(Disclaimer: I do not own Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, Power Rangers or any other tokusatsu shows I may have shamelessly parodied in this fanfic, although if I did I would doubtless engage in colossal magnitudes of fanw*nking.)

Parody Sentai GeoRanger

Episode 1: Origins or, Well Those Powers Had To Come From Somewhere

Somewhere in Honduras, high up in the mountains of Cusuco National Park, a tall, lanky figure with frighteningly long hair pushed its way through the stifling foliage and into a clearing by the side of a small waterfall.

"Here we are! Look alive men, let's start searching!" announced the long-haired figure, whose name was Ziggy Peace, Jr. He smelt strongly of marijuana.

"Three men and one woman," corrected a stern, high female voice from behind him. Seconds later, its owner, a short but well-proportioned young woman with wavy brown hair, emerged out of the tropical overgrowth and sat down on a rock. She was dressed in a blue halter top, and her name was Emma Roper. "Remind me again why we're out here in the middle of nowhere, looking for something that doesn't even exist?" she said, fanning herself with one hand. "It's bloody hot here, it is. And humid. Hot I don't mind so much but I hate being all sticky and sweaty. I'd give my right arm for a nice cold shower right now… and before you say it I'm not jumping under that waterfall. Those hormone-high morons back there will stare."

"You're here to help me with my PhD project," said Ziggy with the kind of cheer that is the effect of residual hallucinogens. "In return, I'll make sure the four of you pass your final exams for your Arch & Anthro BA's. And Apithanopolitismos does exist, by the way. I'm sure of it. Ancient civilisation, ancienter than China, ancienter even than Babylon. Lost and forgotten and all that too. According to this map, though, their High Temple should be somewhere around here."

"Ziggy? Your map's a bunch of lines and circles drawn in MS Paint with the artistic skills of a 2-year old," said Emma dryly. "Honestly, I don't see –" But her sentence was abruptly cut off by the sound of arguing voices rapidly approaching the clearing.

"Come off it, Mart, will you just stop spraying that stuff all over the place? It smells awful."

"Shut up Five! This deet works wonders, and the jungle doesn't look like it's running out of bugs anytime soon!"

"Don't call me that! I'll have you know Faiz means 'knight' where I come from –"

At that point, the bickerers came into view, tried stepping through a narrow gap between two trees at the same time, and consequently got stuck. On the right was Martin 'the Muscle' Russell, Mart to his friends, a tall, muscle-bound muscleheaded horror in a yellow muscle shirt, with ash-blond hair worn in a frat shag. On the left was Faiz Hosseini, nicknamed Five by his linguistically-challenged friends, a blocky, stocky Iranian in a red T-shirt.

"Ow! Now look what you've done, you knob, couldn't you have waited a bit back there?"

"Me? I was right behind Emma all the way up until you –"

"That'll do, boys." Emma's voice stopped the quarrel in its tracks like a quarrel to the kneecap. She walked calmly up to the two men and, reaching out, gave Mart a quick forceful pull that freed them from their deadlock, as well as causing them to lose balance and fall to the ground in a heap.

"Get off me, ya git."

"Only after you get your foot out of my gut!"

Emma sighed and walked back over to where Ziggy was.

"Where's all our equipment anyway?" asked the hippy archaeologist perplexedly. "And wasn't Faiz supposed to be carrying the water supply?"

"Well, just before we set off we decided we'd all give our stuff to… him."

As if on cue, the final member of the party staggered into the open at that exact moment, overburdened under the weight of four gargantuan rucksacks and puffing and panting like a steam engine. He stumbled into the middle of the clearing and collapsed. His full name was Joachim Edward Horatio St. John Reginald Fitzwilliam the Third, but was Winky as far as any of his companions were concerned, which really was not very much since they thought of him mostly as a punching bag or a pack mule, in those occasional rare instances when they even bothered to think of him at all.

"Please… No more…" he croaked.

"Hey look! Winky's here!" exclaimed Mart with a fiendish delight. "Let's throw him in the lake!"

"I'll take the feet, you take the arms!" added Faiz enthusiastically.

"Nonono! Please! No!" protested Winky pathetically as he was hauled off the ground unceremoniously. "No! Please! I don't wanna… Aaaaaaaaahhhh!"

Mart and Faiz chortled heartily as Winky hit the water with a violent splash. Even Emma couldn't resist a smile.

