension hopping my way to Astrica, and my hyperscanners spotted you. I'm bringing your ship in, so we can have tea while I bring you back to Earth." After the Losers were safely aboard, the 2-dimensional phenom pushed a few buttons. In about 15 minutes, the Gooden was back in orbit around the Earth. "Hey....thanks for all the help. Good luck trying not to go crazy at that 'Smith' place." Bug said over the radio. With a flash, the box-ship was gone. MEANWHILE, At the inter-dimensional Winner headquarters...... Leah sat quietly, waiting for Willie to return, when the door opened a little ahead of schedule. Some ugly Winner guards threw Heuer, Mike, and Ray into the cell, all unconscious. "This just isn't may day" Leah said, while getting up to go help them. From: WCSU::BALDOUMIS001 "Strangeloop!!!!!!!!" 29-JUN-1994 19:45:04.92 "Hey Losers. Wake up...." Nudged Leah. Ray awakened first. "WHAT... WHO... I'LL KILL THOSE DAMN WINNERS..... Hello, who are you?" "I'm Leah, I'm a Loser." "Oh, hi. I'm Ray." "Hey, you're the Rapist? I've heard lots of stories about you." "Nothing good, I hope. Did you know Dan?" Leah just froze. The flashback of Dan dressed all snazzy sent her back into shock. "What happened?" Asked Ray. "It's Dan. He's not dead.... He's.... he's..... a winner...." Ray made a face so shocked, that it's too tough to decribe with words. "Oh saffron.... Whose going to tell Mike?" "Farg.....Zark....." Went Mike, now awake. MEANWHILE, Back in orbit around the Earth...... "Gooden to Loser base Prime! Gooden to Loser base prime! We're back!" "Gooden, we knew you'd make it. We need you guys more than ever!" Went the acting commander over the radio. "What's been going on?" Asked Bug. "Commander Stein has vanished from Moon base Cone, and Airball has vanished with the crew of the Dibble." "Eek." Want Bug, as coolly as possible. "And Delegate Skippy has, according to the warning you sent us, about 30 minutes before the M3DTV torture begins." "What should we do?" Asked Bug. "Go meet up with Captain Kramer out in the asteroid belt. We'll send you his coordinates." "Understood. Ysklowiaks out." MEANWHILE, In the asteroid belt...... "Captain Kramer, I just got a message from Loser base prime. We're supposed to wait here. The Dibble vanished from the radar." Informed Lucky, now manning the radio for no apparent reason. "Well, I guess we wait then. Why are we waiting?" "The Gooden is back. They're coming to meet us." "ALL STOP." Went the captain. "Uhh..." Began Fladge Zomax, now itching to shoot something, "captain, I regret to have to inquire against the better judgement of the highest of Losers, but when do we get to kill Winners?" "Not until we get the big thumbs up." Went the captain, responsibly. "Will I get to use my new pocket rocket-launcher?" Asked Lucky with a grin that didn't look like it belonged on the face of a sane individual. "Soon Lucky, soon." Urged the Captain. "Just relax." Lucky then just sorta glanced over at Fladge Zomax. It was as if they could read each other's minds. When Captain Kramer turned to work at the terminal, they both got up and sneaked over to the emergency escape vessel. "SIR!" Went one of the Outer twins. "THE EMERGENCY VESSEL IS LAUNCHING!" "And.. and... Lt. Zomax and Private Lucky are gone, too!" Went the other. "Arrgghh.... Those Losers. Oh well. As long as they don't get killed. Well, it is Lucky......." MEANWHILE, on a Winner outpost on Mimas...... "Quick, Skippy! We gotta hide!" Amy grabbed Skippy's arm, and they dashed under the bed. They could see a small, round, and slobbishly fat child just sorta waddle into the room. "Daddy?" Went the child again. Suddenly, a horrifying cry perpetrated the halls. It was a high pitched yell, and it said: "E D U A R D O ! ! ! ! ! ! !" Skippy and Amy's ears just bled. The call bellowed out again, this time even louder than before. "IN HERE MAMA!" Replied the child Then, they saw it. It was huge. Well over 600 pounds of pure chaos and destruction. It reeked of codfish, and left cracks in floor as it walked. "THERE are you, Eduardo. What you do in here?" It asked. "Nothing Mama. I thought I hear Daddy." "You know Daddy on secret Winner mission somewhere. He no be home for a while." "Ohhh.... I forget." Just then, the ugly fat boy guard ranted into the room. He stopped, breathing heavily and sweating profusely. "Oh, Queen Henriques.. *pant pant*.. Those prisoners.... *pant*.. They got away somehow...." "You IDIOT!" She yelled. "Come here!" The pathetic guard waddled forward, with his head hanging low. What happened then, happened so quickly and horribly, that Skippy and Amy almost both fainted together. It appeared that, the huge monster actually opened it's 'mouth,' and literally swallowed the guard's head. A decapitated body landed on the floor. Amy used the last ends of her strength to keep from screaming. "Come now, Eduardo. It post-brunch time. You need your 12 meals a day to grow up big and strong like your father, the Emperor Zippy." "Okay Mama." Went the boy, as they left the room. MEANWHILE, in the Winner control center of Mimas......... "Sir!" Yelled officer Billy, "The weapons systems are not responding, and there was an unauthorized escape pod launched!" "DAMN those Losers!" He yelled. "They must have figured a way to escape! I underestimated them. But, they underestimated us. Where are the Losers now?" "It's travelling at 40000 Winner feet per second, heading toward the Loser base on Europa at Jupiter. Sir! We can't shoot at it yet! It'll take at least 10 minutes to get them back on line!" "NOT NECESSARY!" Yelled the High General. Lock on the ship's coordinates, and activate the dimensional vortex projector." "Sir, it's untested! We don't know what it might do..." "DON'T QUESTION ME, PEON! I'M THE GENERAL! I didn't become General Stew Leonard just by tinkering with my PENIS!!" "SORRY SIR!" Yelled Billy. "VORTEX PROJECTOR IS ON LINE!" "Fire." Commanded the General. From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 12-JUL-1994 17:38:23.06 Wolfgang knew that he didn't have much time to spare before the Winners tried to do something to stop him. He opened his backpack, and found a note, and some small bits of circuitry that his father had delivered back to Skippy before he died. The note had some directions for a space fold jump, which was part of some secret Winner project that Dan was investigating during his final spy mission before the accident. None of it had ever been tested before, because it basically looked like a whole load of bunk. However, he knew he had no choice, as the escape pod was not nearly fast enough to deliver him before the Winners could retaliate. Wolfgang connected the circuitry into the pod's power supply, and switched on the current. The ship began to vibrate slowly, as the scanner detected some strange, extremely high energy pulse approaching him very quickly. "Work.... Go Loser, WORK......" The pulse smashed into the vibrating pod, and there was a bright flash in space, and a loud wooshing noise that sounded like 10,000 people farting at the same time. The shuttle re-appeared in a totaly unfamiliar area of space. According to his ships computers, Wolfgang had gone over 2 X 10 to the 187th power light years away from where he was, and every malfunction light was lit. MEANWHILE, In a Loser emergency shuttle...... Private Lucky and Lt. Zomax were arming ever last weapon they had. They were closing in on what appeared to be a Winner base. Lucky started flexing his muscles in pseudo-macho style, and Zomax laughed. It looked like it was going to be a fun day for the both of them. MEANWHILE, In a random hyper-dimensional Winner prison cell.... Mike was still a bit groggy, and asked Leah to repeat what she last said. "It's Dan, he's a Winner. I don't know how, but he is." She said in a panicked, scared voice. "No!!!! Dan would NEVER turn into a Winner, he would DIE first!" Mike screamed. Just then, they could hear a voice from outside the door. "Why the Hell is this unlocked??!" The door to the cell opened, and there stood Dan, in a fancy jogging outfit, with matching sneakers and a headband. He looked like King Winner himself had beaten him with a cool stick. Behind him, stood a large armored guard with a rifle. "Heya buddy, how's it goin'?" Dan said in a voice that didn't seem to be his own. Everyone in the cell nearly threw up. Mike, enraged beyond belief, tried to punch Dan, but was fortunately held back in time by Ray. The guard had his rifle already cocked and aimed. "You're not gonna hurt me, but you are gonna tell me everything you know about the Loser military." Dan grinned such an evil grin, that Heuer and Leah passed out. From: WCSU::BALDOUMIS001 "Strangeloop!!!!!!!!" 14-JUL-1994 12:07:01.30 MEANWHILE, Somewhere out in the galaxy M25....... Wolfgang putted around in the now defunct Loser shuttle. He checked the sensors, that clearly said 'All energy exhausted,' but he checked them again, just to be sure. There was nothing around. The nearest star was at least 6 or 7 light years away, and he was pretty sure he was in the wrong galaxy, anyway. There was only enough food on the shuttle for a couple of days, and he had to take a wicked dump. "It can't end like this!" He screamed. Just then, the warning radar started to beep franically. "What the heck? Out here??" He thought, as he looked all around him, seeing nothing. Just then, a stray spacetime tachyon wave pummelled the shuttle. No extra damage went to the shttle, but the rift was plenty adequate to send Wolfgang into a deep nap. MEANWHILE, out in the asteroid belt....... The Gooden popped out of hyperspace, right in the exact coordinates plotted. Dilberg, always on top of things, noticed something wrong immediately. "Sir!" He yelled "I'm picking up similar frequencies to those that we had when that slimy red Winner was aboard! They're emanating from some U.F.O, and it's closing in on the Q-77!" "Open a channel!" Replied Bug Bug yelled to Captain Kramer "Captain Kramer! There is an object closing in on you! Evasive maneuvers!" Captain Kramer checked his long range sensors, and discovered the object. It must have been operating on some bizarre frequency, because it was very difficult to lock by a normal radar scan. "Otto!" Yelled the Captain. "90 degree clockwise turn, then full thrusters!" Otto sorta just winked, then carried out the command. The transport turned, and they were suddenly able to see the bizarre sattelite just whiz on by, completely clear of the transport. "Captain!" Went Bug. "The sattelite thingie completely ignored you. It must be on some automated guidance system or something. Your transport is not equipped to engage it. I would suggest that you slide on back to Third Base on Mars and report this to high command, and let us engage this thing." "Okay......" Replied the Captain. "But be careful, we have no idea what it really is." "Actually, I think I have a pretty good idea." Answered Bug. "Kramer out. Oh, and good luck, we're all counting on you." The Q-77 turned and headed back towards Mars. "Uhhh... Sir..... started Malarky..... "Ya mind fillin' us in on just what in poonami you tink dat ting is?" Answered Bug, "It must somehow control the anomalies. Every single bizarre anomaly reading that we picked up, seemed to originate from somewhere within the asteroid belt. It probalbly doesn't generate this whole mess, but it's probably being used by someone to control this thing." "Winners........" Went the rest of the crew at exactly the same time. MEANWHILE, out by the Galilean moon Europa..... The tiny shuttle closed in upon the giant science facility. The shuttle's radio beeped loudly. "Ummm... Should we answer it?" Asked Lucky. "Nahh." Answered Fladge. "Prepare to crash-dive." The radio beeped much louder and faster. "I think we should answer it." Went Lucky. Fladge just stared straight ahead, and began their descent. Lucky answered the hail himself. "Loser shuttle! This is Captain Sanity of the Loser Winter base Ithaca! Why are you attacking us??!" "Uhh... did you say, 'Winter?'" "YES! We study ice and snow here! Are you insane?" "Hey Fladge, you're attacking a Loser base." "No. Really?" "Uh huh." "Well, I guess I'd better stop then." The tiny shuttle lifted off it's dive no more than 2.3 inches from the main tower of the Loser Ithaca base. "Hey Lucky, tell them that I'm sorry, it was just a silly misunderstanding." "Uhhh... Loser base Ithaca, we're sorry, it was a silly misunderstanding." "No matter." Went the radio. "We're glad you're here. We've been picking up radio transmissions, and a shuttle launch from somewhere around Saturn's moon Mimas. The nearest record of any Loser activity in that area should be the atmospheric station on Titan. We have no ships to send and investigate....." "We're there!" Cut off Lucky, and shut the radio. The tiny shuttle took off for Saturn. MEANWHILE, out on the moon of Mimas....... Skippy and Amy crawled out from under the bed. The floor was covered in blood and grease, all surrounding a headless fat greasy Winner guard carcass. A voice came over the PA system: "Service clerk, clean-up in crew block 3. Slippery conditions. Bring a mop, and a body bag." "Florb... We have to get out of here," went Skippy, now pulling Amy out of the room. They were now out in a random Winner hallway. They could hear the sound of the wheels of a mop bucket moving closer to them. "In here!" Went Skippy, turning into an emergency door, that led to a dimly lit stairwell. "Should we go up or down?" Asked Amy. "Wolfgang never mentioned up or down. I don't know!" Amy just grabbed Skippy's hand and headed up. At the top of the stairs, was another door, that led to another hallway. On the door was a sign that said "Emergency Exit." The end of the hall, yielded another door, through which, they could hear voices... "WHAT the HELL do YOU MEAN he just VANISHED? HOW could he have VANISHED??!" "That....that's what hap..happened sir. The Vortex pulse supposedly hit the pod, and then, well.... poof!" "POOF??!! POOF!!!!! I'll fuckin' show you POOF!!!!" Skippy and Amy could then clearly hear the sounds of something rather blunt striking human flesh, accompanied by some truly horrendous screaming. "POOF! I'll show you a POOF!" Rather abruptly, the screaming stopped, but the pounding sounds continued. "BILLY!" Went the voice. "You are the new second in command. Man your new post, Captain Billy Rightstuff." "Yes sir! Thank you sir." Went a new voice, as the pounding sounds started to slow down. "Hey, what are you.... LOSERS!" Went a different voice, this one more femininely high pitched, and also much louder than the other voices. "Uh oh." Said Amy, quietly. "Turn around!" Skippy and Amy quietly rotated, to view a snazzy looking babe with long black hair aiming a large blaster rifle at them. "General Stew will be quite pleased with me for this," she said with a grin. MEANWHILE, In the totally white hyperdimensional room...... "Dan...... Uhhh.... wait a second...... if your Dan, you should already KNOW all the secrets of the Loser military! I mean, you WERE the Loser military!" "Yeah, WAS. But that got BO-ring. I needed a challenge. Then, I found Zippy... excuse me.... Mark was still alive, so I faked an accident and joined up with him. I trashed all the Loser-tech I knew. It was useless. Winner-tech is so much better. So, I've been removed from Loser advances for the last 7 years, and I want YOU to fill me in....." "Go french kiss Rob, you bastard. I'd rather die now, anyway." Ray started laughing. "And YOU..." bellowed Dan "You are just a bonus to my collection! Join me now, or die with the other Losers." Ray sorta laughed again. "You think you can kill ME??" He let out a typical Ray snort. "Yer loss," replied Dan, with another wink and a putrid Winner grin. Mike could taste the chocolate frosted sugar bombs crreping up the back of his throat. Dan turned, and the crock-o-lock sealed behind him with a "thunk." The sound woke Leah back up. "Is he gone?" She said, kinda dazed. "Yeah, but he wants to kill us all." Went Ray, still almost laughing. "What is the station time?" Sha asked. "Hold on, I can find out." Mike pushed a couple of buttons on his multidirectional digital watch, and came up with 1:49:27. "10 and a half minutes." Said Leah. "We're not going to die, we're getting out of here." Heuer woke up just then, and asked if anyone vomitted. From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 20-JUL-1994 11:15:27.39 About 10 minutes after Heuer woke up, Mike was ready to have her go back to sleep, she was asking so many questions. Suddenly, the sounds of a lock disengaging filled the room again. A strange face peeped inside. "Leah, I'm here to get you..... oh..... More Losers?" He asked. "Yes, this is one of the Supreme Losers himself, Lord Airball. He was one of the people that started Loser, and if anyone can help you get us out of here, he can." Leah said, with confidence flowing. "As long as you take me with you. I can't stay here any more." The group filed out the door, and across the hall into a access hatch that led to a service crawlway. After a good deal of crawling, and a climb down an emergecy ladder tube, the group of Losers was overlooking a hallway, that was overlooking the main hangar bay of the Winner base. "This isn't going to be easy" Mike said. "Nah, I'll just jump down there and pummell all those pathetic Winners to death. Look, I found a metal rod in the accessway......" Ray was then cut off by a loud announcement..... "WARNING, RED ALERT, THE LOSERS HAVE ESCAPED!" The lights turned dim, and a siren sounded somewhere. The could see the Winner personnel begin to scatter. "Holy Loser." The entire group said at once...... Then, all of a sudden, off in the distance they could here a hideous voice calling very loudly echoing through the airduct. It said, "Markee!!!!! Markee!!!! get your fat ass back in here!!!!!!" MEANWHILE, on the moon of Mimas...... "You stupid, pathetic, ugly, Winner bitch!" Skippy yelled at the Winner female. Amy nearly passed out when she heard Skippy swear. "You fucking Loser!" The girl pistol whipped Skippy, and he hit the floor unconscious. The dark haired girl started laughing, and Amy saw her chance. With a swift roundhouse kick, she connected on the girl's face, and sent the Winner female sprawling. Amy tried to drag Skippy through the door, which however, proved to be a bad idea. MEANWHILE, Somewhere out in space..... Lucky and Fladge were on full speed for Saturn, not really knowing what they would find. They re-armed all weapons systems even though there was not much around them. All of a sudden, they noticed that they were being followed. "Fladge, we're being followed!" Lucky said, just a bit too loud. "Well, indeed we are! I think we should eradicate them." Fladge said even louder. With suicidal maneuvers, Lucky and Fladge turned the tiny emergency shuttle around, and started a head-on attack toward the unwelcome ship. MEANWHILE, 3,000 years into the future....... Wolfgang woke up. He was kind of stiff, but wouldn't you be if you had slept for 3,000 years? He was slowly coming out of his sleep induced stupor, when he realized that it was a bright light that woke him up. He could hear something outside of the airlock on his shuttle, and was also surprised to notice that basic life support was still working on the craft. Actually, now that he looked, power had been transferred to the life support from an outside source. Just then, the airlock opened, and there stood a person in the doorway. From: WCSU::BALDOUMIS001 "Dysfunctional by Choice." 