A hero for our time...

Who: The Silver Shadow, Shinto and special guest hero: Justin "Schlong" Pancake
Where: Holly's CPU "Planet Holly's Wood" Bar
When: After being joined by Justin
 
Lester wasn't sure how he felt being shanghaied like this by the strange phallically obsessed man. He seemed ok, as far as people went but he was here, seeing Lester in his game-form. It was something that only he and SNIDE shared and he felt exposed, caught-in-the-act, so to speak. Even with the pseudo-personality of the Silver Shadow shaping his responses, Lester's timidity was starting to win through.
 
He watched in horror as Justin was whirled around and smashed against the wall. Why wasn't he fighting properly? Didn't he know how it was supposed to happen? SNIDE, as Shinto, the ace kung-fu fighting valet and part time Radio celebrity was already in the middle of a group of the invisible virus creatures. His little legs sliced back and forth carving chunks out of the air that dissolved into hard data and mixed on the floor with the broken glass. The Silver Shadow flinched as a chair narrowly missed him and that was when Lester knew something was up.
 
The Silver Shadow shouldn't flinch. He laughed in the face of danger and pulled the pigtails of fear. But Lester was a gibbering wreck of a cybernetic fraud. In mortal terror he flung himself over the bar top and curled up, his hands over his head. He tore his mask from his face as Justin screamed something unintelligible. There was a smash from the direction of the jukebox. Jason Donovan began crooning at the top of his voice while Justin yelled and thrashed around, his head in the jukebox innards. A smash of glass above Lester's head and Shinto/SNIDE crashed into the bottles then landed in a heap on the floor.
 
"I c-can't do it SNIDE," Lester whimpered, cradling the robot in its insane yellow cape. "It's t-too much. W-we should h-have stayed on Earth."
 
"Bleet!" SNIDE angrily retorted, dragging itself up on one leg and waving another at him, "bleep bart, bleep bleep! Woot chirp, click bleep!" Then the tiny robot flopped exhausted into Lester's palm. His little red eye gleamed brightly at him for a moment, the faded to black. His limbs hung limply from Lester's hand.
 
"SNIDE?" Lester called plaintively, "SNIDE?!" He held the little robot close to his chest, then carefully folded him into the pocket of his silver-grey suit. "I will avenge you, faithful Shinto," he said in the gravelly, moody tones of the Silver Shadow. He rose from the floor, slipping his mask back on and adjusting the seating of his hat. His whole posture changed, shoulders hunched, hands balling into fists, he faced the room again.
 
"I say," he said to the invisible monsters as they attempted to do something unpleasant to Justin, his head in the jukebox, "unhand that man at once, or face the wrath of... The Silver Shadow!"
 
Justin was released and slumped to the floor in a daze of injuries. The Silver Shadow vaulted the bar, bringing with him a large cardboard box which he held in front of him.
 
"Perhaps you'd like a soda?" He tore the front of the box apart showering the room in front of him in sticky, brown, cola syrup. "Looks like you're about to come to a sticky end," he smirked as the invisible virus creatures were made tangible by the globules of thick cola dripping down their twisted forms. The Silver Shadow began to lay into them, with ka-pows, zwapps, thunks, crunks and crashes appearing around him and littering the already trash-covered floor. Virus creatures disintegrated as he delivered blow after blow in honour of his fallen robot friend.
 
Justin opened his eyes blearily, gathering enough mental power to reach over and yank out the jukebox power cable, silencing Jason Donovan. He rose up as Lester stood in the middle of what looked like the creatures from the black lagoon. Regaining himself, Justin grabbed a miraculously unbroken barstool and swung it over head.
 
It didn't take long for them to beat the now visible creatures into submission. Back-to-back they fought like old comrades, fending off attackers or sharing punches.
 
"All right dudes," came Holly's relaxed voice from above the bar, "I think I got it sorted," he said in not-very-sure tones.
 
There was a quiver in the world and suddenly the remaining virus creatures shivered, shimmered and fell to tiny pieces, disappearing even as the Silver Shadow and Justin watched.
 
"Anti-virus scan completed, deleting quarantine," Holly said with a smirk, "thanks dudes. But you'd better get back topside. Cheers."
 
"No problem citizen," the Silver Shadow said, his bravado tinged with regret.
 
***
 
Lester opened his eyes and looked first at Justin, then at the line of drool on his lab coat. He found a handkerchief and then felt at his temple the cold, lifeless lump of SNIDE. Justin looked down at him sorrowfully.
 
"I'm sorry, Lester," he said quietly, "it ... he must have meant a lot to you."
 
Lester didn't know what to say, he had no plan for this, no instructions. SNIDE lay sprawled out in his cupped hands. He sniffed, sobbed and then wiped his nose loudly on his sleeve.
 
Then the robot winked at Lester. A tiny gleam of red, on, off, then steadily on. It turned a somersault and landed on the desk, doing a passable impersonation of someone crying before collapsing in a fit of laughter.
 
"Snk, snk, snk, snk," SNIDE chortled, pointing at Lester. Who walloped him with a heavy binder.
 
"Oh, right, well touching as this is," Justin said, scooping up his hologram projector, "are we still in mortal danger or what?"
 
"No problem Justin," Holly said happily, "three of you bought me enough time with your poncing about to get the antivirus in and clear out the old CPU. We're laughing now."
 
"R-really?" Lester asked, lifting the binder off SNIDE.
 
"No, we're still up the creak, down the waterfall and in the rocks without a paddle, canoe or lifejacket. Still, you got to look on the bright side, right?"
 
"What bright side?" Justin asked incredulously.
 
Holly closed one eye as he considered what was going on around the ship: "Well for a start..."
 
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