Chin-Waggings of the Shard-Bud Snatchers [Crock]

A collection of short stories, with a semblance of theme. Warning: Crock-fic (i.e., contains enough crack that you may need a large jar to carry it home.)

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Snarls & Snipes

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Alexandria's discussion with the Number Man was thoroughly interrupted when a familiar rift in reality opened in mid-air. Stepping through the door, which quickly closed behind him, Eidolon stomped up to them. The Number Man lifted his coffee cup in one hand and his laptop with other, before they could get knocked to the floor when Eidolon slammed a fist down on the table. "This ends now!"

"I quite agree," Alexandria said in her most affable voice. "I've been trying to convince Contessa to invest in proper coffee beans and a grinder, rather than all this instant-brewed powdery filth, but she's adamant in her position. Predictably, the Number Man has taken her side."

The cape in question just shrugged. "I am on no-one's side in this matter. Why get worked up over caffeine delivery systems? Whatever keeps my brain running is fine. Flavour is irrelevant."

Eidolon stood ramrod-straight, trembling with emotion as his masked and cowled head turned to look from one to another. "I am not talking about hot beverages! I am talking about this absolute travesty! I should never have let you talk me into this!"

Alexandria quirked an eyebrow. "Absolute travesty?" She glanced over at the Number Man, who just shrugged again, before continuing to type away on his laptop. "This is Cauldron, David. You're going to have to be more specific than that."

"This!" Eidolon tugged at his cloak, like he was debating whether to rip it off or strangle himself with it. "Why the hell did you think it was a good idea to change my uniform?!"

Eyeing him up and down, Alexandria still found it a little strange to see Eidolon wearing something other than his traditional green outfit. The style of the costume had remained the same, but the old colour scheme had been replaced with the red-white-and-blue of the American flag. His new cloak was patterned with stripes down along his back, while his hood was covered in stars. Even his glowing mask had been decorated with a bald eagle decal, its stern visage seeming quite appropriate, given his current mood.

"We already had this argument," she said in a calm and soothing voice. "The Image department was concerned about public perception of our efforts, and the Republicans have expressed their dissatisfaction with your outfit. Repeatedly."

Sadly, Eidolon's current power-set seemed to imbue him with an invulnerability to rational argumentation. Either that, or he was just too busy feeling sorry for himself to bother listening.

"Their complaints were complete gibberish! Un-American? Me?!" He started pacing back and forth, arms sweeping in wide arcs to the side as he gestured. "How could my uniform possibly be considered un-American? It was green, for crying out loud! I'm like a living, flying weapons platform, with the colour of fresh dollar bills!"

"True," the Number Man chimed in, talking as he worked. "You already had the guns and the green covered. That's two out of three G's; if you incorporated some form of greasy junk food in your costume, you'd have completed a holy trifecta of American stereotypes."

Eidolon spun around, pointing a stern finger at the seated cape. "Don't even get started on that 'Deep-Fried-olon' spiel again! I'm not replacing my helmet with some giant burger-faced monstrosity!"

"The green colour had to go, David," Alexandria said, shaking her head. "People were starting to suspect you were secretly advertising sustainability, green energy, eco-friendly lifestyles..."

Eidolon threw his arms up in the air. "So what?! Like you said, this is Cauldron! We're here to save the world, no matter the cost!"

"You can hardly compare the routine expenditure of mere human lives, made in our efforts against Scion, with the staggering sacrifice that John Q. Public would have to make in order to reduce his carbon footprint," the Number Man said, pausing his typing to wag a finger at Eidolon. "Recycling is terribly un-American, you know."

Eidolon scoffed. "You'd think the liberals would have been able to appreciate the symbol value and classic aesthetic style of my old uniform, but no-o-o," he held his hands in front of him, wringing his fingers and whining in a high-pitched voice. "They just wanted to natter endlessly about how my use of force was getting too exce-e-essive! I should use special baby-waybee kiddy gloves when I fight villains, so the poor widdle rapists and murderers don't get a nasty boo-boo!"

"I believe that the term CNN used most often to criticize your methodology was 'scorched Earth tactics'," Alexandria corrected him. She didn't bother to point out that the news network's way of capitalizing the phrase in their headlines was entirely intentional, a subtle dig at Eidolon's habits of fighting fire with plenty more fire; he'd just counter, as he did whenever she brought it up, with the fact that their insistent suggestions that he should use non-violent de-escalation methods rather than Blaster powers, had resulted in other news media suggesting a new PRT power classification: Bluster powers.