24-JUL-1994 15:03:27.02 MEANWHILE Somewhere out in the asteroid belt....... The Gooden hoverred in sync with the strange sattelite. All was dark and quiet, except for the tinkering of keyboards, and the hum of the Gooden's hyperfastball engine. "Any peculiar readings yet?" Asked Bug, almost cautiously. Replied Dilberg, "Not really, it's shell is made of some sensor- impenetrable metalloid. I can't see what's inside it." After a brief hit of silence, Bug asked: "Do you think we can.... dock with it?" The crew all turned and stared at Bug as if he had just turned into a large toad. After some more erie silence, went Fernandez, "I can dock with it." The rest of the crew then turned and stared at Fernandez instead. Bug stared for a few seconds, and then gave the command. "Well, as one of those old TV Losers used to say then, 'Make it so.'" The crew swallowed saliva, then went to their stations. The sattelite was about the same size as the Gooden, and Fernandez moved up next to it. He touched the sattelite, as if the ship were a feather, and then carefully engaged the magnetic docking clamp. (Just a note - no computer system has yet to be invented that could perform an operation as precise as you have just read.) "Wow." Said Bug, of course, coolly. Malarky, Dilberg, and Vib all let out sighs at the same time. Then, went Malarky: "So, do we open dis can up of do we sit here pick our noses?" Just then, Dilberg wiped something on his jacket. "Open the hatch." Commanded Bug. There was a small accessway connecting the Gooden to the radio-impenetrable surface of the Winner sattelite. Malarky jumped on down. "Hydrospanner." He said, with a signal to Dilberg. MEANWHILE, in the Galaxy M25....... "Hello." Said the man in black. "WHAT... Who..." Started Wolfgang. "Are you a Loser?" "Of course." He answered. "Well... so..... uhhh....." "Where are you?" "Yeah. YES! That's it! WHERE AM I?" "That's the wrong question." Wolfgang was on the verge of being annoyed. However, the fact that this guy just stepped into his ship from what was supposed to be deep space, kept him slightly at bay. Also the fact that the door was open and nothing peculiar was happening, like depressurization or anything, kept him guessing as well. "Uhhh..." Started Wolfgang again. "I can tell you the right question." "Okay....." "The right question, the one that matters, is 'WHEN am I?'" "Whoa! Uhhh... Well.... When AM I?" "You have been jumped 3000 years into the future. However, you are not in YOUR future, at least I HOPE not." "Uhh... Sorry... you lost me there." "It's your father. He should not have been murdered." "My REAL father? He died in a space cruiser accident. He wasn't murdered....." "Ahh... so you think. 7 years ago, the evil Winner Zippy had just about finished reassembling his own Winner force, to get revenge on those who killed him and his family. He needed one last cog, a general mastermind, to oversee his military operations. He knew only one person worthy enough, the Commander of the Losers, your father. Somehow, Zippy received intelligence regarding what transport Dan would be travelling on. He put men on board, and had them hijack the ship. They shot everyone, left no one standing. Dan had no way he could get away. He put up a fight, but was no match for all those armed Winners. They took your father alive, destroying the rest of the transport, making it look like an accident. When Dan found out Zippy was alive, he almost died. Zippy tried to convince Dan to help him, but he wouldn't give. He tried to reprogram Dan's mind, but that failed, too. Dan was too deep a Loser to give way. So, the Winners used their new experimental machine - the cloning device. They made an exact copy of Dan, except they programmed the computer to filter out all of the Loser in him. It worked. Dan was forced to meet himself, and almost hemmorhaged right there. But, alas, he didn't. Finally, to make his operation neat, Zippy banished Dan to a small chamber within an asteroid, where he could slowly starve to death. About 7 years after he died, Mike, Leah, and Skippy were all captured and killed by the Winners, leaving all of the Loser population in disarray, and circumstantially easy pickin's for the Winners to move back in, and reclaim their planet, which I might add, they destroyed within 100 years of their conquest, ending all life in your sector of the galaxy." By now, Wolfgang's eyes were really watery, and his jaw hung wide open. "Wow." Said Wolfgang. "But.. Who... Why......." "While your father was in the asteroid, he channeled all of the energy he had through some small circuitry that he had saved from the warp-space manifold project rumors he was investigating. He channelled me here, to help you, to help him, when the time was right." "Help him? But.... I thought he was.... dead...." "HERE he is dead, but you don't have to be HERE..." "You... lost me again." "You are going back to the asteroid where from where your father sent me. You will free him, and return with him to the exact moment that you escaped the blast shot by the Winners on Mimas. In a safe range away from the Winners, of course. In fact, the Ithaca base would be convenient...." "WHAT are you talking about? HOW am I going to get back....." "I will take you." "WHOA! You can go with me?" "Uh huh. One catch, though. Back in your dimension, only YOU will be able to see or hear me, not even your father." "This is too much. When do we leave?" "How about now?" "Okay! Wait - one thing first." "Shoot." "What's your bleedin' name??" "Oh sorry, you can call me Wesley." Suddnely, quicker than Wolfgang could blink, he was in a small, dimly lit chamber. Wesley was there, as was a depressed looking red-haired Loser. MEANWHILE, on the moon of Mimas............ A loud noise flooded the hallway, as Amy felt a sharp burning pain in her back, unlike anything that she had ever felt before. Unable to stay prone, she fell atop Skippy, with mass amounts of energy flowing through her. "You're lucky it was on stun, Loser-bitch!" Bellowed the obnoxious Winner. Just then, sounds of multiple footsteps could be heard in the stairwell, and on the other side, she could hear the emergency door being opened. Amy could not move her head to see what emerged, but she could hear that horrible voice again. "WHAT'S GOING ON? I heard a SHOT!" "General, sir...... I caught these two Losers..." "Oh HAPPY DAY!" Went the general. "I thought they escaped on that shuttle!" "Uhh... sir..." Started the tart again. "I *DID* catch them.. *Myself*...." "Impressive. You will be commended in due time for your bravery. Guards! Take them back to the sub-dungeon. We shall begin the torture immediately." Amy shut her eyes really tight, as she could hear a horrendously obnoxious little giggle emanating from the spot where the tart stood. MEANWHILE, somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn...... "The missiles are armed, Fladge! Fire!" Fladge Zomax put on a twisted grin, and lauched the entire arsenal at the ship that they could just now see for the first time. The missiles flared forth with an agression unequalled by the fiercest being. As the missiles struck the vessel, a huge explosion erupted, sending Fladge and Lucky into a fierce round of laughter. Then, as the blaze quickly dispersed into space dust, it became absolutely clear that the impact did absolutely no damage at all upon the immense Winner battle cruiser that was floating in front of them. "Ummm... Lucky.... I think we have a problem." "Nahhh.... It's not a problem until they arm their weapons." Just then, the warning systems started ringing that the Winner cruiser's weapons were being armed. "This sucks." Said Lucky. Replied Fladge, "Maybe if we're lucky, they won't shoot us, and they'll take us to their leader or something." "Loser vessel!" Went the radio. "Disarm all of your systems! As much as we would LOVE to shoot you, General Leonard would like you to join him in his torture chamber! If you do not comply, we will blow you up here!" "Hey... TORTURE!!" Went Lucky. "I haven't been tortured in WEEKS! Let's go!" Fladge shut down the computers, and the Loser pod got sucked into the Winner cruiser. MEANWHILE, in the hyperdimensional Winner base........ "Enough of this crap." Went Mike. "Follow me...." Airball jumped out of the airduct and took off down the hall toward the source of the hideous voice. The others then followed. "What are you doing?" Asked Willie, reluctantly running along down the hall with the rest of the Losers. "Those are the command quarters! We have to get OUT of here!" "That's what they EXPECT us to do." Answered Mike. "All the security will be waiting for us down there. Also, we should hit this thing from the SOURCE. Which room is Zippy's?" Willie Mays Hayes led the Losers to a door at the end of the hall. Through the door they could hear a lot of various moaning, and occasionally, a voice saying "Markee! Oh Markee!..." "Ray?" Said Mike, quetly. Ray smiled, and bashed the door in with his fists. Inside, they could see the most hideous sight imaginable, as flab and fat and sweat pounded around left and right. Heuer immediately took notice. "I don't get it." She interjected. "What's going on?" Mike, Willie, and Leah's jaws all dropped, as their eyes bulged out of their sockets. Ray just laughed again. Spewed forth Mike, "Sandra DaSilva! Unbelievable!" Zippy and Sandra stopped, and just stared flabbergasted. Sandra screamed, "Oh my GOD! They'll tell your WIFE and she'll rip me into THREE!!" "WHAT!" Continued Heuer "I don't get it!" "GUARDS! GUA...oOOOOOppphhh" Yelled Zippy, as Ray clubbed him with a wrench. Zippy had really fallen to pot in his middle age, putting on more flab that his father the mighty Ed ever had. All that beer and TV football really taken it's toll. Sandra continued to scream, and began to gallop around the room. Mike jumped on the floor right behind her, and then Leah pushed her toward him, sending her flat upon her plump, round rectal zone. Mike then squirmed up, and firmly affixed his hands about her throat. "Where's Wheeler?" He asked. "gasp!... There will be...gack.....guards in here in ...seconds!" "Wrong answer." Mike dropped his elbow in between her eyes, evoking a nice 'thump.'" She lied there pretty still. "The guards will find us any second!" Yelled Willie "We have to get out now!" Mike didn't seem to even pay any attention to this. He just got up and walked over to Zippy lying unconscious, and began kicking him and laughing. "Oh no, not now!" Spotted Heuer. "He's gone into one of his irrational fits!" The other Losers could here footsteps marching closer down a hallway somewhere. "Mike!" Yelled Heuer, "really, we have to get out of here!" Mike just ignored her. "Ray!" He yelled, "this fat pile just called you a skinny twerp!" What happened next was particularly ugly. From: SMTP%"WHEELED@ithaca.edu" 28-JUL-1994 18:06:44.65 Malarky took the hydrospanner that Dilberg handed him and started to hack his way into the Winner sattelite. In about 5 minutes he stopped. "I'm almost through, everybody get inta yer pressure suits, I'm not sure if dis ting has a breathable atmosphere." Within 30 seconds everyone was in their own pressure suit. "Here goes nuttin'...." Malarky muttered. With a final hack, he broke into the Winner sattelite. It was kinda dark, but there was a strange gray/green glow coming from deep inside. MEANWHILE, in a small dimly lit chamber...... The depressed red-haired guy looked up and smiled. "Wolfie!!! I knew you would get here, jeepers, look at ya', you're such a LOSER! Can you see Wesley?" "Oh yeah, he's right here." Wolfgang replied, about as happy as a Loser could be. "What do you have in your pockets now?" Dan asked Wolfgang immediately dumped what he had in his backpack. There were a bunch of circuit boards, a pocketknife, some duct tape, some credit cards, a hammer, a lockpick kit, and some computer disks. There was also a bottle of peroxide, some soda, and some paper cups. Dan let out a BIG smile. MEANWHILE, on the moon of Mimas..... Amy and Skippy were shoved down into a familiar looking dungeon. They saw Lucky and Fladge sitting back to back in a couple of metal chairs with thier hands cuffed behind them. Amy and Skippy were also shoved into a pair of chairs to the left of Lucky and Fladge, and very savagely tied up. A really nasty looking southeast Asian man walked in and said in a thickly accented voice, "I will enjoy torturing you and getting da infamation stored in your pattetic Losa brains. Den, I will enjoy torturing you to your pattetic detts." Lucky smiled, Fladge laughed, Skippy passed out, and Amy started crying. MEANWHILE, In the hyperdimensional Winner base..... Ray started to trash the room. I mean, you've seen rooms trashed on TV before, but Ray went off. He had a wrench in his hand to do it with. With a feat of incredible strength, he picked up Zippy and threw him into the wall a few times too. The door was quite blocked from any incoming Winners. The door tried to open, but a table, a few TV's, a bed, a toilet, 4 refrigerators, and Zippy were all blocking it. "That should hold 'em off for a while" Ray said. He walked over to Mike, grabbed him by the shoulders, and threw him up into the air duct. The others started to follow, but Heuer was too busy looking at the Playboy channel that was still blaring from one of the TV screens. Willie had to pick her up and toss her into the air duct to get her out of the room. MEANWHILE, back at the torture chamber...... Lucky and Fladge had already been injected with something. The little Asian guy was giggling a lot, and the two guards were more interested in the upcoming declothing of Amy. Skippy was still unconscious. "Do you have anysing you want to tell me before I start giving you paper cuts on yaw eyelids and tongues, and pouring in alcohol?" "Well, ummm.... I don't think you're going to do that," said Lucky. "Oh? and, why NOT?" "Okay, here's the deal.... I'm gonna grab you, smash your head down into that computer over there. Then, I'm gonna take that scalpel that you have in your left hip pocket there, and throw it at the first guard, striking him in the forehead and easily killing him. Then, I'm gonna take Skippy over there, chair and all, and throw him at the second guard, knocking him over. Then I'm gonna grab the first guard's gun, shoot you in the kneecap, and shoot both guards right between the eyes." Lucky recited as if reading it out of a book. "And HOW do you pwopose to accompwish tis?" "My handcuffs?.... I just finished picking the lock." Lucky said, holding his free hands up for all to see. The Asian guy let out a look of horror as Lucky raised his right hand and smashed his face into the computer monitor. While he was smashing, his left hand was reaching into the guy's hip pocket and pulling out a small, heavy scalpel. He threw it, neatly piercing the first guard's eye. "Farg, I missed." He heaved Skippy, who was just now returning to the real world kicking and screaming, into the second guard, and knocked him over. Before Skippy even barreled into the guard, Lucky was on his way across the room, and picked up the first guard's gun. With three quick shots, the Aisian guy screamed in pain, and the other two guards were killed. "Wow, I didn't even set any alarms off." Lucky said The other Losers were still looking at him, like he were some sort of god. Skippy started to get up, and doing so, accidentally pulled a fire alarm. * * * PART II - By "Dysfunctional by Choice." * * * MEANWHILE, in the asteroid belt.... "Dilberg, stay here and watch the sensors." Commanded Bug, who actually lived for this kind of thing. Dilberg saluted, and Malarky, Vib, Bug and Fernandez thrust into the sattelite. It was a surprisingly large chamber, looked bigger on the inside than on the outside. It was kinda warm, no gravity, and the source of light seemed to be emanating from a sort of greenish crystal in the center. The crew slowly floated toward it. "Dilberg," radioed Bug "is there oxygen in here?" "None that I can read. But there's a massive concentration of energy in the center of your chamber. The readings are way off the scales." "Keep your eyes open." Reassured Bug. The crew reached the crystal, which appeared to be floating