Ziggy was right about Apithanopolitismos. Indeed the ancient civilisation had once flourished throughout the tropical rainforests of Central and South America, long before the earliest ancestors of the Mayans had even begun to appear in the region. Of course, as is so often the fate of little-heard-of prehistoric cultures, the entire civilisation was wiped out almost overnight by a primordial evil, with only a few temples and other holy sites remaining as stone-hewn, eternal memories of the rise and fall of a once-glorious nation.

The primordial evil in question was Demon Prince Barangot, the All-Consuming Maw of the Infinite Blackness with a Thousand Voices and First Servant of the Unspeakable Evil. What the people of Apithanopolitismos had done to draw the unholy attention of Barangot was a mystery, but Ziggy had grounds to believe that it had something to do with a chicken and a dispute over whether refried beans or plantain made a better complement to egg burritos. How strong his grounds were is entirely a matter of opinion, depending on your standpoint on the reliability of hallucinogenic visions.

Ten millennia ago, the people of Apithanopolitismos had created three magical tablets to counter the threat of Barangot, tablets blessed by the Gods that would allow three chosen warriors to draw on the power of the land itself to battle Barangot's demonic legions. Unfortunately, Barangot attacked before they could be properly put to use, but while the Demon Prince was laying waste to the capital city of Apithanopolitismos, he accidentally stepped on the Tablets and was sealed into an obelisk by the sheer power they radiated, which, all things considered, really wasn't so bad at all for anyone and everyone concerned. (That included Barangot. Better sealed than killed, after all. Not that an immortal demon could actually be killed.)

Barangot's obelisk lay in a hidden underground necropolis, kilometres beneath the streets of San Pedro Sula. No living creature had set foot in the necropolis in almost ten thousand years.

To certain visitors, though, several kilometres worth of rock and soil was little more than a minor inconvenience.

"In very bad taste, don't you think, Kayaitch? These demons just have no concept of interior design… someone should do something about all this godawful graffiti."

Two silhouetted figures were striding down the skull-adorned, sigil-encrusted hallways of the demonic necropolis. It was difficult to tell who they were or what they looked like through the oppressing gloom, but one was definitely humanoid while the other appeared to be a large gorilla, judging from the way its oversized knuckles scraped along the ground. Strangely enough, neither of them was carrying any source of illumination. And yet they seemed to be having no trouble at all navigating the shadowy labyrinth.

"Then again, I suppose all this occultist symbolism codswallop must've been all the rage back then, it's not like anybody's been around to renovate the place in the last ten thousand years or so. Funny though, it's in perfectly good condition. You'd expect it to be all dirty and crumbly by now. I wonder why. I mean, even I actually have to get up and do some spring cleaning every now and then, y'know?" One of the silhouettes was talking incessantly while the other remained completely silent, to the point where it became difficult to tell whether it was actually having a conversation or just talking to itself.

Barangot's obelisk stood, sinister and forbidding, in the centre of a cavernous hexagonal chamber. Blasphemous runes covered every inch of its surface, emitting a menacing red light which seemed only to deepen the darkness rather than brightening it. As the two strangers stepped into the chamber, the glint of metal could be seen in the crimson glow.

"You know, Kayaitch? Somehow I doubt old Barangot will actually be able destroy the Earth for us. But it might be interesting to see how far he gets, anyway. Ready? Here we go…"

A pair of metallic hands laid themselves on the surface of the obelisk. The red light intensified.

"Well, that didn't take very long at all."

"Yes, who'd have thought it was right here behind the waterfall?"

Ziggy and his mentees had found the entrance to the Apithanopolitismosian High Temple. Having thrown Winky into the lake, Mart and Faiz had proceeded to throw rocks at him as he attempted to surface, forcing him to swim up to and behind the waterfall and drag himself back onto the ground from there. The presence of a large pair of stone doors inscribed with cautionary runes did not go unnoticed even by one such as Winky.

It is an odd fact of archaeology that just about every ancient culture, famous or not, appear to have shared a bizarre obsession with hiding entrances to tombs and temples behind waterfalls. One wonders why people these days do not hide banks and supermarkets behind waterfalls as well. Possibly because we are running out of vacant waterfalls.

The quintet were now hanging around in front of the double doors, setting up appropriately archaeological-looking apparatus and markers before entering. Like most academic subjects, Archaeology was really just mostly about the look of things.

"I wonder how this opens," said Faiz, inspecting the doors quizzically. "Some complex locking mechanism we have to get past by solving some idiotic puzzle, probably."