"Who cares what the vapid airheads and pompous blowhards on TV think?!" Eidolon shouted, ignoring the Number Man's muttered comment about the weather forecasters' likelihood of objecting to his casual overuse of wind metaphors during El Niño. "I'm Eidolon! I'm the most American cape there is!"

"Miss Militia's fan club might disagree with you on that," Alexandria said. "We got lucky that she only trademarked her Star-Spangled Bandana, and not the entire concept of using US iconography as part of a cape costume. We would never have been able to get your new cloak put together, otherwise."

Eidolon grabbed the edge of his flag-painted cloak, yanking it forward and shoving it in her face. Rude. Just because she'd had one eyeball torn from its socket, didn't mean she was blind. "Is that so?" he snarled. "Because I'm tempted to tear this ridiculous thing to pieces, right now!"

The Number Man snorted. "Now who's un-American?"

Alexandria sighed, although only in the privacy of her own mind. "Like I said, bipartisan support is important to-"

"Oh, you might have appeased the GOP," Eidolon seethed. "But PHO is having a field day!" He thrust out a hand in an imperious gesture, and the Number Man's laptop was enveloped in a glowing nimbus of telekinetic energy. Floating through the air, the electronic device was quickly deposited in front of the Triumvirate member, who proceeded to assault it with furious tapping at its keyboard. The Number Man sighed, and shook his head. Taking another laptop from the top of a stack beside him, he returned to his work.

"Look!" Eidolon gestured at the laptop screen. Alexandria leaned closer, inspecting the website that her colleague had accessed. Glancing at the top of the PHO thread, she managed to suppress a snort of amusement at the title. 'American Eidol Contest', indeed.

The first posted picture seemed fairly tame; still, she didn't need to use her Thinker power to realize that, considering David's constant struggle to prove himself, to seek out new opposition and vanquish his foes, it would likely have hit a sore spot with him. A simple photo of Eidolon in his new costume, taken from the press release, with an added black border and a few added captions; above the picture, the words 'I STOPPED ANOTHER S-CLASS THREAT' blazed in stark white contrast to the black background, and below it: 'SOMEONE FLAG DOWN A CAMERA CREW'.

"Do you see?" Eidolon ranted at her, as he started flicking the touch-pad mouse to scroll further down the page. "This is the madness your tampering has wrought!" Alexandria caught a few of the meme pictures, as the thread blurred past. 'THESE COLORS DON'T RUN... UNLESS I USE A MOVER POWER' stood out to her in particular.

"You're overreacting," she said, gently pushing Eidolon aside and taking control of the computer. Moving quickly down the thread, she searched for some milder and less offensive posts. "See? Just the usual harmless nonsense you might expect from the idiots on PHO. The site is full of trolling and LOL'ing, signifying nothing."

Taking a step back from the laptop, she gestured at the screen. Eidolon leaned back in, scrutinizing the pictures she'd uncovered. Some of the more creative meme-wranglers had edited the pattern on Eidolon's cloak. One picture showed him wearing a rainbow flag outfit, with the caption: PRIDE-UMVIRATE. Another had been emblazoned with the skull-and-crossbones of the Jolly Roger, and the caption 'TRIUM-PIRATE'.

"It doesn't even rhyme properly," he grumbled. Scrolling down further, he started bellowing again. "And look at this! This is an outright insult!"

The clickety-clack sounds of the Number Man's typing paused. He looked up from his current laptop, glancing between the two Triumvirate members. "Did you find the one with the morbidly obese kid, yet?" Lacing his fingers and cracking the knuckles on both hands simultaneously, he bent back down to his computer. "I suspect that we might be looking at a return of the Wide-olon meme from last summer."

Alexandria shot a quick look at the laptop; it did, indeed, feature a picture of a rather overweight teenager, dressed up in a home-made Eidolon costume. She recognized the photo; the original version of it, with the husky cosplayer wearing Eidolon's old green cloak, had enjoyed a significant bout of popularity on various social media, a little while back. Someone must have decided to bring it back for an encore, and edited the photo to add Eidolon's new American flag pattern to the cloak. Above the picture, in both all caps and a bold font, were the words: I HEARD VERTICAL STRIPES ARE SLIMMING. Below it, the caption read: NOW MY ASS WON'T LOOK BIG ENOUGH TO BE THE 51st STATE.

Eidolon turned the glare of his glowing eagle mask at the Number Man, while Alexandria reminded herself not to make any puns about 'glaring light' at the moment; only two of the people in the room would think it was funny, right now. "Do you think this is amusing?" Eidolon growled. "People are slandering me unabashedly online!"

