It was an average day in a very unusual portion of the south shore of New Jersey, where the so called Aqua Teen Hunger Force made their residence. On this particular day, as it was on many days, strange events were to transpire. Perhaps it was a little bit of fate that would cause this, or perhaps it was maybe that strange things always seemed to happen here and it was perfectly in the norm, but either way: strange things were about to happen here, on the South Jersey Shore.
"Meatwad, dammit, where the hell is the remote?!" a very angry looking Master Shake yelled through the Aqua Teen's tiny house from his lounge chair in the living room. Shake, the irresponsible, annoying, selfish and mostly downright stupid member of the three Aqua Teens was currently stuck on some re-run of the Martha Stewart Show and, of course, he didn't want to get up and move the six feet to the T.V. to manually change the channel.
"Goddammit! I know you did something with it, because I didn't and it's not here!" Shake hollered, watching Martha plant some kind of unidentifiable bush. "If I have to dig around in your rotting, disgusting body to find the freakin' remote, I can and will not be responsible for my possibly violent actions!"
"Shake will you calm down, please!" Frylock had to yell to be heard over Shake, as he floated into the living room from his bedroom, where he was trying to make very precise calculations to bring his newest invention to life.
Frylock was the smartest of the trio and possessed the most common sense. He was a box of fries that floats midair and has fry arms to manipulate things.
"No, I will not calm down. This is not a good thing, Martha!" Shake yelled, more at the T.V. than at Frylock.
"All right, why don't you just get up and change the T.V yourself, or actually look for the remote!" Frylock didn't really want to have a shouting match right now, but that's what was happening.
"No, it's the principle of the thing!" Shake replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Changing the channel with a remote device is what separates us advanced humans from the stupid animals that roam the world. Are you an animal Frylock? Because I'm not and will not condescend myself to their level!" Shake took a breath. "WHERE THE HELL IS THE REMOTE!?"
"You're not a human, you're a giant milkshake!" Frylock retorted angrily, trying to ignore Shake's general misuse of the English language. This was getting old. Fast.
"Exactly, I'm even more evolved then humans, which definitely means I'm not changing the channel the way animals do! I have standards, even if you don't!" was Shake's ridiculous response.
Frylock sighed. "But you could still look for the remote, right? Finding things is another thing that separates you from animals."
Shake looked mortified, "Are you even listening?! I suggest you get your hearing checked, Frylock! I think your pointless 'math' and 'science' is making you lose it! Fast! Meatwad took the remote. That much is obvious. And since he is an animal, I will not give his animal instincts the pleasure of me doing things like looking for something that he stole. He can come to me! And if he doesn't, I'm gonna send him down a few more notches on the food chain!"
"Is one of you'se all callin' me?" Meatwad asked before Frylock could reply to Shake, as he rolled into the room.
Meatwad was the most simple minded of the three Aqua Teens, was, as his name implied, a rolling ball of meat.
"Yes, you little prick! Where did you put the remote!" Shake yelled at Meatwad, causing the little ball of meat's eye's to widen.
"You must be mistaken. I haven't watched the tube in a coon's age. I've been too busy reading to watch any silly 'television'," Meatwad replied simply. "And all of this yelling is making it very hard to concentrate on anything, you understand what I'm saying? The book I'm reading is intellectually stimulating and I needs complete silence to fully enjoy the experience, you see?"
"Ohhh, you'll enjoy this experience almost as much!" Shake said, pulling a wooden baseball bat from seemingly nowhere.
"Shake, put that away! Meatwad doesn't know where it is!" Frylock exclaimed, trying to disarm this bomb before it exploded.
"Oh, he'll remember given the right stimulation. This bat hitting him a few dozen times should do it!" Shake began rising to his stand on whatever it is he stands on.
Frylock sighed, and without a second thought blasted the bat out of existence with his eye beam lasers that were his primary weapon.
Shake yelled in surprise and stumbled off the lounge chair, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
Frylock had been careful to not hurt Shake, though he probably deserved it.
"You will not interfere, Frylock! This is a battle between worlds! I thought you knew the perils of screwing with the time stream!