in place, ultimately still. There also appeared to be an extremely thin sheath of some sort of protective field surrounding it. "Don't touch it." Ordered Ysklowiaks "We don't know what it is." However, Vib the mute gunner always was the curious one. He reached out the arm of his pressure suit to touch the field. Suddnely, a loud sound, not much like that of a bolt of lightning, echoed through the room. There was a bright flash, and suddnely the room was saturated by floating chunks of raw, pulpy meat slabs and recently defunct organs. "HOLY FARGING LOSER!" Yelled Bug, now not too far from the edge of his sanity. "What's going on?" Yelled Dilberg through his radio. "There was a huge energy fluctuation when you did that!" "Don't panic - I'm returning to the Gooden to look at the sensor readings you just got. Something tells me that we should get that crystal. You two stay here, and DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" Fernandez and Malarky just floated there with their jaws hanging low. MEANWHILE, in a tight airduct somewhere within a hyperdimensional Winner base.. "Ray!" Yelled Mike, "Why did you do that? I had Zippy right where I wanted him!" "Shut up and keep crawling, geekweek." "Does anyone have a clue where we're going?" Answered Willie, "I know these airducts like the backs of my hands. Take the left tunnel up ahead." Leah led the way. Followed by Mike, Ray, Heuer, and Willie Mays Hayes. After crawling for some time, they eventually reached a dead end. "Uhh... Willie?" Started Leah. "DAMN! I forgot! They block these off when the alarms go on! They would have led right to the shuttlebay!" Replied Mike, "Don't wash those hands much, do you?" Willie just stood there on his knees. "Let's head back." He started. "Wait!" Went Mike. "What's in this office here?" "That's the security office! It's always manned by Winner guards 24-7" "Yeah? Well, there's no one in it now." Mike kicked the grate out onto the floor of the security office and jumped in. Ray followed him. "What are you doing?!" Yelled Willie, "I know another way to get out!" "Sure." Went Mike, "Take Leah and Christi then. I have an idea. I'm not leaving without Dan, or at least not without his head." "Come on." Went Heuer. "When he gets this bent up on something, no one can stop him." "Okay, good luck then." Went Willie, starting back down the air-duct. MEANWHILE, in a Winner dungeon on Mimas.................... "Good job, there, Loser." Went Lucky, with a patented Lucky-face. "Hey, YOU threw me here!" Retorted Amy, "Will you two shut up and untie us so we can get out of here? The Winners must think there's a fire down here, so they won't be expecting US!" Skippy wormed out of his ropes, as Lucky untied Amy and Fladge. Said Fladge, "You know Lucky, I really WAS hoping to be tortured, just a BIT at least." "Let's save the Loser delegates first! Then we can stab each other with our medals!" "Excellent!" Lucky grabbed another gun off a dead guard and threw it to Fladge Zomax. Amy picked up a large metal rod that was a piece of her chair. The door opened, and 4 very surprised-looking Winner fire patrol members, wearing designer flame-retardant jackets blew into the room with screens and anti-oxygen fire extinguishers. Fladge blew two of them in the faces, with two successive shots that were so quick they sounded like one. Lucky Mauled one by strafing 87% of his body, and Amy, no longer in to mood to take this, kicked the fourth one in the gonads and plowed him over the skull when he keeled over in agony, sending him into more agony. "Amy, who do you think you are? Jenn?" "Come on sugar buns, I've had enough of these Winners." Fladge and Lucky, of course finding this quite amusing, began to snicker. Noticed Fladge, "Let us don these designer flame-retardant jackets. It will render us temporarily inconspicuous." "Uhhh..." Began Lucky, "One of them is full of holes." "That's your fault, stressboy! Think of something!" "What just happened?" Went Skippy. "Here. Just put this on." Answered Amy, now really uptight. Fladge started laughing again. MEANWHILE, in the dark, desolate asteroid chamber...... "Okay, Wesley. Get us out of here." "As you wish." Faster than they could blink, Dan and Wolfgang were suddenly within a Loser science base, where it was indeed quite cold. "Loser on the brid..... Holy snail cream!" Went the captain of the Ithaca Loser weather station. "It's... it's YOU!" "Yeah, it was me last time I checked. So, where am I now?" "Ummm.... I am captain Sanity, Loser sanction number 997Q8A331. I've been in control of this base since it's christening 5 years ago...." "Hold on..." Interjected Wolfgang. "Lemme field this. Dad, you are now 7 years into the future. The Winners are trying to take over the solar system from us. Everyone thinks you're dead... Skippy and Amy are still trapped on that Winner base on Mimas!" "What of the other me? The Winner Dan Wheeler?" "Ummm........... Wesley says he's still strong, and Airball and Ray are in grave danger...... The other you is going to kill them today!" "Zlorfik...." Went Dan. "Well, before I go, do you have any spaghetti? I haven't eaten in 4 days." Captain Sanity signalled for some food. Just then another young Loser ran over. "Sir, I just recieved a message from Captain Kramer at Third base on Mars. He thinks he and Captain Ysklowiaks might have a bead on the location of the missing Losers WHOA YOU'RE DAN WHEELER!!" "Hey, Loser." "You're.... alive!" Dan just sorta nodded. He then turned to Sanity. "Is that 'Bug' Ysklowiaks? He's a captain already?" "Yup. Loser officer of the year last year." Dan grinned. Wolfgang started. "Dad? Wesley says we should get to Third base. If they find out how to get to the hyper-dimensional Winner base, we have to be the first ones in there." Says Wesley (to Wolfgang), "History has been written. We must now change it." MEANWHILE, somewhere within the asteroid belt.......... Bug returned to the Gooden, and with artificial gravity, the small drops of blood that stuck to him began to drip off. "Sir! What happened in there?" Yelled Dilberg. "We lost Vib. You don't want to look in there." "Holy Loser!" "What did you read?" "There is a steady concentration of inconcievable energy within the center, and it is surrounded by another field of a different kind of energy. When those fluctuations struck, the second layer of energy was breached, but for a few seconds." "The forcefield. It can't stay on when it's touching something! Dilberg help me find some scrap metal, eyeshields, and a long set of tongs!" After a short scavenger hunt, Bug had his stuff. "Wait in here and keep monitoring!" He commanded, as he plunged back into the sattelite. "Fernandez! Malarky!" They were now as far away from the crystal as they could get. "Put these on! Went Bug, floating them the eyeshields. He then passed each one of then several pieces of scrap metal. "When I give the signal, I need each of you to toss the scrap metal into the crystal. Timing is crucial. Are you up for this?" Answered Fernandez, "Ummm.... I guess... What are you going to do?" "Don't worry about that now." Bug maneuvered as close to the force field as he could."On my mark!" "Uhhh... but SIR...." "THREE." "Sir!" "TWO." "Oh farg." "ONE......... MARK." Fernandez and Malarky threw the scrap metal, and at the instant that they hit, there was another huge singe of light as the metal disintegrated away. Immediately following, Bug reached in with the tongs, and pulled out the crystal. "YES!" Said Bug. Malarky and Fernandez just stared. "Let's get out of here!" Screamed Bug. "This sattelite is useless now." The crew left the sattelite, resealed the hatch, and repressurized the Gooden's airlock. They then piloted away from the sattelite. "What IS it?" Asked Malarky, with the crew gathered all around staring at the new item." "It's a yellow crystal." Said Bug. "It turned yellow when I pulled it out." "Shiny." Said Fernandez. After examining it for some time, Bug noticed something peculiar. "HEY! This looks like itsy-tiny writing! Power up the microscope!" They scattered around, setting up the science station. Dilberg put the crystal into the observation shaft, and cranked up the power. The message was clear as day. It said: "DRAW A MAP, PICK A SPOT, CONCENTRATE." MEANWHILE, on the Ithaca Winter base...... "Uhh," Started Sanity, "Loser General Commander Sir....." "Dan. Just Dan. Or Loser." "Sorry, Dan, it's just such a shock. I mean, a dead legend here and all..." "Dead? Who says I'm dead?" Then interrupted Wolfagang. "Dad, you somehow sent me through a parallel jump in time and space. Now, you have gone through the same thing. Wesley said that the in the universe that we were before the space-fold jump, Loser was obliterated. Now we're in a different Universe. One with you suddenly still in it. Wesley says that if you don't finish that spaghetti soon, that nothing will change from the other universe." "Okay, okay! Jeez, no rest for the Loser." Dan exclaimed, gorging down the last glob of spaghetti. "Loser, Sir," Started Sanity "We have only one shuttlecraft here. It's small and unarmed, but it can take you to Third base." "Well, let's go then! We gotta smash up some Winners!" MEANWHILE, in a pan-dimensional Winner base....... Said Mike, "This stuff is really hi-tech, especially for Winners." "Nahh." Replied Ray. "This stuff is all crap. Check this out." Ray pulled something that looked like a graphing calculator out of the back pocket of his flashy lifeguard-esque flight suit, and started playing with it. "What the...." Started Mike. The security office that they were in had a whole bunch of monitors all around them. The lights were flashing for red alert, and there was an 'escaped prisoner' warning flashing on one screen. In the monitors, they could see guards posting around at all the strategic positions. They had every single air-duct and doorway sealed off by now. "Oh farg." Went Mike. "We let Heuer and the others go through the air- ducts! Oh, man, was this a bad idea!" "Watch this." Said Ray, with a crooked grin. Ray ripped a panel off from beneath the main computer, and hooked his calculator up via 2 conenecting wires, to 2 ends of some kind of transmitter under the terminal. He started hitting some buttons on the calculator, and snickering while doing so. "Uhhh.... Ray? What..." "I'm flooding all of the guards command transmission headsets with recordings of 'Hangin' Tough' by New Kids on the Block played at overload volume. Watch." On the monitors, guards were ripping off their helmets, and screaming bloody murder. No one had any idea what was going on. Ray snickered again. Asked Mike, "Is there anything you can't do?" "No." Answered Ray. MEANWHILE, in an airduct on the same base..... "Take a right in there." Whispered Willie. "They must have the red alert up, so all of the accessways will be guarded. This tunnel leads to a chute that goes straight down to the lowest deck, down in the storage area. No one ever goes down there." Leah, Christi and Willie quickly crawled through another dark tunnel, and gradually the air started getting more and more damp and dusty. Then, the tunnel hit an intersection. "Go right." Instructed Willie, and be ready to go down...." Just then, he was interrupted by a "YOOWWwwww....." sound fading into the distance. Christi just sorta stopped. "Go on. It's perfectly safe." Assuaged Willie. "Uhhh...." Within the right air-duct tunnel, there were no lights. The chute was completely dark. "Just go. Would you rather go back?" "Well... actually...." "Look, if you don't go, everyone around you will be a Winner, and you'll have to clean floors for them while they shop for new designer underwear." "Okay! Okay....." She closed her eyes and ventured inward. A clear "Arrrrrrrgg....." was clearly audible. Willie then waited a few seconds, and followed along. MEANWHILE, On the Ithaca winter base..... "Dad, before you go, Wesley says you have to bring me to Mimas." "What? You want to go to a Winner base by yourself? Are you crazy?" "I'm not alone, I have Wesley. And he says that Lucky and Fladge Zomax are in there too. But they need me to save Skippy and Amy and escape." "Well, I suppose. But be really careful, those Winners are bastards." "Right-o, dad." Went Wolfgang, with a smile way too big for any kid to have. MEANWHILE, in the dungeon of a Winner base out on Mimas........ Skippy, Amy, and Fladge Zomax slowly made thier way up the dark, dirty stairwell that led to the now trashed Winner dungeon/torture chamber combo. Lucky just sorta strolled up the rear, being that he was lacking a disguise. "Lucky," went Skippy, "You HAVE to stay down here. You will give us away in a second if they see you with us!" "Yeah, well, it's no fun down here! I don't care, I'm not afraid of Winners..." Then cut in Fladge. "Yeah, we know Lucky, but not everyone is as, well, lucky as you are. Our top priority has to be to get Skippy and Amy out. Then we can start our..... *fun.*" Fladge gave a really unhealthy looking grin to Lucky. "Okaaaaay......" Lucky pouted as he lumbered back into the dungeon. "When we get out of this dungeon," instructed Fldge, "let me do the talking. Understood? Don't say ANYTHING." Skippy could not understand this. "Yeah, but hold on, I mean....." "Mark, shut up." Amy smiled at Skippy, a smile that no Loser could refuse. The titular trio strolled into the Winner base, basically uneventfully. Right as they emerged, there was a small group of well-dressed Winner officers awaiting a report on the fire. "It's all under control, oh glorious winner lord, sir." "Where's the other guy? I thought four of you went down." "Yes, he could not handle the intense burning from the acidic flash that had blown out from beneath the immense monitor. The acid must have spilled, and been inadvertently detonated my some means whilst the torturers were inflicting some treacherous paroxysm upon those putrid Loser captives. Don't go down there, the atmosphere is still not completely safe." "Errr... What about the guards? And the Winners that we hired to do the torturing?" "All dead I'm afraid. A ghastly sight, in fact. Really, do NOT go down there." "Well then, how did YOU survive?" Skippy was actually feeling rather confident in Fladge Zomax's story, up until that question. Then, he suddenly felt lousy again. However, after only a brief two second pause, Fladge continued.... "The protective gear, of course. Smith's protective helmet was not securely fastened. Some of the abominable moisture obviously permeated through and killed him." Skippy let out a little sigh. "Well then, we'll just have to send down a medic or two to see the carnage, and check to see if there's anything salvagable. Go get your men cleaned up and report back in one hour." Just then, Skippy let out a grunt. "Your lordship, sir," started Fladge, using every brownie point that he had ever accumulated, "really, there's NOTHING left down there. Just harmful chemicals. You shouldn't send anyone down there for at least 24 hours." "We'll be the judge of that. Go get cleaned up." The Winner officers saluted, and then turned away. "Oh good," started Skippy. "Now they're going to go down there and find Lucky. Great." "Yeah, it's perfect. Sometimes I amaze myself." "What? Are you crazy? They're....." "Loser. Think. One or two winner medics. Lucky. I just wish I could see it." Fladge started to laugh quietly. "Let's go now, we have to find a way out of here before Lucky gets out." Remarked Amy, "sometimes it just doesn't pay to get out of bed." MEANWHILE, Over at Third Base on Mars...... A young Loser officer walks over to the command center of the control tower. "Captain Kramer, sir! The Gooden is docking on landing bay four." "Excellent, Petersen. Go send a welcome party to escort them back inside. They've been through a lot in the past....." Just then, he was interrupted by a loud screeching noise, accompanied by a quick yellow burst. From apparently out of nowhere at all, Bug Ysklowiaks just popped into the control room. There was a rather dazed look upon his face. "Good Holy Loser!" Exclaimed Kramer, as the officers in the room just stopped and stared, equally as stunned. "How.." Started Kramer "did you get here without using a matter transporter? You were supposed to be in the Gooden....." "Whoa." Said Bug, looking at the strange yellow crystal. "I just stared at the control tower from inside the ship, squeezed this and concentrated upon being here. This is how the Winners sent us so far away from the asteroid belt! I don't know how they got control of this, but somehow they did. We can use this to find Airball and the missing Losers!" "You'll do no such thing." Interrupted Kramer. Bug stopped and looked confused. "You will never believe who should be on his way here any moment now." "Well...." began Bug "right now, if it's anyone other than Dan Wheeler, we really should have no reason to wait here...." Kramer just stared at Bug. "No. It can't be. He died like, 7 years ago." Kramer kept staring. "Holy Loser!" MEANWHILE, Somewhere on route to Saturn.... "Wolfgang, when I get you to Mimas, do you have any idea how you're going to get INTO the Winner base? I mean, you can't just knock on the door and say that your selling cookies." "Why not, Dad?" Wolfgang just smiled. "They won't be expecting it, now will they?" "Well.... no, but, I mean, it's just too stupid." "And?" "And..... you don't have any cookies to sell." Wolfgang dug into his backpack some more, and found an old box of stale cookies. "What does Wesley say about this?" "Hold on........ He says that they have more concerns right now than a kid selling cookies. There was like some kind of fire or something." "What the Heck?" Uttered Dan, now closing on on Mimas. "Stay around to the south side, Dad. They can't pick us up on radar from there." "You watch too much TV, don't you, Wolfgang?" "Nope. I read comic books." "Ahhhh...." "And Tom Clancy novels." Dan grinned. The tiny shuttle touched ground a short walk from the entrance to the secret underground Winner base at the edge of the great crater on Mimas. Wolfgang gave the directions. "Let me out here, Dad. I can make it." "Good luck. May the Holy Loser be with you." Just then, Wolfgang felt better and more confident than he had ever felt before. Somehow, he knew that this would work. He tightened up all of the clamps on his artificial gravity pressurized space uniform, and disconnected the oxygen tube. Then he sealed it. "Jettison me, Dad." Dan held his breath, and hit ejector button. Wolfgang was shot out quickly, and the small shuttle resealed and repressurized itself. Dan could see Wolfgang land just a hundred or so meters from the base entrance. "The kid's good. Must take after his mother." Dan pulled the levers on the shuttle, and took off back for Mars. MEANWHILE, out in a hidden Winner base on the moon on Mimas..... Winner General Stew Leonard gazed at the viewscreen at the stars. "Sir!" Yelled Captain Billy. The General turned, and looked at a rather nervous looking Billy, standing at attention. Yes?" "Sir, the sensors have just reported that, well, there's someone outside!" "Outside? I gave no one any authorization to leave the base! bring him inside!" "But sir, it's someone that claims to be... well.... selling cookies...." The General just stared blankly for several moments. Finally, he regained his bearings. "Captain, I could swear that you just said 'selling cookies.' You KNOW I don't tolerate any foolishness OF ANY SORT......." Billy took a long swallow. "Sir! No joke, sir! I have the message that was transmitted from the topside emergency airlock. I can play it for you." Leonard squinted his eyes, and after a short gaze that seemed like hours, he replied, "Yes. Why don't you do that." Billy nervously went to the communications terminal, and cued up the message. A computer-enhanced synthesized voice started up. "Hi! My name is Timmy and I go to Space Camp on Earth. Would anyone here like to buy some cookies to help send me to Florida?" The General just gazed again. "Is the accident in the dungeon under control?" "Yes, General. We are sending down two medics to investigate it." "What was the damage?" "We lost 3 guards, the torturer, and one fire-fighter." "And the Loser captives, what of the captives?" "Well, they most likely perished along with the others, I assume." "Fools make assumptions, Captain. Why don't you accompany those medics into the dungeon?" "Me sir? Well, I mean, they reported dangerous acid or something..." "DO YOU QUESTION ME, CAPTAIN?" "NO SIR! Ummm.... RIGHT AWAY SIR!" The Captain saluted, his hand unduly trembling, and then jogged out of the control room. The General turned to another officer. "Ensign Benson!" (ha ha I like that) "You have control of operations!" The young officer stood, his eyes glazed. "Umm, ME sir?" "NO YOUR MOTHER YOU IDIOT! Send two guards to investigate the airlock. It's probably all just some kind of computer glitch, but we should check to be safe." "YES sir. Uhhh... sir? What if by some crazy chance, there IS someone there?" "Why, bring him to me, of course." General Leonard slumped back into his recliner, and continued to stare out at the stars. MEANWHILE, In the basement of a hyper-dimensional Winner base.... The walls were metal, and the lighting was very dim. There were all shapes and sizes of various crates and assorted junk lining the chamber. The air had an almost stagnant smell to it. "Okay, Willie." Started Leah. "We're in the basement. The cold, smelly, basement. Now what?" "Right above us is the landing bay, with your ship in it. I doubt that the Winners have been able to do anything with it, with all of the junk that they've been involved in, especially since you guys arrived here. After the red alert goes off, and the tesion dies down, we make a run for it. Heuer, do you know how to get the landing bay door open?" "I don't know. What kind of lock does it have?" "They've installed a locking mechanism that requires the factoring of a semi-large product of two primes. A good mathematician with a powerful calcluator wouldn't have much of a problem." Christi started to laugh quietly. MEANWHILE, In a security office in the same base........ All of the guards on the monitors were looking around, and yelling at one another. Ray was still laughing, while Mike was looking around the room. "Check this out!" He exclaimed. "This monitor was hooked right into Zippy's chamber!" "That's pretty funny. Is Zippy still in there?" "No, it's empty. Let's see what happened!" Mike hit the rewind button, and they watched the tape quickly in reverse. They could see 8 or 9 guys carrying in a stretcher with him on it, and then leaving him there, and then Sandra Dasilva stroll in backwards with her hand on her forehead, and then lie down on the floor, and then after a brief pause, the Losers emerging from the air duct, and beating the snots out of Zippy and Sandra. Then, after the Losers left the room, began some of the most hideous pornographic footage that they had ever seen..... "Whoa!" Went Mike. "I gotta keep this tape! This is disgusting!" Even Ray got too nauseated to watch. Mike stopped the playback, ejected the microcassette, and slipped it into his uniform. "Okay." Said Ray "I think the guards are disoriented enough. We should make a run for it." "Good call. They could probably tell exactly where the transmission emanated from, I mean, this room is the core of the station security..." "Uh oh." Went Ray, who stopped smiling for a brief second. "You forgot about that, huh?" Ray jolted for the door, and deactivated the computer lock disruptor that he had hooked up. As the door opened, a hideous, yet familiar looking Winner stood before them. "Hey, buddies." Went Evil Dan. "I *knew* you'd be in here." Behind Dan was a virtual platoon of guards, all with really shiny, but scary looking weapons. Dan pulled out a cigarette and began to smoke. "Well, Losers.... (*HACK!*) You're rent's expired. Looks like your stay here is going to have to end now." Dan gave a really snazzy signal, and the guards quickly converged in, such that Ray and Mike could no longer determine what century it was.... MEANWHILE, At Third Base on Mars...... Bug Ysklowiaks continued to study the strange crystal, when an approaching ship appeared on the sensors. "Holy Loser." Went Kramer. "It's Dan." A wave of anticipation gushed through the small base. Dan executed a flawless landing, and was then met by basically a party of Losers inside the hangar. "HEY LOSERS!" Went Dan, with a grin. "As much as I'd love to stay and sign autographs, there's too much work to be done first." The Losers, a good 30 of them, let out a big cheer as Dan worked his way to the bridge. Everyone stood as he entered. "What..." Went Dan. "You're all supposed to slouch, so I can say 'at work.'" "Good Holy Loser..." Called Captain Kramer "It really IS you!" "Uh huh! Pretty cool, huh? What's new, Bug?" "Well, actually Sir, we found this." Bug held up the crystal, and Dan's jaw just dropped. After a short gaping stare, Dan yelled "Where in Harlem did you get that??!!" "It was the source of power for the Winner's subspace transducer. It was in the sattelite that kept sending us all over the galaxy. I think we can use it to get us to the mysterious base where Mike, Leah and the others are." Dan gave a quick series of confused blinks when Bug said the word 'Leah,' but then continued to say, "Do you have any idea just what that is? It's the sacred Lost Crystal of Phlegm! It was what I was looking for, before the Winners attacked me. An ancient Loser legend exclaimed that, only the wisest, bravest, and most downright inane of Losers may ever touch the crystal. How could the Winners have gotten a hold of this?" Bug just stared. "Uhhhh......" "According to the ancient legend, the Holy Loser himself, the one that guided us through the conquests of Rob, Zippy, and the Terminarnoldator, left a sacred crystal, one with the power to help us in our darkest hour of need. How could the Winners have built a sattelite to control it?" In futility, Bug started with "Well...." "That would explain why the Winners were doing that research with subspace when I was spying on them! I discovered a concentration of various Winner activity out in the moons of Saturn. I found a waste-disposal pod, and I found this thing...." Dan reached deep into his pocket, and pulled out a small pointy metal thing, with a big indentation in it. It was about the size of his hand. "Look carefully," continued Dan, "this tiny inscription on the bottom. It says 'property of Loser.' When I was trapped in the asteroid, I hooked this up to some of the small circuitry, and just created Wesley of the top of my mind. Somehow, it sent Wesley to another galaxy 3000 years in the future, at the exact place and moment that Wolfgang ended up after using the hyperjump system that I told Skippy about in that message I sent home. Skippy must have shown it to Wolfgang, he was 4 when I sent that message. Jeez.... it seems like it was just a month ago..... wait- it WAS a month ago! I hate time travel." Finally, Bug managed to get a word out. "Sir! That piece of metal that you have, may I see it?" "Here." Dan gave the metal to Bug. Bug then inserted the crystal into the indentation in the metal chunk. The crystal began to glow intently, as it's power was felt throughout the room. For some reason, all of the Losers felt amazingly, happy. Suddenly, an old white-haired form appeared in the dead center of the room. "HOLY LOSER!" Exclaimed Bug, Dan, and Kramer at basically the same time. "Yes? One at a time." Went the white-haired man. "This is it!" Went Dan. The room had a MASSIVE aura of positivity throughout it, the walls glowed white, and a cool, effervescent breeze blew through the air. "This must be out darkest hour!" "What, is it dark?" Started the Holy Loser. "I can see just fine." Even though the joke was rather corny, the Losers in the bridge had the impression like it was the funniest thing that they had ever heard. By then, most of the crew compliment of third base had flocked into the control room. "Well, even though I'm glad to be here, and would love to stay for Coke and pretzels, I really should get to business. Dan, the Winners found the sacred Crystal of Phlegm out on the moon of Mimas, that was why they built their base there. Also, because the great crater offers great cover, but that's not the point. They knew it had power, but there was nothing they could do about it because of the LoserClub that I had locked on it. That's that metal thing that you found. Somehow, they must have picked the lock. I think General Leonard is from Brooklyn. Anyway, the power is completely uncontrollable and rampant without the lock on it. Sorta like taking the steering wheel off of your car. But then, the Club would be rather pointless, huh? Well, anyway, the Winner scientists invented a clever way to at least contain the power, in that high-security force field that was in the sattelite. But it was still out of control. It was sending ships to erratic places, like way out where they decided to build their base. The crystal seemed to like that spot. Go figure. Anyway, now that the LoserClub is back on the crystal, it is yours to control. So, you can stop sitting around like plants, and start destroying those Winners. They must be stopped, and they must be stopped TODAY. Does anyone here have any toothpaste?" After the slight moment of diosorientation, Captain Kramer finally was able to return by asking "Why? What is it?" "It's stuff you use to fight plaque. But that's not important right now. Oh well, I'm outta here. Winners suck!" The Holy Loser made a really funny face, and then disappeared back into the subspace. The light and the breeze returned to normal, but everyone still felt just as happy. Dan picked up the crystal. Captain Kramer made a really good face, and gave the order. "Enough of this sitting here. It's Loser time. Commander, Ysklowiaks will take you to the Winners in the Gooden." "Not a chance, captain. This is something I have to do." "Really," went Bug. "We're up to it." "You don't understand. It has already been written. I have to go alone." After a seriously quiet gape, considering there were about 36 Loser officers all doing the gaping, Kramer took the stand with "He's the Commander. We saved your ship for you." "Really? The Schumann is still here?" "Yes Sir. It's in a vacuum chamber, all primed and set. It's newer than it was before they built it." Dan stopped to ponder this statement for a few seconds, then grinned. He grabbed a flight helmet, and darted toward the hangar bay. MEANWHILE, Out on the moon of Mimas..... Skippy, Amy, and Fladge Zomax managed to find their way over to the officer's chambers. "Over here!" Called Amy, as one of the doors was not locked. The three went inside, and looked through the closet. "Yes!" Went Fladge, "now we can get out of this fireman's armor." The three changed, and looked rather silly. Amy's outfit was way too big, and hung very loosely, while Fladge's jacket was way too tight over his chest. Skippy was the only one with a half-way decent fit, but, he was still Skippy. Suggested Skippy, "Grab another uniform for Lucky, we should go try and spring him out before anyone notices. The sooner we can get off of this station, the better." Fladge nodded, and the Losers began to march 'inconspicuously' back toward the entrance to the dungeon. On the way, a familiar voice was heard shouting from the far end of the hall. "You there! Hey! This is a restricted area!" "Pimples..." Went Amy, "She'll recognize us in a second!" "You've met her?" Asked Fladge. Answered Skippy, "Unfortunately, yes." "Stay right here," Commanded Zomax. Fladge marched down the hall to confront her at the half way point. "Who are you?" Asked the Winner officer. "Corporal Menendez, Ma'am." Fladge was specifically standing to block her view of Skippy and Amy. "Hmmm.... I've never seen you here before. You're a hot number." Fladge felt slightly ill. His fist was slowly curling up nice and tight. "Thank you, Ma'am. I take steroids." "Wow! How Winner! How would you like to come back to my room with me?" All the muscles in Fladge's right arm went tight. But, just before he could swing, another voice called. "Baroness! The General would like to see you!" The Winner turned to see a young recruit standing at the end of the hall. "Yes! Maybe it's my promotion! You'll wait for me?" "Sure." Went Fladge, in a horribly sarcastic tone. Then, the Baroness took off down the hall. Fladge Zomax let out a quiet "whew!" He then signalled to Skippy and Amy. The three marched over to the entrance of the dungeon, just in time to see two medical officers entering, accompanied by a Captain with a rifle. "Uh oh." Went Fladge. "I hope Lucky still has some luck left." MEANWHILE, Out in the basement of the secret Winner HQ...... "The alarms have stopped." Went Willie. "I think we can go now." Leah and Christi nodded. The three climbed up a ladder at the far end of the chamber, and found themselves popping out of a trap door right at the edge of a moderate-sized hangar. Sure enough, there was Leah's ship, with no one guarding it. Also sure enough, the air-sealed door to the outside, was shut. Christi pulled out her calculator, and just strolled over to the panel on the door. After about 30 seconds, the inner door of the hangar sealed, and the green launch lights were illuminated. The three Losers then ran into Leah's ship. "That was fun." Said Christi, with a psychologically unbalanced grin. The ship sealed shut, and then launched from the Winner station. Behind them, they could see the door seal shut again. The Winner base was a station holding a very low orbit around a large, gaseous giant orange planet. They could also see two Winner fighters launching from around the other side of the station. "We have to hyperspace!" Went Leah, but then Willie stopped her. "And just where do you intend on going?" Leah set the coordinates for Earth, and the computer registered an overflow error. "What the...." began Leah, when the computer revealed a travel distance of roughly 47 trillion light years. "No. This can't be right!" Exclaimed Leah. Christi then replied with "The anomly. The anomaly brought us here." "Oh no, that's right! The sattelite! How do we get home?" Just then, a laser blast pummeled the aft of the ship. The hailing beacon went on. Christi answered it. "Commander Wheeler has ordered that if you do not return immediately, your friends will be tortured slowly to death, and to destroy you." "Ummm.... What happens if we DO return immediately?" "Well, you know, I mean...." Suddenly, a small, sleek fighter seemed to pop from out of absolutely nowhere. It was a one person craft, and had a big "L" on the rudder. The fighter fired two missiles, and completely wasted a Winner fighter before anyone even knew what was going on. The second fighter turned free of Leah's ship to engage Dan. The Winner fired a missile at Dan, causing him to laugh. Dan cut a straight top 90 degree turn, and then fired an aft chaff. The motion sent the chaff right in the direction of the Winner fighter, turning the missile toward it. Before the Winner pilot could figure out what just happened, he was pummelled. Dan's radio beckoned him. "Loser fighter! How do we get back to Earth?" Dan just stopped and listened to Leah's voice for a few moments. The radio then called again. "Come in, Loser fighter! Is anyone in there?" "Hi Leah." "Hi! How do we get back to...... Jeez, for a second there, I thought you sounded like Dan, but that's crazy." "Well..... yeah. Just standby, okay?" Leah didn't answer. 