"Oh, hardly that," the Number Man shook his head. "They seem to be bashing you pretty strongly, at the moment. Besides, it's only slander if it's spoken. When it's in print-"

"It's libel," Alexandria chorused alongside him. "Yes, we know," she chided him. Did he really have to rile Eidolon up even further, when the formerly-green but currently-mean cape was already upset enough to start punching the furniture? "We've watched that Aleph movie, too."

Eidolon bent down over the laptop again, clicking his way to a different webpage. "In that case, you no doubt also remember that with great power comes-"

"Hot chicks?" the Number Man interjected.

"Mountains of paperwork?" Alexandria drawled.

"Responsibility!" Eidolon jabbed a finger at the computer screen in front of him, its glow mingling with the light shimmering from under his hood. "And your meddling has had plenty of serious consequences!"

Alexandria examined the website – another PHO thread debating Eidolon's new look, it seemed, albeit in a more serious tone than the previous one. "The Triumvirate's new and more aggressive use of political iconography..." she muttered, reading out loud. "...Likely been taken as a provocation by radical elements of society... escalated in response..."

"Sounds like the usual mad ramblings of crackpot conspiracy theorists," the Number Man sighed. "Sometimes, I wonder if the 'P' in PHO stands for 'Paranoia'."

Eidolon folded his arms. "This time, they have evidence to support their accusations," he said in a glum voice. Nodding his head at the laptop, several large arrow-shaped outlines of coruscating emerald fire crackled into being in mid-air. Alexandria rolled her eyes at his antics, but followed his directions. Clicking on one of the links on the page that Eidolon had indicated, she frowned as an image sharing website popped up.

Under the heading 'E88 DEUTSCHE-MARKING THEIR TERRITORY', a series of photos appeared, showing several damaged apartment buildings, and a few injured people. In the corner of one picture, the armoured leg of a giant-sized female figure could be seen striding out of the scene. Scrolling down, Alexandria soon noticed a pattern; every building had been defaced in the same way, with oversized bladed weapons – giant sword slashes and spear thrusts? – having been used to carve a huge symbol into the wall. The same symbol in every photo, one that was instantly recognizable to anyone who'd ever watched a film about WW2, or (somewhat more unlikely, in the current day and age) ever opened a history book.

The pictures of injured people – none of them white, unsurprisingly – showed that they'd received the same treatment, although with normal-sized blades, rather than the gargantuan weapons used on the buildings.

"Fenja and Menja learned a new trick, I see," she murmured. She made a languid gesture with one hand. "So what? Property damage, hate crimes, a few cuts and lacerations... Awful, yes, but hardly something to get worked up about, in the grand scheme of things. Are you worried that the neo-Nazis are going to throw a tantrum, when someone points out to them that they stole their latest calling card from a guy called Zorro?"

Eidolon shook his head, and flared another of his flaming green arrows. Clenching her fist to suppress her growing urge to punch something, she clicked on the next link he'd highlighted.

An embedded video started playing. It showed a huge metal monstrosity, shaped like a four-spoked wheel, trundling down the road. When it stopped rolling, it became apparent that it wasn't a perfect wheel, but rather a slightly curving and sharp-edged version of the same symbol as before. Casting a glance at the video's captions, Alexandria noticed that the short film had been titled 'BIGOTS, TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUT'.

"Clearly, Hookwolf attended the same lessons on marketing and brand recognition as Fenja and Menja," Eidolon grumbled. "PHO dubbed it 'The Swasti-Kartwheel'."

Alexandria started scrolling down the thread, looking for the next link that Eidolon was so insistent she should see. She briefly paused when she noticed another posted picture; clearly, one of the people from the 'American Eidol Contest' had visited this thread, as well. The same press release photo of Eidolon wearing his new flag-themed costume had been used, but in this iteration of the meme, a red filter had been applied. His outfit still showed the pattern of stars on the hood and stripes on the cloak, but now entirely rendered in shades of crimson and pink. 'BUMPED INTO HOOKWOLF AT GRANDMA'S HOUSE', the caption read. 'NOW I'M SEEING STARS'.

Moving on before Eidolon could get worked up over this, as well, Alexandria clicked the last of the emphasized links. Another video, this time an edited version of someone's camera phone recording of a recent cape battle in Brockton Bay. She recognized the footage from a previous briefing; Crusader had changed his approach to fighting Oni Lee, ever so slightly. The teleporting ABB villain would wink into existence near his opponent, either trying to stab him or slip a grenade in his pocket, then crumble into ash. Crusader countered this by having his ghostly copies carry him aloft, hiding himself in a mob of flying spectral bodyguards that kept Oni Lee at bay. Whenever Oni Lee had strafed the ghostly mob with a hit-and-clone-teleport attack, the ghosts acted as lookouts, keeping an eye in all directions to try and spot the ABB villain, or his next clone.