"It's the present Shake!" Frylock retorted. "I can do whatever the hell I want, which is stopping you from doing whatever the hell you want!"
"Well, fine then. I see your mind is made up," Shake said, seeming to calm down somewhat.
There was a pause for a few moments, before Shake leaped at Meatwad with some sort of war cry. "Give it back!" he bellowed.
"Dammit, Shake!" Frylock intercepted Shake before he could reach the trembling Meatwad.
It was the middle of mass confusion for several moments before the quarreling Aqua Teens were interrupted by a knock at the door, bringing the fight to pure silence.
"You get it," Shake said, untangling himself from the floor and hopping back into his chair.
"I said you get it!" he repeated, upon receiving no reply.
"Does no one listen to me!" Shake said turning around and seeing that neither Frylock nor Meatward were even in the room anymore. They had apparently taken the lull of arguments to make a quick, efficient getaway.
The knocking continued.
Shake looked around again quickly, to make sure that no one could see him, to watch what he was about to do, before he actually got of his chair and answered the door.
Standing in the doorway was a very tall, very strong looking guy, who wore a bizarre mask that covered his face and one of his eyes. The man looked like he wore some kind of uniform with black, steel, and an odd orange-ish coloring. He stood as still as a statue, staring at Shake.
"WHAT. THE HELL. DO YOU WANT!" Shake yelled, apparently not understanding the danger he was in.
The man said nothing, but looked quickly around the room, his lone eye coming to rest on Shake's coveted T.V.
"Look, buddy. I dunno where the hell you came from, but I assume wherever that is, you and all the people from there can't have much intelligence, so I'll give you a few seconds to clear out before I get territorial, okay?"
"Is that your T.V.?" the man said. His voice had a snakelike hiss to it and was downright creepy.
"Yeah, and who the hell are you?" Shake asked, laughing, "You're kinda big to be a girl scout aren't ya? And I haven't payed for those cookies ever and I ain't starting now. So I ain't buying what your selling. And if you're with the electric company, you tell your boss that I have never seen electricity ever in my life, so therefore I will never pay for it. And that'll hold up in court, so I suggest you get yourself a good lawyer, and-"
Without wasting any time, the man kicked Shake out of the way, ran to the T.V. grabbed it, ripping it from the wall as Martha cut to black and he jumped through the living room window, shattering it as he went.
The strange man disappeared from sight, as Shake blacked out.
Thirty-seven minutes later...
"Shake, hey Shake!" Frylock shook the unconscious Master Shake with one of his fry-like appendages that he used for arms and his Milkshake companion finally groaned awake.
"Frylock, is he okay?" Meatwad asked, positioned a few feet away.
"God, what the hell happened?" Shake moaned, rising to his full height.
"Dammit," Meatwad muttered, dejected.
"Shake! What happened?" Frylock asked.
"Some crazed dude girl scout with the electric company kicked me in the face, man. That's what happened!" Shake yelled.
"And he took the T.V." Meatwad joined the conversation, as he stared at the spot where the T.V. had occupied.
"WHAT?!" Shake yelled.
"What did he look like, Shake?" Frylock pressed, trying to find out more about this strange intruder.
"He was one crazy lookin' motha!" Shake said, "He must be some crazed T.V. addict who needs to steal to feed his hunger! It all makes sense!"
Frylock just stared. "How hard did he hit you?"
"Hard enough for me to realize what a mixed up world we live in," Shake said, suddenly becoming philosophical.
"Hmmm, well this is all a damn shame, really," Meatwad said. "I mean he coulda just asked to watch some T.V. with us. I'm always lookin' for more people to associate myself with."
"Shut up, Meatwad," Shake said as he turned to Frylock. "This is serious, Frylock," Shake's eyes narrowed. "Someone's gettin' sued!"
"Oh, c'mon Shake, it isn't that bad," Frylock said, once again trying to calm his house mate. "The T.V. didn't even have a remote-"
"That's because that little creature you see right there stole it! He's probably using it right now to kill babies and do a bunch of other horrible things!" Shake interrupted
Frylock was just about to defend Meatwad, when a very enraged voice sounded from the door, which was still left open from the earlier assault.