"Maybe we should just blow it up," said Mart, giving the great stone slabs an experimental push. They swung open compliantly. "Oh…"

It was dark as Mart's fantasies (especially those involving Emma) beyond, but this was not a thought that struck the man himself as he peered into the temple interior. Seeing nothing potentially dangerous, indeed seeing nothing at all, Mart figured that it would, in all probability, be safe to take a step inside.

"What do those runes on the door say anyway?" asked Emma whilst Mart began the process of putting his foot across the threshold. "They looked very ominous."

"'Mind the step'. Why?" said Ziggy.

"Aargh!" screamed Mart as he fell.

"Ah! After ten thousand years I'm free! It's time to…"

Demon Prince Barangot paused in mid-rant, realising with a jolt that there was nobody else but him in the chamber. How odd, he thought. There's usually a group of frightened explorers or fanatical cultists hanging about when a primordial evil such as he were freed for the first time in millennia. It was awfully disappointing not to have an audience hanging on to every word of his I'm-back speech.

"Oh well, time to get down to business then," muttered Barangot. "Faulkog!"

"Yes, master?" An armoured, boar-like demon with an enormous bardiche appeared in a puff of fire and brimstone.

"Good to see you again, Faulkog," said Barangot. "I expect you all returned Below when I got sucked into that rock ten thousand years ago? Without me you couldn't possibly have maintained physical stability in the human world for very long. Anyway, we're continuing what we couldn't finish last time round. I want you to take twelve Abominations and head up to the Apithanopolitismosian High Temple. Destroy the Tablets – they should be safe enough to touch by now."

"By your command," boomed Faulkog and swept off, leaving Barangot to wonder vaguely how he and his followers all spoke perfect English, despite having had no contact with the human race since well before the language came into existence.

"Giant boulder trap?"

"Check."

"Step-activated poison dart trap?"

"Check."

"Contracting walls trap?"

"Check."

"Crumbling bridge trap?"

"Check."

"Computerised laser grid trap?"

"… Wait, what?"

"Sorry, wrong genre," said Ziggy, flipping his notebook shut. "Well, I think that just about covers all of 'em. That can only mean one thing: artifacts of immense magical power and monetary value in the next room up ahead."

"Oh, I'm tingling with anticipation," said Emma sarcastically. "Last expedition we went on, all we found was… what? A cat-shaped jar with a dried kidney in it?"

"Ah, but that was the tomb of Lesser Vizier Anum, Nomarch of the Sepat of No Real Importance of Lower Egypt," Ziggy explained. "What else could you expect? But this – this is the High Temple of Apithanopolitismos. It's rumoured that there's three magical tablets hidden somewhere in here!"

"Magical tablets? What magical tablets?" said Emma.

"Made by the Apithanopolitismosians ten thousand years ago to fight a primordial evil, Demon Prince Barangot the All-Consuming Maw of the Infinite Blackness with a Thousand Voices and First Servant of the Unspeakable Evil," Ziggy told her. "At least, that's how the story goes…"

He touched a slightly raised stone panel on the wall in front of the group and an adjacent secret doorway slid open with a low rumble.

"That was easy!" he chuckled. "Right then, gang, are we ready to –"

"Do not move!"

An armoured, boar-like demon stepped out of the shade and slowly, deliberately pointed a finger at the archaeologists. "Get out of my way, humans," it rumbled threateningly. "My orders from Prince Barangot are to destroy the Tablets, and I will not allow you to take them." From behind him there came loud, echoing footsteps, and shortly thereafter a dozen brass-plated skeletal creatures with flaming mohawks appeared.

"What? More weird-looking monsters?" Faiz was expressing a considerably lower level of shock than his fellow undergraduates, two of whom were standing there with their mouths hanging open wider than the Gulf of Mexico, and one of whom (Winky) had wet himself in sheer terror. Ziggy, however, looked none too surprised.

"What the hell are you talking about, Five?" snapped Mart, managing to regain some small degree of control over his jaw muscles.

"Clearly you haven't been to Japan before," said Faiz. "I was there for a few weeks last year. Stuff like this happens there all the time, especially in Tokyo. No one really knows why."

"I told you to get out of my way!" roared Faulkog angrily. "Abominations, get them!"

As one, the skeletal creatures advanced, brandishing a variety of nasty-looking weapons. Winky fainted. Then Faiz leapt out in front of them.

"Stop!" he shouted.

The Abominations paused, unsure of what to do. In their many thousands of years of existence, almost every encounter they had had with humans involved said humans running, screaming or begging for mercy. A confident human being was not something they had to deal with very often.