'Nahhh.... It's impossible,' she thought. Just then, Dan concentrated upon the Crystal of Phlegm, sending Leah's ship back into orbit around Moon Base Cone. "Winners. Winners suck." Uttered Dan to himself, as he screamed toward the Winner base. MEANWHILE, On a hidden underground bunker on the moon of Mimas..... Two Winner guards poked around the emergency topside airlock. One of them accessed the exocom. "Uhhh.... huh huh.... is anyone, like, out there? Huh huh...." The two guards looked at each other and laughed for a few seconds, when the radio answered back. "Yes, please! Open the door! I'm selling cookies, and I don't have that much oxygen left out here!" "Heh heh heh...." Began the other guard, "He said 'cookies...' heh heh heh....." "Uhhhh... What kinda cookies? Huh huh huh...." "Heh heh heh......" "Chocolate chip. And they're still warm. Let me in before they get cold!" "Uhhhh..... Okay. Hang on while I depressurize the airlock." Says Wolfgang to himself, "Head cheese, can these guys really be THAT stupid?" He pulled out a rubber band from his backpack, and grabbed a handful of small rocks. Suddenly, the airlock opened, and Wolfgang walked in. "Thanks, guys! Say, since you guys were so nice, I'll let you get first crack at the cookies!" "YESSS! Heh heh...... Chocolate!" "That's coool." Said the other guard, while closing the outer airlock door. The guards were actually holding their breaths while they depressurized the airlock. Went Wolfgang, "here you are, sirs..." Handing the guard his box of old stale cookies. Just then, the other guard had the inner door open. Wolfgang ran inside like a flash. When the guards turned to follow, Wolfgang yelled, "Wait!" "Uhhhh...... Why?" "Stay in the airlock! Don't let anyone know that I gave you free C-O-O-K-I-E-S..........." "Uhhhh..... free Coke?" "No, Asswipe! He said Cucumbers! Heh heh heh heh...." "Huh huh huh huh......" Wolfgang slammed the emergency close button, and the accessed 'depressurize' on the menu. An access code prompt emerged...... "Dang nabbit...." went Wolfgang. "Those Winners lock everything!" He could hear from inside the airlock, "Hey, these cookies SUCK! Open the airlock, that kid was a Loser!" "Crud, Wesley! Do you know the code?" The voice from within emerged again. It said, "No Wolfgang, YOU know the code. Remember where you are...." "Gee, thanks...." Wolfgang kept hitting the 'close' button over and over to keep his new friends from getting back in. He couldn't keep it up forever. "Where am I? Where am I? Let's see...." Wolfgang reached the small keypad with his left hand, while continuously hitting 'close' with his right. He managed to type in the phrase, 'dontbealoser.' The menu screen cleared, and a red light over the door went on. He could hear screaming from within get very loud, and then suddenly just stop. "This is too easy." Said Wolfgang. "I hope the rest of the Winners are that brilliant." He took off stealthily down the hall. MEANWHILE, In the dungeon of the same base...... Lucky sat, polishing his rifle. There was a huge viewscreen that said M3DTV on the bottom, as well as a large stopwatch. The screen now had had a big crack right through it. "Thank goodness." Thought Lucky. "When they said 'torture,' I thought they meant GOOD torture." He stood quietly for a few more seconds. "Jeez, Fladge! Today! It's so DULL down here!" Just then, the door to the dungeon opened, and he could hear footsteps clomping downward. "Yes...." Thought Lucky. "Wait, I'd better just be safe." He took a quick lunge into the corner of the dark dungeon, and hid himself nicely in a shadowy crevice alongside one of the huge speakers. He could see 3 people march in, wearing protective gear, and one of them had a rifle. "Hot dog!" Exclaimed Lucky, jumping out. "Fladge, Skippy, let's get outta here!" The guy with the rifle aimed at Lucky. "You're a Loser!" He yelled, while the 2 medics just stood by, haplessly. "Uh oh." Noted Lucky. Billy pulled off his helmet and took a breath. "There is no acid down here! You Losers did all this! Where are the others?" Unbeknownst to Billy, Lucky for some reason, decided to strap his gun to his back while hiding behind the speaker. "Uhhh.... well, I can't tell you." "Then I will shoot you." Billy visibly set his gun to 'liquify.' Lucky knew he had to get good. "Okay! Okay! They're right behind you! They were planning to ambush you! Just don't shoot!" Lucky's act was worthy of Hollywood. The 2 Winner medical officers removed their helmets, and looked visibly smug about their Captain's accomplishment. Billy smiled, and turned around to face the other Losers. Lucky pulled his rifle, blasting Rightstuff in the back of his right arm, sending his weapon flying across the room. As he screamed in agony, he quickly strafed the 2 officers with more positive ion particles than an entire thunderstorm. The smell of charred flesh quickly filled the dark chamber. He could then see Billy scrambling along the floor for his rifle. "I don't THINK so." Said Lucky, with a grin, and then shooting him in the leg. Billy stopped in his tracks again. Lucky grabbed Billy by the legs, and threw him against the broken monitor. "Torture. You guys like to torture people down here, huh? Well, where I come from, torture like this is for wimps! I'll show you torture!" Billy started to scream. "Screaming is for wimps!" Went Lucky, picking up a large metal ball. "What do you use this for, Winner?" Billy just stared in complete fear. He tried to scream, but was too scared. "Well, I think this is sufficient to keep you quiet." With a basically psychopathic look on his face, Lucky literally slammed the tennis ball-sized orb into Billy's mouth, smoothly removing a nice handful of teeth along with it. "Now, who's the Winner?" Billy just made some agonizing squeaky noises, as the tears flowed from his eyes. Lucky pulled out his BFK (Big F**king Knife, of course), and cleanly landed a smooth blow of the handle squarely against his captive's nose, inflicting a healthy *crack*. Lucky laughed as the blood began to flow out as if his nose were a faucet. He could see him start to pass out. "No you don't, Winner! You haven't lost yet!" Lucky grabbed the Captain by the ankles, and hung him on the wall upside-down, with the same shackles that had just recently detained Skippy. The blood rushing to his head caused his now faucet-like nose to gush blood with an apperently even more fervent viscosity that before. "Just answer me one question, Winner. Does it hurt?" Billy just moaned, with the metal ball still in his mouth. "I take that as a yes. Well then, answer me this. Does it hurt more than it would to go outside wearing a pair of 3/4 length purple pajama pants and a Weekly World News T-Shirt?" Billy moaned again. "Wrong answer." Lucky pulled out a lighter, and proceeded to set Billy ablaze. He stood there and grinned antisocially as he watched Billy writhe about for a few moments, until the movement completely stopped. Just then, he could here a quiet, whispered voice call, "Lucky?" Lucky quickly lunged for his rifle, and rolled behind a mutilated corpse for cover. "Lucky? Are you all right?" "Fladge? Finally!" "Let's get scarce, Loser. First, change your carnage embalmed vestige. We obtained a Winner officer's uniform for you." MEANWHILE, About 47 trillion light years from Earth..... "Here goes nothing....." Said Dan to himself. He turned on the radio. "Winner base! This is General Wheeler. The Losers are dead. Let me back in." After a pause, the radio responded. "Ummm, General? You left the base yourself? We never received notice that you left...." "Do a voice pattern scan, you moron! It's me! Let me in and maybe I won't have you executed." After another brief pause, the radio channel re-opened. "Uhhh, YES Sir! A thousand pardons, General! You're cleared in hagar bay one!" Dan could see the front landing bay doors opening, and the lights going on. He took a breath, and expertly piloted his fighter right into the Winner hangar. He emerged from the fighter, and about 6 armed officers were there to meet him. They definitely looked very suspicious. "Stop staring, peons! I stole this ship from a Loser base near Earth! I pretended to be a reincarnation of their Loser General. See? I'm in disguise as a Loser!" The guards still didn't look completely convinced, but he knew that he bought at least a couple minutes. "The other Loser prisoners, are they still here?" Reluctantly, a guard responded, "Yes, Sir." "Good. Take me to them now. I want to execute them. We don't need them here any more." The guards accompanied Dan up to a higher level, and into a back hallway with completely white walls and a long row of small white rooms. In the last room, Dan could see Ray and Mike tied to a floor, with a large amount of wires attatching each of them to a big metal device. "What the...." Mumbled Dan under his breath. Just then, a loud, booming, yet rather familiar voice echoed through the hallways. "Attention Winners! This is General Wheeler! There is an impostor in this station! I want him aprehended, and brought to me alive! An automatic promotion to the one who delivers him!" The guards all immediately converged on Dan. One of them grabbed for his arm, but was then shoved away by one of the others. Within a few seconds, the 6 guards were all beating the snots out of one another, of course, each one after that promotion. Dan saw his one chance. He went to the device, and examined it. It was a huge power transducer, and it had a large, metal, analog lever on it. The lever was currently switched to the extreme left, which was marked by the word "drain." The other end was marked, "charge." Dan quickly pulled the switch as far right as it would go. Very shortly after, a guard grabbed Dan's arm. Dan turned around, and the guards face was badly bruised and bleeding, and his uniform was dogged. There were 5 other guards all sprawled out on the floor. "Let's go." Commanded the guard, with a rifle to Dan's back. On the way out of the room, he gazed back at the machine, just hoping that he pulled the right switch. MEANWHILE, Out on the Winner base on Mimas...... Wolfgang stealthily maneuvered down the scantily patrolled hallways. It seemed like the hallways were much more sparse than they were when he first escaped with Skippy and Amy. He looked left and right for the other Losers, not particularly intent on staying in there very long. Sneakily, he peeped in from chamber to chamber, and they all seemed, for the most part, practically vacant. Something was going on. Then, he heard a horrifying shrieking sound...... "EDUAAAARDOOOO........" His heart skipped a beat. The call sounded like it was coming from the hallway directly ahead of him. This was unacceptable. He turned around, then he suddenly heard what sounded like the footsteps of a small child coming from the other direction. The horrible shriek resounded again. Wolfgang looked around desperately, and then spotted a door that said "Emergency Exit" on it. He ducked in. Up a stairwell and down another hall, he reached another emergency exit door. Except through this door, he could hear voices...... "General Leonard, Sir," went a shrill female voice. "You sent for me?" "Yes Baroness. You inquired about a promotion?" "Well....... actually......" "Just can it. You're a Winner, I know what you want, and I want to give it to you. I have chosen you to command the WSS Pain in the attack of Earth. The last of the crew is already aboard, it just needs it's Captain." "Oh Sir! Thank you, I won't let you down!" "You had BETTER not let me down. You have 80 officers on that ship, about all that's left of the Winner Empire! You can NOT fail, understood?" "Yes sir! Have the launch keys for the 50 warheads been uploaded?" "Of course. We will not fail. The Losers will pay dearly for their sins. Soon, there will finally exist a world where everyone is exactly the same, where everyone is cool. It will be glorious! And WE will be it's rulers!" "WE, sir?" "Yes, Baroness, WE." Wolfgang just held his breath, and his jaw fell open. Then, a different voice spoke out. "General, Sir, Captain Rightstuff has not yet returned. Do you think something might have happened?" "Does it really MATTER now? Ensign, or perhaps, Captain Benson?" "Well, not really sir, but those Losers' bodies were never found..... SIR!" "What??!" "The sensors have just indicated an unauthorized launch of the emergency pod! Security indicates that the launch computer was just completely fused, probably shot by a laser blast!" "How many people are in that shuttle?" "Ummmm......... The sensor reads four, Sir!" "It's them. The pod they stole has no hyperdrive. Baroness, take your shuttle and leave at once. You will reach the Pain far before the Losers even know it's there. Once you reach the Pain, your first duty will be to intercept that pod, and destroy it on sight." "Yes, Sir! My pleasure." "Now get the Hell outta here." The sound of a door sliding open then followed. Wolfgang just sat there and breathed very rapidly. "Okay Wesley. Now what?" The voice inside replied, "In the words of a great Loser, DON'T PANIC." "Good call." Replied Wolfgang. "I gotta get in that shuttle before the Baroness!" Wolfgang took off back for the hallway. MEANWHILE, In a small Winner escape pod..... "Hey Lucky?" Asked Skippy, "Do you really think shooting that panel was a great idea? I mean, the security must have detected us leaving." "Yeah, well, we're outside now. How can they stop us?" Answered Fladge, "Well, actually, remember that immense battleship that aprehended us previously? That is most likely still at large...." After a brief bout of silence, Lucky answered, "Oh." Added Amy, "Giant battle cruiser, huh? Here I was, thinking I might actually get to sleep for the first time in HOW many stinkin' hours, and NOW you bring up a Winner battleship?" "Relax." Comforted Lucky, "I'm here. What can possibly go wrong?" A good 30 seconds of silence passed. "How long to Ithaca?" Asked Fladge. Replied Skippy, "at this speed, at least 96 hours." After another tense pause, Fladge exclaimed a sub-confident "Farg....." Then, asked Lucky, "What sorta food do we have in this thing?" MEANWHILE, In a Winner bridge 47 trillion light years away..... "Oh most exalted Winners!" Went the guard, "I brought you the captive!" In front of Dan, stood what looked like a mirror that was playing a cruel joke. He could see himself, but with greasy hair and a leather jacket and cashmir pants and leather dress shoes. Beside the mirror was another familiar face from the past, except upon a larger, rounder body than he remembered. "How..." began Zippy, "I personally oversaw them sealing you in that asteroid. There's no way you could have escaped!" Dan's rage was overflowing. He so badly wanted to just jump them both and beat them to death with his bare hands. But, the concentration of armed guards in the bridge deterred him. "Well," started Evil Dan, "this base ain't big enough for the two of us. So, although the more of me there is around to love the better, we just can't keep ya. Shoot him." At that moment, Dan grabbed his Crystal of Phlegm and thought of safety. Suddenly, he was in a damp, smelly basement. "This is safety?" He said to himself. He bagan to look around, and he suddenly spotted a thin micro-text book on the floor. The cover said "Binary Matrix Analysis," and it was published by MegaLoser University of New Jersey, and on the back cover, someone wrote "Columbus discovered Ohio in 1942." Somehow, Dan did indeed feel safe. MEANWHILE, In a small white room....... Mike sat up, pulling a bunch of wires out of his head. "Ray! Get up! I feel so good!" "Shut up, fag!" Yelled Ray, literally jumping off the floor, ripping out the wires while doing so. "What the Hell happened, Ray? Are we still in the Winner base?" "I hope so, I crave mass diembowelment." Mike grinned. Just then, the PA boomed on again. "Hey Dan! I know you're in here somewhere! You can't escape, there's no way! I've got every single hangar bay completely overridden. Only me or Mark can turn them back on! You can't stay hiding forever, you know! Return to the bridge in 15 minutes, or we go execute your friends!" "What a friggin' PENIS!!" Yelled Ray. "Let's KILL HIM!!" Ray and Mike ran out into the hall, and started briskly marching down. Suddnely, they noticed the that some of the other chambers were actually occupied by more prisoners, sitting miserably in hopes of an improbable rescue. Apparently, the Winner guards didn't feel that it was necessary to unlock the doors from the outside again. Mike and Ray defied probability, and freed them all. "Hey! You're Loser supreme! Wow! My name is Roland, I'm a Loser too! We're all Losers!" "Pleased to meet you, Losers! Let's get somewhere safe first, then we'll start the formal introductions. Ray, back down the hall and into the airducts?" "I hate airducts." "Any better ideas?" "Unfortunately, not at the moment, no." "At the end of this hall, there should be two armed guards. We're going to have to jump them quickly and quietly... Ray!" Before he could finish, Ray was already down the hall with his fists clenched. "Well," went Mike slightly desperately, "let's go then!" By the time the Losers caught up to Ray, a guard was out cold, and the other was just about to have his face introduced informally to a steel wall. "Oh by the way..." went Mike, "Losers, this is Ray." "Hey." Said Ray with a nod. Mike and Ray took the guards' rifles, and the now six Losers ducked back into the air ducts. MEANWHILE, Out on Mimas.... "Hangar bay.... hangar bay...." Thought Wolfgang, "now where was that hangar bay??" "Wolfgang," relied Wesley, "you found it once. You know where it is. Just follow you instinct." "Instinct. Right. My instinct tells me to just run through this accessway here and make a right. Which will probably take me to that crazy General. What the heck?" Wolfgang followed his instinct, and saw a shuttlecraft being loaded with basic rations and being fueled for a departure very soon. As soon as