The Abecedarian Omnibus
Disclaimer: If I owned "The Middleman," would I be working as a temp, sleeping on a futon, and writing Middleman fanfic? No; heck no; and no, because then I'd be able to make the writers write about the things I want. But since I don't want to have Disney's best and most bloodthirsty lawyers after me (that Mouse is well-represented!), I will be a good little fanfic writer and say that I don't own anything except for my original characters.
Spoilers: Everything and yet nothing. If you don't watch the show, you won't get some stuff, but I'm not writing about anything specifically spoilerific.
Warnings: This has not been beta-ed, so any mistakes are mine. I also tend to get a little parentheses-crazy (The Princess Bride is one of my favorite books), and the fourth wall will not just be broken, but shattered and run over repeatedly by my 1997 Chevy Lumina. I think this crossed the line into crackfic a while ago, but I'm not sure when. I'm also not surprised. Just like every Middleman episode, there will be references. Have fun finding them!
Author's Notes: The general idea of this is from an episode of Freakazoid called "The Sidekick Chronicles," and I decided to take the idea and have some fun with it… and now that I think about it, "This Is Spinal Tap" probably had some influence, too. Figure that one out. Yes "abecedarian" is a real word – go look it up. I love this show, because I get to really dig through the thesaurus in order to get some good words for titles – and being an English nerd, I heart big words. I think "abecedarian" might be one of my new favorites.
Chapter 1: Polly, or The Abecedarian Vaporization
Polly was the first trainee the Middleman took on after becoming… well, the Middleman. She was once a college student who caught the Middleman's eye while he was investigating a rash of possessed teddy bears. Young girls all over the city were being shanghaied to a demonic picnic in the woods outside of town. Polly, however, was at a street corner, trying to fight off a would-be purse snatcher, though with limited success. (She had no idea about the teddy bears, which is probably a good thing, because her own collection of bears was plotting against her at that very moment.) Impressed by her attempt, the Middleman immediately stepped in and chased the wannabe thief away, and recruited Polly on the spot.
Naturally, Polly accepted, because otherwise, I wouldn't be telling this story, now would I? Polly fit into the Middleman organization like a glove. She was a hard worker and devoted herself to learning all she could about fighting comic book evil, even to the point of staying late in the dojo working on what Sensei Ping had taught her. It was an odd little family: the Middleman as the older brother/surrogate father type, Ida as the snarky old aunt who was more likely to smack you upside the head than knit you a sweater, and Polly as the energetic young sister who could always be counted on to bring a smile or a laugh. It was a partnership made in O2STK heaven.
One day (this was about a year after Polly had joined), they learned about a feud that had erupted between two alien races on rival planets. With the understanding that whichever side won this battle would win uncontested rule over the other planet, each side sent their best armies to a neutral planet for a battle royal. Unfortunately for humanity, this neutral planet was Earth, and each side contained within their arsenal enough firepower to leave Earth a charcoal briquette. But wait - we have the Middleman, right?
MIDDLEMAN HQ
3:24 PM
The Middleman quickly read through the reports as they came in from the H.E.Y.D.A.R. If he was feeling any emotion other than calm and determination, he didn't show it.
"I got the Middlemobile all gassed up and ready to go, Chief," Polly said as she walked into Middleman HQ. "I wish that O2STK would do something about updating that guzzler – I just sank half my paycheck into that thing!" She tossed the Middleman the keys, but he wasn't paying attention and the keys hit his shoulder and jangled to the floor. The Middleman didn't even flinch. "What's wrong, Boss?"
"We're really swimming in it, Pippi," the Middleman finally stated. (He had given Polly that nickname not long after she signed on, for whatever reason.) "I'm fluent in 18 Earth languages as well as conversational in 52 extraterrestrial languages, but I'm afraid that I don't know either of these."
"Can't Ida translate for you?" Polly asked, as she picked up the keys.
"I would, Dollface," Ida replied, "but I've never even heard of these planets before. We might as well try speaking Chinese to Julius Caesar."
"Great," Polly sighed. "So what do we do?"