Shining fearlessness like an aura of light, Faiz whipped out his mobile phone with great flair and dialled in the numbers 5-5-5. He thrust the phone high up into the air –

"HENSHIN!"

And jammed it vigorously into his belt.

Nothing happened.

In the gobsmacked silence that followed, the sound of a cricket chirping far off in the distance could be heard.

"What the hell was that!?" The one who broke the silence was, to exactly nobody's surprise, Mart.

"It seemed to work well enough for skinny Japanese laundry men!" Faiz protested.

"Quick! Into the secret room!" said Ziggy, ushering his mentees through the doorway like an impatient human trafficker. Pausing only to hurl a camping stove at the Abominations to slow them down, he hurried in after the others. That is, except for Winky, who was still unconscious and to whom neither the Abominations nor Faulkog paid any attention to.

The room was enormously large, much more so than its narrow door would have suggested, and to describe it in a word, it was breathtaking. Its walls were liberally covered in patterned networks of hieroglyphs and runes, and streams of crystal water ran through perfectly straight channels along the floor. On the ceiling was an intricately-carved map of the Apithanopolitismosian realms, painstakingly detailed and scaled to perfection. Set into recessed alcoves were gigantic statues of forgotten gods, all with their gazes benevolently directed towards the centre of the room, where three low columns stood on a raised platform.

On each of the columns lay a single stone tablet, each little more than the size of a coin.

"The Tablets!" gasped Ziggy. He dashed up onto the platform and grabbed the artifacts as though they were styrofoam buoys on an open sea.

"That's it? Some bits of rock?" screeched Emma. "We're about to be killed and eaten by scary monsters and you still want your little bits of rock?"

"Not any old bits of rock, Emma!" said Ziggy. "These Tablets once sealed Barangot into a boulder, and I'm sure they can do it again!"

"And how, exactly?"

"Drop those tablets, human!" Faulkog and his Abominations had, evidently, managed to squeeze in through the none-too-wide doorway and were now swiftly making their way towards the central platform.

"Mart! Faiz! Emma! Catch!" yelled Ziggy, and hurled the Tablets into the air.

The three students reached out and, somehow, managed to catch a Tablet each, all at exactly the same time.

There was a blinding flash of light. Faulkog found his footfalls faltering as he reflexively raised a hand to shield his demonic eyes.

And when he could see again, there, standing on the central platform, were three humans clad in matching spandex suits and helmets, each of a different colour. The one on the left in yellow, the one on the right in blue, and the middle one in red.

"Oh for the love of… They got our colours all bloody mixed up!" cursed Faiz angrily. "I do not look good in blue!"

"I like red," Mart offered his opinion. "A proper sports colour, red is."

"I think I look rather nice in yellow, myself," said Emma brightly. "And I think this calls for a massive wardrobe review pretty soon!"

"Is anyone else besides me feeling an overwhelming urge to do a corny roll call sequence?" inquired Mart.

"Argh, I know the routine…" muttered Faulkog. "Abominations, stand down. No one is to attack until they've finished their roll call."

One by one, the Rangers each struck a flashy but entirely banal pose.

"Shouting cheesy catchphrases! GeoRed!"

"Using unlikely weapons! GeoBlue!"

"Acting a third our age! GeoYellow!"

"Fighting evil, inspiring kids and defying common sense all at once! Parody Sentai – GeoRanger!"

An explosion went off behind the three of them. They turned around uneasily and looked.

Ziggy shrugged. "Well, I'd brought the pyrotechnics gear along anyway. Figured I might as well use it."

"Look, are we going to fight or not?" asked Faulkog impatiently. "It's been ten thousand years since I last gutted a human, and I'd like to get back into the habit sooner rather than later, if you don't mind!"

"You want a fight? You've got one, pig!" Mart yelled.

"Oh, well done, idiot," hissed Faiz. "Now you've provoked him. Might I remind you that we don't even know how to use these suits yet? And did I mention that I don't like blue?"

"Five, if you're going to –"

"Enough!" roared Faulkog. "Abominations! Destroy them!"

"You can just say 'kill' if you want, Lord Faulkog. There's nothing wrong with that word," said one of the Abominations soberly. It was difficult to tell which one, though.

"You keep your rictus shut! Just go tear them apart like I told you to!"