the guy loading the rations turned around, Wolfgang dashed into the shuttle, and hid behind a stack of boxes. About two minutes later, the Baroness boarded the ship, and sealed the doorway. She entered in all of her clearence codes, and the shuttle took off from the base. MEANWHILE, In a basement 47 trillion light years away..... "You have to make everything so complicated, don't you Loser?" Boomed the P.A. once again. "I gave you 15 minutes, you now have two. We do not bluff. This is your final chance." Dan took a long swallow. He said to himself, "I wonder if that switch I pulled actually did anything. Crud, if there was only a way I could find out." He started toward the ladder, to go give himself back to the Winner troops, when he suddenly heard a familiar screaming sound rapidly approaching. The sound ended with a distinct 'thud.' "Stupid airducts." Said Mike. "Ray! Wait.... *ooooffffff*" "Oops, sorry Loser." "Yes!" Yelled Dan. "It worked!" "YOU!" Yelled Mike, jumping on Dan and flattening him to the ground. With Mike's hands firmly around his neck, Dan eeked out the word, "wait.." Mike let go, and Dan took a deep breath. "What. Tell me why I should wait to kill the mightiest of Winners." Just then, the last of the Losers slid down the tube into the basement. They all stood there watching the spectacle. Mustered Dan, "I'm a Loser." "Sure. Deceitful little Winner, are we? Prove it." "Open my jacket, look at my T-shirt." Mike did so, and sure enough, the shirt had a radioactivity symbol on it, and the word 'LOSER' written in marker across the bottom. "I freed you from that energy drain thingie. How else do you think you woke up?" Just then, the P.A. boomed again with the voice of Dan. "Very well, Loser. We are going to go kill one of your friends now. Heck, we'll kill them both. Then we'll kill all of the other Losers that we captured with our satellite. Then, we'll sweep the base, find you, and kill you too. Have a nice fuckin' day, Loser!" "Hold on, hold on." Noted Mike. "If you're Dan, then who was THAT?" "My clone. Zippy made him 7 years ago. It's a long story that I'll tell you later. Now, we need to kill some Winners. Who are our new friends?" After a pause, the other Losers stood looking flabbergasted. "Oh, sorry. I mean, this is all just so amazing, I mean, you've been dead for 7 years and all.... Oh, my name is Roland. This big crazy looking guy here, this is Dirk. The two youngsters are Danielle and Bob. There were a lot more of us, but the Winners used them all for target practice....." "Target practice, huh?" Went Ray. "Oh, there's gonna be some target practice here today...." Ray started marching for the ladder to the landing bay. "Ray! Stop!" Called Dan "we can pop in on them completely by surprise!" This sounded good to Ray, more potential slaughter. Asked Mike, "Huh? How?" "I have the Sacred Crystal of Phlegm. It was granted to me by the Holy Loser himself." "Get out!" "Yup. It was what was controlling that anomaly stuff that kept getting you guys lost." Mike looked even more psychotically happy than ever. "We need weaponry. This is a basement, let's see what kind of goodies we can dig up!" Just then, the red alert lights went up again. "They discovered our escape!" Went Mike. "There will be chaos up there." "There's going to be chaos from down here." Interjected Ray, holding up a thermal detonator launcher he just found. "It's a bit outdated, but I sure wouldn't want to be shot by it." After about 5 minutes, the Losers had enough weaponry to destroy the entire base. Asked Dan, "You're sure that you're all up to this? I can use the crystal to send you home right now." No one replied. Interjected Mike while cocking an AK-47, "Let's rock." "Okay then." Instructed Dan, "everyone join hands in a circle." The Losers formed a circle, and Dan concentrated on a strategic spot. The Losers popped up in a the soldier's chambers, where the troops were completely off guard. After about 1 minute, the place was literally wrecked. Not a Winner was standing. Alarm sirens were screaming all over. "Let's spread out!" Yelled Mike, "we can do more damage!" The Losers spread around, open firing at anyone that didn't look like a Loser. In one hallway, Roland and Dan literally melted a group of guards with a thermal detonator. In another, Mike and Dirk distracted 4 heavily armed guards by blowing up an empty bathroom. When the confused guards went to investigate, they were unexpectedly strafed in the legs and arms by automatic machine gun fire, since the legs were the parts without armor. When they could no longer hold their weapons, they were jumped, and were each sliced neatly in the throats with BFK's. Bob and Danielle were shooting guards in legs with crossbow darts, pointed with syringes filled with acid. Ray just flattened each and every Winner he spotted with his thermo-launcher. Mike and Dirk then stumbled into Zippy's quarters, to see someone cowering underneath a bunch of blankets. Dirk aimed at the quivering lump, then Mike signalled him not to shoot. Mike, cautiously, with his trigger finger primed and set to annihilate, moved toward the person. Quickly, he lifted the blanket. "Sandra!" "Get out, creep! You clubbed me in the head!" "I'm going to shoot you in the head if you don't tell me where Zippy is!" "Uhhhh..... I don't know! He was on the bridge with Dan!" Just then, Zippy turned very nervously into the room. Mike and Dirk both aimed their guns direct at him. "FUCK!" Yelled Zippy, diving back out of the room, just narrowly avoiding about 600 bullets. They could ever-so-slightly feel the entire station tremble as Zippy hit the ground. "After him!" Yelled Mike, but just as the Losers reached the door out of the chamber, they heard a blaster shot, and the door sealed itself shut. "ZLORFIK!" Yelled Mike, "we'll have to blast it! Stand back..." Sandra screamed as Mike and Dirk detonated the doorway. All that was left was a bent, crooked hole where the door was. "Dirk, go help Dan! I'm going after that friggin' slug boy...." Mike ran, dodging corpses and singed metal, straight to hangar bay one. Somehow, Zippy must have had a massive short cut, because the inner airlock door was already sealed, which signalled that the outer door was opening. "You're not getting away that easily!" Yelled Mike, setting another charge on the door. He took a really deep breath. The airlock door controls blew, and the door pounded open. He could see a Winner shuttle taking off. Unless it was Evil Dan, which he somehow doubted, he knew it had to be Zippy because he was the only other one with the launch codes. Mike used the vacuum of space to let himself be sucked out to the Schumann, in which the cockpit was still open. He grabbed the door as firmly as he could, and pulled himself into the seat. He then hit, 'close,' and 'pressurize.' As the oxygen began to flow again, he took a nice deep breath, and then typed in the standard Loser fighter code sequence to start the engines. By the time he was off the ground, Zippy was already well outside the base, and the outer door had begun to close. "Hail Holy Loser." Said Mike, as he punched the engines, and streaked through the closing doors. He managed to sneak through with about 6 inches to spare on each side. "It's a good thing I went to those flight lessons. That might have been easier if I actually paid attention in class, though." Mike opened a radio channel. "Hey Zippy! Give up! You are so STUCK! Dan deactivated the anomaly, he has the crystal now! I can outgun you in a second!" This was, of course, a bluff. Mike couldn't fly out of a hangar. At least, not without a huge degree of pressure behind him, and perhaps some help from the Holy Loser. "HA!" Went the radio in return. "That's what YOU think!" 'Ha?' Mike said to himself, under his breath. Just then, Zippy's ship vanished into nothingness. "What? How? Oh Holy Loser!!" Just then a resounding voice filled his cockpit. It said, "The entity that you have reached is not available at this time. Please leave your name, galaxy, and milennium, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. *BEEP*" "Whoa! Airball, Milky Way, 3rd." The voice returned. "Hello Loser! Some residual energy from the crystal is still around. Zippy's ship was programmed to hone in on it. Just relax, I'll guide you out of here." "Excellent! Thanks!" "No problem." "Hey, what was with that crazy message?" "It was funny, wasn't it?" "Of course." "Well, Loser, you just answered your own question. Winners suck." Mike put on a huge grin, and then just sorta laughed a little. He let go of the controls, and waited. After about 10 seconds, the Schumann vanished. MEANWHILE, Within the really far away Winner base..... Dirk, Dan, Roland, Danielle, Bob, and Ray all converged at the doorway to the bridge. "Anyone left?" Asked Ray. "I killed 26 of 'em." "You actually kept count?" Asked Roland. Answered Ray, "Uh huh. See? I put notches in my thermo-launcher. After I ran out of detonators, I just started clubbing whoever I saw over the head with it." Then, suddenly noticed Dan, "Hey, where's Mike?!" "Oh, he went after Zippy." Informed Dirk. "I think they left the base." "Good. Ray, do you want to do the honors?" "Sure." Ray used a laser to singe a hole through the door to the bridge. The Losers all entered cautiously, with their guns cocked, charged, and ready. "Hey, WINNER!" Yelled Dan, "looks like you finally lost!" There was no response. "Something's VERY wrong...." went Dan. He then spotted a terminal with small timer on it, that currently said 00:00:04 and was steadily counting down. "EVERYONE HIT DIRT!!" Screamed Dan, as the Losers respectively dove for cover. A massive explosion flooded the bridge, sending shards of hot metal and shrapnel everywhere. After about a minute, the P.A. system sounded again. "Think again, LOSER. That's why we're the Winner's, and your just DIRT! Come and get me if you can!" Dan crawled to his hands and knees, metal bits wedged into his back and neck. Danielle and Bob jumped behind a computer core, avoiding most of the blast. Dirk was cut up and burned rather ugly. Roland wasn't moving. Ray, somehow or another, just managed to stand there and not get hit by anything. Dan crawled over to Roland. His neck and eyes were badly gouged, and he wasn't breathing. "That bastard is mine." Went Dan, now really pissed. "Ray, take the other Losers and go home. Take them all to a hospital. I'm the only one that can stop that damned Winner." "Uhh, Dan," noted Ray, "you're the one gouged with shrapnel. I'm fine. Maybe I should stay and go after him...." "NO! Only I can do this! I need you to get the others to safety!" "Okay. Good luck." Dan grabbed the crystal and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was alone. The room was dark, and smelled of charred metal and flesh. The only light was that of a staticky monitor, and the glow of a few burnt embers. MEANWHILE, Somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn...... "Come in WSS Pain.... This is the Baroness.... Code number WS62018B...." "Code is clear." Replied the radio, "transmit your landing security." The Baroness then typed a long series of buttons into the shuttle's keypad, and then shortly after, the radio signalled a reply. "You are cleared, Captain. Intercept in 86 seconds." The Baroness clicked off the radio, and began to pilot. Wolfgang then just lodged himself deeper behind the cover of the shuttle's cargo. Soon, the shuttle was inside a large landing bay, and the exit door and ramp slowly opened. The baroness quickly unseated herself and dashed out. Wolfgang still sat quietly in hiding. He could fainlty hear a voice instruct, "(someone, someone), unload the cargo. Bring it into storeroom B." "Wesley!" Whispered Wolfgang, "what now?!" "Look in your backpack." "Okay.... Hey, rocks from Mimas, and a rubber band!" Wolfgang grinned to Wesley, and Wesley grinned back. The kid then poised himself behind the crates, dressed the elastic over his thumb and forefinger, and loaded it with a rock. After a few seconds, the first Winner marched in, and looked at the the cargo. Wolfgang popped up, and bolted him square between the eyes with the rock. The schlep let out a "YOWWW!" and stumbled backwards, right back onto the steps, on which the second schlep just happened to be climbing. Wolfgang could hear a distinct, "HEY! WATCH IT... *Ooof*..." folowed by a series of *thuds* and bangs. Then, the loud sounds stopped, and were proceded by quiet moans. Wolfgang grabbed his bag and ran down the stairs to see the two guards lying on the ground holding their heads. He then tied their shoelaces together, just to be safe. The landing bay that Wolfgang was in was a standard lading bay. There were a handful of shuttles, and corridors heading in the four basic directions. "I have to disable this ship, before it can blow up Skippy's shuttle!" "Well Wolfgang..." started Wesley, who was then interrupted this time by Wolfgang. "I know, I have to get to engineering. I can shut down lotsa stuff from there!" Wolfgang then started off down the aft corridor. MEANWHILE, 47 trillion light years away..... "Where are you, you coward?" Yelled Dan, holding a large metal pipe. "Coward?" Replied the voice over the P.A. "You of all people should know that I am no coward! I'm you, except for one difference. Unlike you, I enjoy kicking people when they are down. And now, Loser, you're down!" Dan swung the pipe against a charred monitor, pulverizing it. He then stopped, and realized what he had just done. "Jeez, I feel like Ray! Oh well...." He grabbed an automatic weapon and whatever rounds he could scrounge up, and took of for the hallway. The hallway glowed red, since now only the emegency lights were functioning. The once gleaming white walls, now looked treacherously dark and foreboding. A dead body lied down at the end of the corridor to the left. Dan decided to go right. Cautiously, he patrolled down the hallway. Turning the corner revealed another hallway, with a few scattered doorways lining either side of the corridor. Way down at the other end, he could just barely make out an elevator door. He slowly the proceeded to make his way down the hall, stopping to check each doorway along the way. The hall smelled of burning flesh, as the dead Winner officers showed a testament to the rampage. Everything was so quiet. The sounds of people, and electronics, and life in general, had basically stopped. The only sound was the gentle humming of the emergency generator. After what seemed close to an eternity, Dan reached the other end of the hall. Just as he feared, the elevator was wrecked. No matter, it wasn't as if he would have been stupid enough to use an elevator with that psychopath running free. Fortunately, as Dan had hoped, there was an emergency stairwell on the right side of the hallway next to the elevator. Inside the stairwell door, was the number 3. The stairs led both up and down. Dan paused. "Okay, Loser." He whispered to himself, "where would *I* hide....... I guess up would be a more strategic position." He then started up the stairs, and then stopped. "Wait! He knows that I would go look for him up, so he would probably go down!" He then turned, and began to head down. Suddenly, he stopped again. "Ahhh... But he knows that I know that he knows that I would go look for him up, so he probably would go up!" Now rather happy with himself, he began up the dimly lit stairwell. Slowly, he trodded the steps, one by one, until he reached the next door, that read 4. The stairs continued upward. Dan followed. The stairs ended at a door marked 5. Dan slowly opened the door, and was once again in a foreboding red-glowing hallway. There was once again, a small concentration of dilapidated corpses strewn about. He started down the hall. Suddenly, from what appeared to be out of nowhere, a virtual army of, what looked like dead soldiers, started marching right toward him. "What the...." Started Dan, and then he just proceeded to unload hundreds of rounds into the approaching threat. The bullets seemed to have little effect. The soldiers weren't slowing down. Dan continued to fire, until the gun was completely empty. The guards converged down on Dan, who just closed his eyes. Before he knew it, they just walked right through him, and then vanished. "CRUD!" Yelled Dan, "holograms!" The P.A. boomed again. "I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew that I would go up, so I left you a gift. HA HA HA HA...." Dan kicked one of the corpses of a dead Winner. "I WILL find you, Winner." Dan then went back into the stairwell. He decided to try level 4, because that was the most likely position to install a control room. The hall was red and quiet again, and the body count was devastating. This was the hall where most of the officers quarters were, and where the surprise attack began. The walls were still burning and caked with blood and pus. Charred carcasses lined the floors. Dan steadily blazed a path through the carnage. Nothing moved. Back down at the fore end of the hall, was the only door that was closed. Dan was half way down the hall, when he stopped. "No, that's way too obvious. It could even be a trap. I'd better not...." Just then, before he could turn around, a body jumped on Dan's back bringing him the to cracked and blood-soaked ground. An annoying voice shreiked, "You bastard! You did this!" as fists were pelting down upon Dan's already bleeding neck. "OW!" Yelled Dan, as he jumped as hard as he could into the steel wall, sandwiching his attacker between himself and it. He could then feel whoever it was fall to the ground. "You killed everyone! And Zippy, where's Zippy?" "Sandra? What are you doing here?" "Are you..... Dan the Loser?" Dan quickly decided to play a little game, just for fun. "Of course not! I'm your General!" "Oh! Sorry General. Did you catch the impostor?" "Uhhh... No. He's still at large and very dangerous. Look what he did to all these poor, defenseless Winners!" "What about Zippy? Is he OK?" "No, he's dead. That Loser killed him." Sandra began to cry, really loudly and obnoxiously. Dan held up his pipe to swing it, but then just stopped himself. "Sandra, just stay here." She just nodded, and crawled back into bed. Dan shook his head in disbelief. He went back into the hall, and went down to the door that was closed. It was sealed shut, and all of the computers were down, so there appeared to be no way to get through. Up in the top corner of the hallway, was a security camera. Dan pondered a second, and then knocked it off the wall with his metal pipe. It didn't appear to have been functioning, because there was no power going through it. Somehow, Evil Dan could power that hologram generator, and the P.A. "Somewhere, there has to be some kind of emergency power generator. Since that Winner has control of it, that might be where he is." Dan smashed the camera on the floor, and used some metal scraps to wedge between the sealed doors. Then, with his metal pipe, he managed to slide them open. Without, power, there was nothing to keep them locked. Inside the room, was revolting. The room was neater and more sterile than a hospital operating room. There was some neaveux modern art on the walls, and designer tapestries. The one thing that looked out of place, was a large portrait of himself. "Yuck." Said Dan. He then proceeded to just screw the room up, just for matter of principle. He trashed the bed, pulled down the pictures, and dumped out the closet. However, in doing so, he made a completely unexpected discovery. "Yes! It's my backpack! How..... Oh, who cares!" He opened it, and found some medicine for his shrapnel wounds, some black clothes, an old Mets hat, a pair of glasses, a tape of Evil Dead 2, a bunch of sheet music, a pack of 3 1/2 inch disks, and last but not least, a BFK. "Yes!" Exclaimed Dan, who then started to change his clothes. MEANWHILE, Aboard the WSS Pain........ "Four, five..... six! Ack, Wesley! How am I supposed to get by six Winner engineering officers myself?" "Create a diversion." "Okay. How?" Just then, the message went over the board to the entire ship. "Corporal Phil Smith! Report to Gun station 1! Operation: Interception." "Oh crap Wesley, that's them!" "Well, don't just sit there!" Wolfgang looked around very nervously, and suddenly saw something that made him grin. "No, it can't be that easy, can it?" He stealthily snuck around to the back control panel of engineering, and then found exactly what he was looking for. There was a microphone, with a series of transmit buttons next to it. He pushed only the one marked "engineering." Wolfgang took a breath, and tried to lower his voice as much as he possibly could. "Would the engineering officers please report to the snack bar for a short meeting? All engineering officers to the snack bar." "The snack bar?" Asked Wesley, curiously. "Sure. There has to be a snack bar. See?" The engineers looked at one another, and 5 of them took off for the corridor. "Argh, there's one left. He must be the chief engineer. I'll have to club him." He pulled out another rock, and plugged him in the side of the head with a rock. Unfortunately, it was not hard enough to knock him down. "What the..... Great Winner! Red alert! Red alert...." The engineer was scrambling toward the radio console, when Wolfgang knew that this was his moment. He leaped toward the officer, tying his hands around his legs. The unbalanced officer took a swing at Wolfgang, but Wolfgang managed to avert his head from the punch. Wolfgang then made a fist, and ground it as firmly as he could into the Winner's gonads. The guard went down, and let out a viscious moan. Wolfgang then clubbed his head against the floor, sending him out. "Okay.... Override..... override..... Here it is! Damn, another password!" He typed in "Dontbealoser," but it said access denied. "Wesley?" "Sorry kid, this one's got me stumped, too." "Ummm.... ummm..... that crazy General uploaded all the computer info, right? And he assigned the Baroness this...." He stopped, and then proceeded to type a password. "It just CAN'T be this easy. There's NO WAY...." He typed in "Ilovebaroness," and of all the things in the universe, the password was accepted. "Un-BELIEVABLE!" Exclaimed Wolfgang, who then accessed the emergency weapons and shields shutdown. MEANWHILE, In a Winner escape pod..... "Fladge! That's it! That's the Winner space cruiser! We have to get scarce!" "Uhhh, Lucky? This pod goes slower than a Chevy Vega." Added Skippy, "So, this is it. We're going to die. And I forgot my peril-sensitive sunglasses." "Skippy, look!" Yelled Amy, very suddenly. "There's another ship approaching on the radar!" MEANWHILE, Upon the bridge of the WSS Pain.... "Ma'am, we the pod is in range." "Fire. Leave nothing." After a brief pause, the ensign relpied very nervously. "Uhhh... Ma'am? Smith just tried to fire, and, well, uhh, the computer indicates a security override of the weapons from engineering..." "WHAT?!" "Uhh... There's more. There are 5 engineering officers in the snack bar..." "SEND SECURITY TO THE SNACK BAR AT ONCE! Throw all of them into holding. Then, send someone to engineering to put the weapons back on line! We still have enough time, that pod can never possibly escape this cruiser." "Ma'am!" Yelled the navigator. "We're picking up another ship!" MEANWHILE, Inside the Gooden....... "Ambassador Skippy? Is that you in that escape pod?" Asked Bug Ysklowiaks into the subspace radio. "LOSER! There's a massive Winner Battle cruiser here! We've been in and out of fire range twice, but they haven't fired! They might be toying with us!" "The Gooden's sensors indicate that the cruiser's shields are down! What's going on?" "What?!" Yelled Fladge, "Did you say the shields are down??" "Yes! That's what it looks like!" "TRASH IT!! BLOW IT UP NOW!!" Then interrupted Skippy. "WAIT! Hey Bug, have you picked up Wolfgang anywhere?" "No. Isn't he with you?" "Don't blow up the Winner cruiser!" "Why not? What's wrong?" "I just have a feeling. Blow out the landing bay doors! We should try and get inside it." "Agreed. Standby. Ysklowiaks out." MEANWHILE, Aboard the WSS Pain..... "Baroness! The new ship has just been identified as a Loser ship, and just fired 4 missiles at us!" "Ha! Our shields can waste...... Oh no...... ENGINEERING!" "They're working on it! They said that whoever shut the stuff down must have accessed through some obscure back door! They can't get the power back on line!" "RED ALERT! RED ALERT...." Just then, the WSS Pain rocked with huge impact. A few of the computer screens turned to static. Yelled the Baroness, "Damage report!" "The landing bay is trashed! We lost all our shuttles! The emergency airlocks have sealed off the area!" "The warheads! What about the warheads?!" "All are still intact, Ma'am!" "Launch one." MEANWHILE, In an airduct aboard the WSS Pain...... Wolfgang sat and watched the Winners try desperately to restore the weapons and shields. He found this amusing. Just then, the ship rocked, as if there was an explosion. After the vibration stopped, he could hear the officers exclaim that they had been hit by missiles. Wolfgang knew then that his friends were outside. After about another minute, the ship rocked again, but this time, it was totally different. One of the officers mentioned that it felt like a nuclear missile launching. MEANWHILE, Aboard the Gooden.... "HOLY FAGRING LOSER!" Yelled Dilberg. "They launched a nuclear missile!!" "Fernandez, I know that everyone says you're the best and all, but do you think that you can pilot us around that missile, put a tractor lock on that escape pod, and then land us both in that landing bay?" After a short and very unusual pause, Fernadez shrugged, and then replied, "Sure." "The stage is yours, Loser." Bug took a deep breath, sat back in his chair, and hoped. Fernandez looked at the missile, and could instantly tell that it was programmed to hunt down their ship. He laughed at this, and then went to work. He engaged a tractor beam, locking it directly onto the approaching missile, and set it to pull as hard as it possibly could. Right at the perfect moment, he disengaged the beam, slingshotting the Gooden toward the Pain, and the missile toward deep space. He then immediately engaged another tractor beam, this one locking square onto the Winner escape pod. Finally, he cut a turn, that as far is anyone is concerned, no ship could have ever possibly made. The missile lost its signal, and continued off into space. By the time they even began to figure out what had just happened, the Gooden was safely inside the Pain, with the Winner escape pod clinging on right behind them. Yelled Malarky in total confusion, "What da Hell just happened??!!" Fernandez just put on a very satisfied grin. MEANWHILE, 47 trillion light years away..... Dan took off back down the hall. Even though he was basically right where he was a couple of minutes ago, he felt better. He had his backpack, and he knew exactly what was left to do. He marched over the carnage back to the stairwell, and went down to level 2. Surprisingly, the hallway that was overlooking the hangar bay was not littered with carcasses at all. All of the troops must have moved up to meet the Loser invaders. It all made sense now. He slowly began to creep down the hall. All the doors in this hallway were closed, and everything was horrifyingly silent. The dim, red glow of the emergency lights didn't help at all, either. He slowly stalked, prying open the doors with his pipe one by one. He managed to discover a bathroom, a mess hall, a food storage pantry, a waste disposal pod, another bathroom, and then an officer's lounge with offices attached. Then, the next door that he tried to pry, wouldn't open. "I FOUND YOU, WINNER! OPEN THE DOOR!" There was no response. Dan started smashing the door with his pipe, putting several dents into it. However, it was still nowhere near opening. He stopped and began to have second thoughts. "Crap! This might be another trick! He turned and looked around in all directions, to see if there was anyone around. Then, as soon as his back was facing the door, it bolted open, and out rushed Evil Dan. Before Dan could react, Evil Dan had pushed him up and over the railing. However, on his descent, he managed to grab onto a flagpole that was supporting a flag of the giant W of Winner, suspended about 50 feet above the floor of the main landing bay, and 10 feet from the platform above him. His metal pipe fell to the floor, and made a distinct *bang*. "HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! Losers lose! That's the way it's always been, always will be, and always should be!" "Drop dead, Winner." Muttered Dan, hanging on with every ounce of strength that he had." "Feisty, are you? Right now, my forces are planning a full scale genocide of all the Losers on Earth. You will be simply annihilated. Then, we will just have to reclaim that what is ours. But first, I will enjoy killing you myself. The testimony of Winner over Loser." "Just like a Winner. The only way that you can defeat someone, is when they're completely defenseless." "HA HA HA!!!! Nice try!! Look, I'm defenseless!" Evil Dan held up his hands, and they were empty. "Yeah, right. You're a Winner. What's hidden behind your back?" Dan reached into the right leg pocket of his pants. "Nothing! Nothing at all! See?" Evil Dan leaned his head over the railing exposing his huge happy Winner victory grin, and empty hands. "Winners suck." Uttered Dan, grabbing the yellow crystal as hard as he possibly could. Before Evil Dan's eyes, Dan vanished. "Hi Dan." Was all that he heard, as he felt someone tapping him on the shoulder. As Evil Dan turned around startled, Dan smoothly rammed the knife as far as he could into the Winner's throat. He then shoved the body over the railing, and waited to hear the *splat*. "You lose, Winner." MEANWHILE, Right off of the moon of Mimas..... Zippy disengaged his hyperdrive. "Winner base! This is Lord Mark! Here is my landing clearance!" "You're cleared, Emperor. Welcome home." Zippy flew into the base, and then landed. Just then, Mike jupmed out of hyperspace right about where Zippy just did. Shortly afterward, he was hailed. "Crap." Went Mike, for he knew there was only one way to get inside. "This is Lord Airball of the Losers. I must see Zippy." "WHAT? Hold on...." MEANWHILE, Inside the Winner base of Mimas..... "Umm.. General Leonard, Sir, there's some guy here that says he's the Lord of the Losers, and wants to see Lord Mark." "You can't be serious." "Yes... yes sir. I am serious." Stew Jumped onto a station intercom system, and contacted the Winner Emperor. "My Lord, there is a Loser registered ship here, with one person in it, that claims to be Lord Airball, and he wants to speak with you." "REALLY? Well, heck, let him in then. General, what's the report from the WSS Pain?" "They appear to be having a problem with a Loser attack, but they said that they have the situation under control." "Good. Let's see what the Loser wants. Send all of the guards left in the station to meet him. I don't want any funny stuff." "Acknowledged. Leonard out." MEANWHILE, Aboard the Loser fighter Schumann.... "Loser fighter, you are cleared to land. If you try anything, we will destroy you." "What the Hell am I doing?" Said Mike, piloting into the base. MEANWHILE, In the landing bay of the WSS Pain...... "Losers in the escape pod." Radioed Bug "You will need exosuits. There is no air in the landing bay. Ambassadors Skippy and Amy, wait with us in the Gooden. Lucky and Zomax, I need you to accompany me into the cruiser." "YES!!!!!" Yelled Fladge and Lucky together. MEANWHILE, On the bridge of the pain.... "What just happened?" Asked the Baroness. "I didn't see an explosion." "Both ships just vanished, but the missile appears to still be flying. Perhaps there is a malfunction in the radar." "Maybe. Keep scanning just in case." MEANWHILE, In landing bay..... "Okay," commanded Bug, "Can you guys blow this emergency door?" Fladge and Lucky started lauging hysterically. This was clearly one of the funniest things that they had heard in a long while. Lucky just ripped out a glob of plastique from some secret pouch, and smeared it on the door. The Losers dove for cover, and Fladge just shot it. The door was blown open, and stuff inside was getting sucked out. "Jeez! Where do you guys get all this stuff??" The Losers pulled their way along the floor into the Winner cruiser. An unsuspecting Winner flew over them out into space. They got inside, and they were in another emergency airsealed room. Noted Lucky, "If we keep this up, we can depressurize the whole ship!" MEANWHILE, In an airduct somewhere..... Security alarms and sirens suddenly started going wild. Every single kind of alarm that they could have possibly had sounded all at once. "Uh oh... the Losers are in. I think we should start heading out of here." "I believe your right, Wolfgang." Assured Wesley. "But something tells me that something is wrong. It's not safe to leave yet." "Wait Wesley, oh, I just got the Godfather of all ideas." Wolfgang took off back for engineering. MEANWHILE, In a depressurized chamber off the landing bay.... "Let's just blow the ship now!" Yelled Fladge anxiously. "Wait, Fladge!" Comforted Lucky, Skippy said not to. We have to listen to them. Let's blow another door!" "Cool!" Bug just shook his head. MEANWHILE, On the bridge of the WSS Pain..... "What is HAPPENING? Chambers are depressurizing, the landing bay is blown, does anything work on this ship?" "Ma'am, we're trying to get all this straightened out as fast as we can! We have every single officer working on something right now!" "Ma'am! General Leonard is radioing for a request of our status...." "Uhhhh.... Tell him we're all under control! DON'T mention any of this!" "Yes Ma'am!" MEANWHILE, back in engineering...... "Whoa! Look at all those Winners running around like busy little beavers! How perfect!" "Wolfgang? What are you doing? Are you crazy?" Wolfgang jumped right out of the airduct, and into main engineering. Winner officers were running around left and right, and not a soul even bothered to notice him. "Wolfgang!" Went Wesley, "what are you doing??" "These guys are all Winners! They all have jobs to do, nothing is more important to them that finishing their jobs! I'm incosequential to them. Help me find the navigational controls...." MEANWHILE, Off the landing bay.... "Darn, Loser! There's no one in here!" Went Fladge. "What fun is detonating explosives when there's no one being detonated?" Replied Bug, "Zomax, you need help. But, I like it that way. Hey, look! A secondary airlock! Now we can actually get inside the ship!" The Losers then enetered the atmosphere of the cruiser. MEANWHILE, Aboard the bridge of the Pain.... "Ma'am! 3 intruders have been detected inside the ship! I think they're armed!" "Open the P.A.!!!" "All guards!!! Intruder alert by the landing bay area!!! Intruders are armed!!!" MEANWHILE, In engineering..... "I love these Winner computer terminals. They're so quick! I'm reprogramming the terminal to think that Earth is actually Mimas. Cool, huh? All I have to do is rotate the celestial sphere. The computer can't know any better." "Good thinking, kid." "Thanks!" Just then, an announcement about intruders flooded over the P.A. system. "Uh oh..." Went Wolfgang. Just then, some of the officers actually noticed him. "Hey, who is that kid??! Get him!!" The Winners converged on Wolfgang, and Wolfgang dodged and darted out of the area and into a corridor. MEANWHILE, On the Bridge of the Pain.... "Ma'am, our sensors have just indicated that we have just changed direction. I could swear that we are now heading back to Mimas...." "What??!! What do the scanners say?" "Well, that