"Well, we can't just let the Maka'alohi and the Chromites of Regda 2 destroy the Earth in their attempt to resolve their interplanetary issues," the Middleman reasoned. "We just have to meet them and mediate as best we can."
"So in other words, we're sunk."
The Middleman paused, choosing his words correctly. (Normally at this point, he'd speak out against Polly's defeatist attitude, though.) "We won't know that until we get down there." He turned to Ida. "You know what to do if the… well, you know," he said stoutly.
"Contact O2STK and burn every last trace of you," Ida rattled off. "I've been doing this a lot longer than you, young man. I know how it goes."
"We'll see you on the other side," Polly saluted as the Middleman took the keys from her and the pair left Middleman HQ.
KOICHI SAKAMOTO MEMORIAL PLAZA
5:29 PM
The Middlemobile pulled up to find the two alien races staring each other down across the plaza, weapons drawn and ready to charbroil the planet. (I wonder if they knew about the "charbroil the planet" part. I hope they didn't, but they probably did.) Immediately, the Middleman unbuckled his seat belt and moved to get out of the car.
"You're crazy, you know," Polly commented.
"Yes, I am rather out of my element here, but I have quelled intra-, extra-, and juxta-terrestrial incidents before," the Middleman replied. "All I need to do is make some sort of contact with one of them."
"Well, I'm coming with you. Someone needs to make sure you don't get vaporized. Seriously."
"Thank you for your concern, Pippi, but I'm not sure what you could do." At that moment, the Middleman's Middlewatch began its electronic chirping. "What is it, Ida?" he asked into it, looking very much like Dick Tracy at that moment (well, as much as a man wearing no trench coat, no fedora, and no yellow can look like Dick Tracy).
"Here's something that might help," stated Ida's voice from the Middlewatch. The Maka'alohi aren't too far from the Eltarians. They might recognize it if you spoke that."
"Can you speak it?" asked Polly.
"I'm still learning it," the Middleman answered directly. "But hopefully that will be enough to stop these extraterrestrials from barbecuing the planet." At that, he began to approach one of the alien groups. (Thanks to the amazing powers of something that I can't quite explain, we are being provided the translation of everything that is said.) "In the name of the High Supreme Consciousness, I ask you to stop!"
However, the Middleman was speaking to the Uncontested Potentate of the Chromites of Regda 2. "What is he saying?" asked the leather-clad Maka'alohi general to his lieutenant on the other side of the plaza. "I can't quite make it out."
"I think it's supposed to be Eltarian, General."
"Shoot. I failed Eltarian in high school."
"Don't worry. He's not that good at it. I think he said, 'My cat would just love to dance with your mother.'"
"WHAT?!" the general roared. "My mother was a saint!" (What the Middleman didn't know was that cats are considered vermin by the Maka'alohi. He basically just said that he wished the general's mother would be infested with cockroaches. Way to go, MM.) The general drew his short-range neutrino destroyer and fired at the Middleman.
He hit Polly instead. (Apparently the general's short-range neutrino destroyer needed to be recalled because this model pulled two degrees to the right. Because of the trip to Earth, he missed out on the memo.) A purple flame obliterated the young girl instantaneously, and, almost before the Middleman noticed anything, she was gone.
"Pippi?" the Middleman asked the spot where she had once stood. The spot said nothing.
That night, an attitude of sadness permeated the rooms of Middleman Headquarters. Without Polly's ever-cheerfulness, the office seemed dreary. However, the Middleman was business as usual. Ida attempted to coax her boss out of his quietness, but eventually learned that it was useless to try. (Ever since an incident in high school that involved a football teammate and a Bryan Adams mix tape, the Middleman had been adamant about making sure business came first.) The two spent the rest of the night cleaning out Polly's things, having convinced the High Supreme Consciousness of Eltar to help in stopping the Maka'alohi earlier in the evening.
Before long, Polly's absence wasn't so very hard to bear, and business was going well. However, the Middleman began to feel the need for another sidekick, and began to keep his eyes peeled for a suitable candidate…