"Come on team, let's bash their skulls in!" said Mart. "Get it? Skulls? Because they're skeletons? Ha ha… ha…"

His laughter shrivelled and died like a vegetable in an overcharged freeze-dryer. Emma's withering gaze was palpable even under her helmet.

"Ahem." Mart collected himself hastily. "Charge!"

And with that, he launched himself into the air and delivered a flying side kick to the chest of the Abomination nearest to him, all the while fighting down a sudden impulse to shout, "Rider Kick!" Landing nimbly, he proceeded to knock another Abomination off its feet with a corkscrew punch before piledriving a third into the ground.

"Hey! These mooks aren't so tough!" he said as he casually deflected a swing from a hook.

"I… I dunno, Mart," Faiz replied in a half-whimper. He was bent over slightly, covering his head with his arms while an Abomination bludgeoned him relentlessly with a mace.

Emma was not faring too well herself. Three Abominations had produced long chain-whips from somewhere, and had used them to restrain the Yellow Ranger quite effectively. "Somebody explain to me why they don't seem so keen on using these chains on anyone but me?" she managed to sputter as she struggled desperately to free herself from her entanglement. "OW! Mart, a little help?"

No, this is turning me on far too much, Mart almost blurted. But he checked himself in time and said, "Back off!" instead, catching one of the Abominations in a rugby tackle as he did so. The force of the tackle took the other two off balance as well, just long enough for Emma to free herself before Mart descended on them as a whirling red mass of pain.

"Come on, Faiz, you do something as well!" said Emma.

"But I'm no good at fighting!" griped Faiz while feebly attempting to ward off mace blows from his uncomplainingly persistent attacker.

"Just pretend it's Winky!" Emma encouraged him.

There was a slight pause, in which the 'click' of brain modules switching gears was almost audible.

"I STEP ON NECKS!" bellowed Faiz, dealing a reverse roundhouse kick to the unfortunate Abomination with such power that it was sent soaring across the room at mach speeds, slamming into the opposite wall so hard it left an Abomination-shaped impression in the stonework three metres deep.

"Wow, Faiz!" Even Mart could not help but be impressed at the Iranian's spectacular display of what denizens of the intarwebs might refer to as 'pwnage'.

"Bah! They don't make demonic minions the way they used to," lamented Faulkog as the last of the Abominations were beaten into submission by the Rangers. "I'll just have to deal with this myself!"

Brandishing his bardiche expertly, Faulkog rushed up and knocked the Rangers back with three well-placed strokes. Sparks flew as the colour-coded heroes fell heavily to the ground and subsequently made an overly exaggerated effort at struggling back to their feet.

"You may have the power of the Tablets, humans, but I'll cut you up all the same!" crowed Faulkog, pressing the attack.

"I wish he'd stop it with the threats already," grumbled Faiz. "Especially when he can actually back them up… ouch." He stumbled under the crushing impact of a direct bardiche swipe to the shoulder.

"There must be something we can do about this!" said Emma, narrowly dodging yet another swing from Faulkog's massive polearm.

"Oi! Take these weapons! They might help!" Ziggy had reappeared from somewhere, carrying a bundle of items which he tossed to his mentees. The Rangers caught them and stared in dumbfounded bemusement.

"Ziggy, is your idea of weapons a mop…" started Mart.

"… A saucepan…" continued Faiz.

"… And two toothbrushes?" finished Emma.

"I couldn't find anything better in our equipment!"

"But – toothbrushes!?" Emma sounded as though she were about to have another shrieking outburst again, but stopped short as she noticed an eldritch yellow light her toothbrushes were beginning to emit. She blinked. And then there, in her hands where two plastic dental implements had been seconds ago, were a pair of gleaming runic scimitars, perfectly balanced and sharp as sarcasm. Similarly, Mart and Faiz's objects had turned into a spear and a shield, respectively.

"I just don't believe this," said Faiz.

"It's the power of the Tablets!" declared Ziggy proudly.

"Why does Emma get swords? I'm the red one here!" Mart complained.

"Oh great… now they're turning mundane stuff into magical weapons," Faulkog groaned to himself. "What is this? Kamen Rider Kuuga all over again?"

Mart twirled his spear with the air of a professional. "I'm gonna stick you like a pig, pig!"

"Oh, just shut up and attack him already!" Emma reprimanded him while smacking him upside the head with the flat of her blade.

But Faulkog had already seized the initiative and was charging at the Rangers again, bardiche raised for an overhead chop and howling like a demon. Of course, being one, he had no business howling like anything else.