"Uh, hi there you freak show runaways, I got me a little problem, here," The Aqua Teens neighbor, Carl, said from the Shake shaped doorway to the Aqua Teen's home.
Carl was fat, rude, balding and generally pretty disgusting. He wass deeply upset at the Aqua Teens because he is forced to live next to them.
"Oh, hey Carl," Frylock said, trying to be welcoming. "What's up?"
"Don't you go 'oh, hey Carl' to me right now, Fryman, I'll tell you what's up-"
"Woah, Carl. Nice bruise. You have fun gettin' it?" Shake asked, laughing noticing the large bump on Carl's head.
"Oh, ha ha. You're one to friggin' talk," Carl replied, eyeing the bump on Shake's head where he had been kicked.
"What?" Shake asked, confused.
"You have a huge bruise, too, Shake," Fryock informed him. "I hope you didn't get a concussion."
"You take the 'didn't' out of that sentence, and I'm all for it," Meatwad said.
"Hey, freaks! I was talkin' here!" Carl snapped, regaining the attention of the Aqua Teens.
"Oh yeah, what happened, man?" Frylock asked, already having a pretty good guess at what had happened.
"Oh y'know, this guy showed up at my house, a private residence, by the way, and he preceded to um, kick me in the face and trash my house and take my television all the way to the road to smash it in the freakin' street! That's what happened! And since I do not know this person, I assume it has something to do with you people." Carl finished his speech, "Now who the hell was that!?"
Frylock sighed. "We don't know. The same thing happened here-"
"That guy's freakin' off his rocker ain't he, Carl?" Shake interrupted. "But I guess you already know that one, dontcha?"
"Well, at least it happened to you and not to me, y'know what I'm sayin'?" Meatwad said, rolling away to his room. "I'll be in my study. Reading."
"Yeah, you do that," Frylock said, not really believing Meatwad's claim that he could read. "C'mon Shake, Carl, we need to find out what's going on."
"So once we get there, we need to spread out and find out what's going on!" Robin said, from the front passenger seat in the rented, dark blue SUV. Cyborg was at the helm, as he usually was and Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy were clustered in the back seat.
It had taken the Teen Titans only a little while to fly the high-speed T-ship from Jump City, California to this wretched place on the other side of the country, known as New Jersey.
But the team had been forced to rent a car, being unable to bring the T-car three thousand miles on their ship. Cyborg complained that he preferred the T-car and Robin had agreed, but they had had no choice in the matter.
The chance to stop Slade for good was well worth minor sacrifices like comfort.
"So, you think we'll get Slade this time, Robin?" Beast Boy asked from the back seat. The green changeling was squeezed in between Starfire and Raven.
"I hope so," Robin replied, not taking his eyes off of the road ahead of him. "We almost there, Cyborg?"
"Yeah, man," The big teen replied. "We'll be in the last place that transmitter transmitted from in just a couple of minutes."
Robin nodded once. "Good."
During the last battle the Titans had had with Slade, which had ended as they often did with Slade escaping, Robin had managed to place a small tracking device onto Slade himself. The transmitter signal had then traveled clear across the country and had ended up here, in New Jersey.
The tiny device had cut out only a few minutes before the Titans had arrived, either due to running out of power, or Slade finding it.
The Titans were now approaching the last confirmed location of Slade.
"What do you suppose the Slade is doing now?" Starfire questioned.
Robin shook his head. "I have no idea, Star. Looks like we'll just have to find out..."
"Almost there," Cybog muttered, turning down one of the numerous streets in some New Jersey suburb. Houses lined the street.
It didn't look like a very pleasant neighborhood.
"Right there!" Cyborg pointed at a house that had the words "Get out" painted on it in red, a shattered front window and a giant door that resembled what looked like a milkshake. It was next to a blue house that looked like a bomb of sufficient magnitude had went off inside, destroying much of the interior.
"All right, Titans!" Robin said, right before jumping out of the vehicle. "Let's go!"
Author's Note:
Please feel free to leave the most ridiculous comments you can think of.