we're now on a direct course for Earth. But, I mean, we WERE on direct course for Earth before....." "It was a computer glitch! Ignore it, I'm sure it's all right now. Go help catch those intruders." "Yes Ma'am. Uhh, well, everyone else has gone. Are you certain that you can handle the bridge by yourself?" "Sure! No problem!" MEANWHILE, Out in the bowels of the WSS Pain..... Bug gave an order. "Losers, as much as I know that you'll hate this, I really think we should go hide somewhere. "Okay." Went Fladge. Lucky just rolled his eyes up. "Good." Responded Bug. "This way, toward the back." The Losers ran stealthily down the corridor, when they suddenly heard footsteps running toward them from around the corner of the corridor ahead of them. An door lie to the left, and fortunately, it was unlocked. The Losers just jumped inside it. "Oh no..." Exclaimed Fladge. "This is a broom closet!" "So?" Asked Bug. "I'm allergic... to..... dust....... AAAAACHOOOOOOOBTBTHTBTHTHTHTHTH!!!!!!" It just so happened that, as Fladge sneezed, whoever was running down the hall happened to have been right in front of them. Lucky squeezed the trigger of his plasma cannon, and looked at Bug. Then, quick as a flash, he kicked the door open and aimed at whoever was out there. Before he could fire, a loud "AAAAAUUGGHHHHH!!!!" kept his trigger finger from squeezing. An 11 year old red-haired kid stood there with his jaw touching the floor. "Wolfgang?" Asked Lucky. "Who are YOU?!" "I'm Lucky......" "I am Captain Bug Ysklowiaks, Loser." "YES! We have to get off this ship! I programmed it to think that Earth was Mimas, so it's going the wrong way." "Earth? You mean the Winners were going to attack Earth?" "Yeah, with 50 nuclear warheads." "Holy Loser! And you..." "Yeah, yeah, I had some help. We HAVE to get out of here NOW!" "Okay. Wolfgang, we need to get you a space suit, there's no air in the landing bay." Just then, the sound of footsteps was heard approaching from around the corner again. As soon as they stepped foot into their hallway, Wolfgang started to scream. But, before he could scream, Fladge and Lucky literally ventilated the guards. "WHOA!" Exclaimed Wolfgang.... Assured Bug, "get used to it, kid." The Losers headed down the hall, and from down the hall, they could see that there were about 10 guards all around the secondary airlock entrance. "They're waiting for us!" Noted Bug. "Let's go this way!" Bug started down a utility hallway toward the fore of the ship. MEANWHILE, On the moon of Mimas..... "Hey, Winners." Went Mike, with a wave and a sarcastic smile. About 15 guards surrounded the Schumann, all with huge thermal reconstruction cannons. "Step down, Loser! We're taking you straight to Mark." Mike went with the guards out toward the officer's chambers. The little party strolled into a large chamber, in which sat Zippy, polishing his gold pinky ring. "Ummm...." Mike turned to the guards. "Do you, you know, mind?" The guards then turned to Zippy. Zippy signalled that they could leave. "I can handle this Loser myself. Go back to your posts." The guards nodded, and turned away. They closed the door behind them. "You know Loser, you'll never leave this base again." "So? Neither will you." Zippy laughed hysterically at this. "You still think that you can defeat me?" "Of course. And I still think that you're just all fat and no guts." "Brave words. All I have to do is call my guards back." "I know. Then at least I'll die knowing for a fact just what a coward you are...." That pushed Zippy over the edge. He waddled toward Mike who countered with a flying kick to his gut. Unfortunately, it seemed to have no effect. Zippy just stopped and laughed. Mike looked up, and Zippy took a wild swing. Mike just barely managed to jump out of the way. Mike leaped to his feet, and Zippy was still unbalanced. Mike landed a forearm to the back of Zippy's head, that sent him stumbling even farther, into a door. Zippy turned and looked really mad. He moved toward Mike again, and this time, Mike kicked him really hard in the shin. Zippy hopped up on one foot, and let out a yell. Mike then swept Zippy's other leg, sending him crashing down. However, that turned out to be Mike's last mistake, as Zippy shifted his momentum in the direction that Mike was. There was no escape, as the massive mound of Winner ooze plowed on top of Mike. The only sound that remained was that of Zippy heaving, and Mike wheezing. "Hey Mark... *wheeeze*..... I think you broke my ribs..... *wheeze*...." "Good.... *pant*..... you...*pant*.... asked for it....." MEANWHILE, In a corridor of the WSS Pain..... Fladge Zomax and Lucky were walking forward briskly. "Jeez, Lucky. Where are we? It's like no one uses this corridor." "Beats me. Bug, where are we going?" "We should be headed aft. Why are there no doors? And why is there no one here...." Right in the middle of Bug's sentence, a guard popped out from around the corner of the end of the hall in front of them. "Intruders!" He yelled, taking a shot. Before he could get his head around the corner, fladge fired a plasma blast that struck the guard right square in the face. "Here we go!" Yelled Lucky, pulling out his pocket rocket launcher. "I've been waiting to use this forever!" As guards started rounding the corner, Wolfgang spotted a big metal grate in the left wall right above the floor. He was out of there in a flash. The Winner guards began to flank into the hallway from behind them as well. Word of their location must have spread around quickly. At least 15 guards on each end of the hall were now converging on the three Losers. One brave guard then made a demand. "Intruders! Drop your weapons and surrender quietly!" Lucky open fired and Fladge turned and did the same thing in the other direction. So much firepower was discharged within 10 seconds by Fladge and Lucky, that it was basically impossible to tell whether or not the Winners actually ever even got off a shot. Bug just shot a few rounds in each direction, which looked rather silly next to these psychopaths. After 10 seconds, not a guard was standing. "Well, my day is complete." Stated Fladge. Responded Lucky, "Let's go make hot chocolate!" Fortunately, Bug remained cool. "Uhhhh... guys? We're in a Winner space cruiser. There's more to do." "Cool!" They both yelled at the same time. Bug just shook his head again, then he stopped, and his eyes widened. "Uh oh, where's Wolfgang?" MEANWHILE, In another air duct.... Wolfgang was looking right into the bridge of the Pain through an airduct grating. There, he could see the Baroness reclining in the captain's chair, wearing a Walkman, and filing her nails. "THESE people almost took over the Earth?" Whispered Wolfgang to himself. "Yes Wolfgang. Now you can see why civilization failed just shortly afterward." "Wesley! I just got another good idea! Check this out...." "Wolfgang, wait! Oh, not again!" Wolfgang quietly opened the grate, and crawled onto the bridge. The Baroness remained absolutely clueless, and began to sing. He maneuvered slowly over to the ships main control operations center, and pulled off the panel. He then crawled inside, and began to tinker. MEANWHILE, Out in the corridor.... The Losers stepped over the pile of toasted flesh, and continued down the hall. They strolled across a small door that led to a computer parts storage closet, and a large double-door, that could have only been the bridge. "Shall we bust in?" Asked Fladge, smilingly. "Go." Went Bug. "Just be prepared, we don't know how many are in there. On three. 1...... 2..." Lucky blew the door apart with a whole mess of shots from another cannon that he happened to swife from a dead guard. The door blew open with a blazing fury, and the Baroness stood there and screamed. Suddenly, she noticed stopped and stared. "You! Didn't we have a date?" The Losers stared back for a second, and then turned and looked at Fladge Zomax. "Well..... I....." "Why didn't you and your sexy friends just open the door by pressing the button? Now we're going to have to get that fixed. Shit. Don't just stand there, boys! You're making me hot just looking at you! Get on over here and make me scream!" "Fladge," went Bug, "she's all yours." Fladge jumped over and landed a hard left fist across her head, making her scream. He then picked her up, flipped her over and gave her a pile driver on the steel floor. "I wanted to join the WCW, but I found out that you weren't allowed to shoot your opponents." Bug and Lucky had a quick laugh at this, when they suddenly noticed something emerging from beneath a computer console. Lucky aimed his cannon again. Wolfgang screamed again. "Stop doing that, Lucky! We have to get out of here!" "Why?" Asked Bug, "what did you..." "I rerouted the coil inducers that disengage the main propulsion apparatus from the primary retrothruster systems into the lavatory maintenance center." "English." Went Lucky. "I cut their brakes. We gotta go now...." Wolfgang dashed for the door, and the Losers looked at each other. they then darted after Wolfgang. MEANWHILE, At the Winner base on Mimas...... "I've wanted to kill you for a long time, Loser. After what you did to me and my Dad and my dog. But, again, I feel nice." "You're going to get off me so I can breathe?" "NO. I am giving you a choice, like that I gave to Dan. Let me reprogram your brain to turn you into a Winner, and I won't kill you. You can help me rule the new Earth." "New Earth? What, an Earth of Winners? And just how do you suppose that will ever happen?" "The WSS Pain is on it's way there now, with nuclear bombs. We won't fail. The Losers are doomed. So, do you accept?" "I just farted." "Shame. I was hoping not to kill you today." Zippy wrapped his hands around Mike's neck, and began to squeeze. However, he was shortly after interrupted by a most horrible shriek. "MMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!" Mike's ears began to bleed. Zippy then let go. "IN HERE!" He called. "Don't MOVE. It's my wife. She's big and hideous, but she cooks good codfish." "I *hack* won't move...... *wheeze*......." Then, a humongous whale with big teeth and bigger feet and smelly and monstrous creature just sorta plowed into the room. The floor shook with each step. "MARRRKEEE! I NO SEE YOU FOR SO LONG! I WANT SEX!" "Uhhh.... Brunhilda dear, I'm sorta busy right now. Could you come back later?" "NO! LET HIM ALONE AND PLEASE ME FIRST!" Zippy pursed his lips and looekd at the cieling. Then, he turned to Mike. "Mike, do you, uhhh... mind waiting a few minutes before I kill you?" "*HACK*.. No... I don't *wheeeze* mind.....at all....." Zippy pouted. "Gee, thanks alot..." he replied with a frown. He stood up, and Mike grabbed a huge gasp of air. "I think you broke *hack* my ribs...." The big huge beast started moving, oozing around, in pursuit of Mark, who appeared to be avoiding her. "Really, Brunhilda. I have a headache. All this taking over and stuff, it's alot of stress you know.." "SEX! SEX NOW!" Mike crawled over into the corner. Zippy's chamber was nice and roomy, especially considering it's inhabitants. It the corner was a nice set-up of good stuff, with a good stereo, a TV, some video equipment, and an old video game system. Mike suddnely stopped, and his eyes widened. He put his hand into his uniform. "SEX NOW! SEX NOW OR YOU NO LOVE ME!" "Brunhilda dear, of course I love you! You're my wife! I married you! I'm just not up to it today, you know? Tired? Headache?" "NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!" "No! Stop it! I said no! I am in no mood for sex today." Just then, the viewscreen went on, and a very graphic and explicit security camera film began to play. Zippy's expression on his face was way too good to be described with any words. Brunhilda let out a shriek that literally gave Mike a nosebleed. Zippy began to try to worm. "What? Uhhh... It must be someone else! Uhh... she means nothing to me... AAAAUUGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!" Within a heartbeat, the humongous creature had cleanly removed Zippy's arms from the shoulders, and had then proceeded to slowly mutilate him. Mike, with his hand grasping his chest, and each breath needing to be forced, crawled back out into the hallway. The screams filled all of the halls. It sounded like Jaws the revenge. Mike ran as fast as he could without collapsing from lack of oxygen back into the shuttlebay. For some reason, the security lock on the doors were busted - they looked like they had been shot - leaving Mike free to launch from the base. MEANWHILE, By the bridge of the WSS Pain..... "Hang on." Went Bug. "Wolfgang, here. There are space suits in the closet here. Grab one and slide into it. We'll cover you." "Cover me? I'm putting on a space suit! Not infiltrating a Winner base!" Suddenly, another two guards ran around the corner. They looked more shocked than Wolfgang, as Fladge and Lucky burned several holes into them. "Ummm, thanks guys!" Went Wolfgang, with his foot in his mouth. Wolfgang changed, and the Losers went back to the secondary airlock. All of the guards were gone, either dead, given up, or off trying to repair something else. The Losers left the atmosphere of the Gooden, and flew off uncontested. MEANWHILE, In the bridge of the W.S.S. Pain...... The Baroness sat up, firmly grasping her throbbing skull. She was still alone on the bridge, and the computers appeared to be functioning properly. She immediately noticed upon the viewscreen, the Gooden thrusting away from the battle cruiser. "Ha! I chased those wimps off! I hafta tell the General about my victory!" MEANWHILE, In the control room of the Winner base at Mimas..... "Ensign!" Asked Stew, "why is that Loser's ship leaving? Contact Zippy!" "The emperor is with his wife sir, she signalled a 'do not disturb' order a few minutes ago." "FUCK! That Loser is escaping! We have to bring him....." "Sir! Message from the Pain!" "Play it!" "General, sir," went the Baroness, "that Loser attack, it's been taken care of. They're gone, sir." "Excellent. And your trajectory toward Earth, it's still intact?" "Yes. We have the hyperdrive back on line. Our arrival time reads 11 minutes, sir." "Excellent. Arm the warheads. Someone is going to be in for a big surprise. Leonard out." "Sir?" Went the ensign, "the Loser? He's still escaping." "Let him go. Let him live to see the devastation of what was once his precious planet." ELEVEN MINUTES LATER........... Stew Leonard was correct about someone being 'in for a big surprise.' It just wasn't quite who he had expected. The Moon of Mimas now has two great craters. MEANWHILE, Inside the Loser fighter Schumann....... "Hello? Are there any Losers out there? What just happened? There was a huge explosion behind me, I felt the ripples thousands of miles away!" After a pause, the radio replied. "Airball? Is that you?" "No, it's Zippy. Of course it's me! What was that explosion?" "Probably the last cry of a Winner ever to be heard in the solar system." Mike stopped and paused for a minute, and then replied, "cool." "Mike, someone's here and want's to say something..." "Go ahead." "LOSER!" "Hey, Loser! What happened on that base?" "Evil Dan is dead. I used the crystal to get home, and I materialized on the Gooden, right after it left from the Pain." "The what?" "It's a long story. Hey, see you back home..... what......" SUDDENLY, The Schumann and the Gooden were both docked on Moon base Cone. The Losers all left their ships, and entered the base. Inside, they also met Leah, Heuer, Ray, Captain Kramer, and the other Losers from the pan-dimensional Winner HQ. They all began to celebrate inside the base's great hall. Wolfgang threw a banana cream pie at Skippy, and there was much rejoicing. Mike stumbled over to Dan, still holding his chest. "How in LOSER did we get here so fast?" He asked. "I was getting sick of waiting." Suddenly, the room glowed white again, and a now familiar form materialized in the middle of the great hall. "Just because I'm eternal doesn't mean I want to wait around for ever." "Whoa! Holy Loser!" Yelled Mike. "Yup. What gave me away, the shirt?" The Losers felt so good, that even a joke THAT bad sounded hilarious to them. "Congratulations, Losers! You just annihilated the Winner threat. What are you going to do now?" About 50 voices answered different things, and not one of them mentioned Disneyworld. "Good! Dan, I believe that you have something of mine?" "Oh, yeah!" Dan approached the Holy Loser, and then picked his nose and rubbed it on the great one's shirt. "Dan, that was gross. I don't want THAT phlegm, I want THE phlegm." "Oh." Dan pulled out the crystal and gave it to the Holy Loser. "Thank you. Well, I'm going on vacation now. I'll be back in 20, 25 million years, so don't wait up, okay? Kudos, Losers!" The Holy Loser vanished again, leaving the Losers in awe. All was silent. The Losers were now alone, with no Winner threat left to fight. The idea of 'sleep' was carved neatly in each and everyone's mind. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a quiet little voice that said, "Daddy?" "Hey Dad!" Interrupted Wolfgang, "look at your ship!" A small, fat child was crawling down out of the Schumann. The Losers just stared in disbelief. The child set foot down on the floor of the base, and gazed up at the huge gathering of Losers. "Has anyone seen my Daddy?" FIN -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * * * * CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE * * * * (Obvious sources of inspiration that we blatently ripped off.) Star Wars, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, True Lies, WarGames, Douglas Adams, Zucker, Zucker, & Abrahams, Quentin Tarantino, Star Trek, DOOM, Major League, Calvin and Hobbes, Beavis and Butt-Head, The Princess Bride, G.I. Joe, and of course, anyone warped enough to read this whole stupid thing! "Remember to take time out for FUN!" -Devo