"Yikes!" The multi-coloured trio just managed to dive out of the way as Faulkog's weapon came crashing down from above. No doubt certain people would have loved to see that particular sequence happen in slow-motion with nuclear explosions going off in the background, but sadly it all occurred at perfectly normal speed and resulted in nothing more spectacular than a dent in one of the temple's stone tiles.

Bellowing an oath, Faulkog heaved the bardiche backwards for another brutish hack. This time, however, a red spear-shaft rose up to block the polearm as it fell. The two weapons met with a reverberating clang and locked each other motionless in the air for a split second, before Mart flicked his spear around in a circular motion, turning the bardiche aside and opening a gap in Faulkog's defence long enough for him to lunge in and drive his spear directly into the demon's chest.

"G'rgahgraph!" swore Faulkog. Or at least, that was the closest possible phonetic approximation, using the English language, to whatever he said. He took two steps back, regained his balance and swung his bardiche yet again, this time guiding it in a sideways cleave that threatened to bisect Mart across the waist. Luckily for the Red Ranger, a block of blue jumped in in the nick of time, stopping Faulkog's bardiche with the simple addition of a large shield to the polearm's path. At the same time, Emma darted out from beside Faiz, crossing over to Faulkog's vulnerable side to slash the demon multiple times with her matched scimitars. Howling in rage, Faulkog lashed out with a vicious backhand, catching Emma across the jaw and causing her to stumble back, dazed. Faiz replied by bashing him solidly in the face with his shield and Mart followed through with a spear jab to the gut that sent the demon tumbling.

"Let's finish him off!" shouted Mart. "Er… aren't we supposed to have a massive cannon or something? Where is it?"

"Maybe it's voice activated," suggested Faiz.

"Okay, ah… BIG F***ING CANNON!"

"Mart, language!" Emma gasped. "And anyway, this is ancient magical stuff we're using. You know, ancient? As in before they had MP3 players? You seriously think they'd have had cannons 10000 years ago?"

"Well, maybe if we think about having one hard enough…"

"Oh, bugger off. I'll do this myself," said an exasperated Emma. "Desert Slash!"

Scimitars smouldering with golden energy, the Yellow Ranger charged up to Faulkog and delivered three successive strikes, her weapons releasing a tremendous blast of yellow power with each hit. As the last of the arcane energy diffused away, she gave the swords a little concluding flourish, just for effect, then calmly turned around and walked away.

Faulkog blinked. Then he toppled and fell on his back. He even managed a bewildered "Uh?" before exploding in a ball of crimson fire.

"Wow, Emma, you're really good at this!" gushed Faiz as Emma rejoined the group a short distance away.

"Yeah… well done, I guess." If Mart sounded grudging, it was because he was slightly offended at not getting to finish Faulkog off, despite being red.

"Collection prize for you, Emma!" warbled Ziggy. The smell of marijuana about him had strengthened considerably, answering the question of what exactly he had been up to all the time while the Rangers were fighting.

"So, what now?" said Emma.

"Back to Ol' Blighty, what else?" replied Ziggy. "I have a feeling there's a lot more we'll have to do with those tablets. Come on crew, let's pack up."

Meanwhile, Faulkog rematerialised in Barangot's necropolis in a puff of fire and brimstone.

"Aren't you glad you're a demon, Faulkog?" Barangot droned sardonically. "Means you can't actually die. Ever. You just keep coming back and back and… hm, maybe that's not really such a good thing after all, if all you're going to do is get yourself blown up by squishy humans in spandex suits over and over again, eh?

Faulkog grunted. "I was careless, Prince Barangot. This won't happen again next time."

"And thanks to you, there actually will be a next time since you stupidly let them take the Tablets!" snarled Barangot, jumping off his throne and blasting Faulkog into smithereens with a beam of red energy in a single fluid motion. Seconds later, the boar demon reappeared again, apparently no worse for the wear.

"It's just too bad I can't kill you either, Faulkog," sighed Barangot. "Nevertheless, your incompetence baffles me."

"But master –"

"Oh, shut it. There's more important things for us to worry about anyway. I sense the humans are preparing to leave this area, and if we are to retake the Tablets, we must follow them. So pack up, Faulkog, we're leaving this hole. Go summon the others too while you're at it."

"By your command." Faulkog saluted and hurried out of the chamber.

"One other thing…" mused Barangot to himself as Faulkog disappeared into the shadows. "Just who the hell released me from that obelisk anyway?"

END EPISODE 1. CUE CHEESY DANCE SEQUENCE.