So far, a fairly routine performance. The variation lay in the Crusader ghosts' behaviour between attacks, while they were scanning their surroundings to find Oni Lee; rather than just flying idle, the ghosts fanned out into a large formation, which- ...Yes, there was that same symbol again. It was getting a bit repetitive, frankly, albeit it was arguably the most well-known Nazi symbol – even though they'd stolen it, to start with. Still, synchronized flying and military formations did seem like the kind of thing that neo-Nazi capes might do; she vaguely wondered why the Empire had never tried this sort of thing before... And then she noticed the singing.

This video was, as she'd immediately noted, an edited version. With added background music. Amusingly, the original recording had needed a surprisingly small amount of cutting and pasting to get the movements of Crusader's ghosts in sync with the tune. Some home-made karaoke remake of... Ah, yes. She'd heard that on PHO before, as well. Those lyrics did seem entirely appropriate.

"Apparently, people call it 'filking', when they add their own words to an existing piece of music," Eidolon sighed. "Personally, I'd call it 'inciting another skinhead riot'."

Alexandria turned down the volume on the laptop, but didn't mute it completely; she rather enjoyed 'YMCA', and this altered version was vaguely amusing. "Yes, there's clearly a pattern," she said. "But there's no evidence that your new costume had anything to do with it."

The Number Man straightened in his seat "About that..." He fished a folder out from one of the towering piles of paperwork beside him. "We just got the report from WEDGDG on the white supremacist movements' new behaviour, and the posited link to Eidolon's costume change."

Eidolon reached for the folder, but Alexandria snagged it from the Number Man's outstretched hand an instant faster than him. Flipping through it while ignoring Eidolon, who'd folded his arms again and was tapping a finger against his elbow, she hummed, considering the presented data and conclusions. "I see that the new recruit, Concisa, made a valuable contribution," she mused. "I'm impressed."

"Contessa mentioned that she liked her, too," the Number Man shrugged. "But that might just be because she approves of her name. Odd, really; you'd think she'd be at least somewhat upset about someone picking a cape name so close to her own."

Alexandria shook her head. "Imitation is the surest form of flattery, even if the person doing the imitating doesn't even know that you exist," she said, then tilted her head as she thought. "...Or should that be: Especially when the-"

"What," Eidolon ground out through gritted teeth. "Is so impressive about her work?"

"Hmm?" Alexandria glanced at him. "Oh, well.. She applied her Thinker power to condense a lengthy and verbose set of analytical deliberations, rendering it down into readily accessible plain text."

Eidolon's head turned, as he stared alternately at Alexandria and the folder in her hands. "Condensed?!" He waved a hand at the report. "That bundle of papers is the size of a brick! What's so 'Concise-a' about that?!"

Alexandria shook her head. "Not the report, no. Concisa wrote the summary." She held the folder out to him. "Right there on the first page, see? Only two words, yet it encapsulates the entirety of the report. Remarkable!"

Eidolon thrust out a hand, and grabbed at the papers with his current telekinetic power. Several sheets of paper fluttered to the ground, as the front page erupted out from the folder, careening into his grasp. He stared at it quietly for several long seconds; the room was silent, except for the sound of the amateur singer repeating the chorus once more through the laptop's tiny speakers. "...Eee! Eighty! Eight! It's fun to punch all those E88!"

Eidolon's hand slowly closed into a tight fist, crumpling the sheet of paper. He turned to Alexandria, raising the paper in his fist, and waved it at her like a weapon. It was hard to tell if his voice was trembling from vindication, or outrage. "Blame Eidolon?" He slapped the paper down on the table. "BLAME EIDOLON?!"

"Congratulations!" Alexandria smiled. "Looks like you were right."

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Author Notes:
One of the greatest tragedies in the Worm fandom is the fact that nobody ever uses the phrase "Star-Spangled Bandana" when discussing Miss Militia.

The premise behind this anthology of short stories is, perhaps, a little unusual. While reading Freaky Friday by TheGreatGimmick, I ended up getting plenty of ideas for wonderfully silly match-up names, suitable for combining capes in either a body-swap situation or just regular old shipping. The list of names grew so long, it wouldn't fit in a single omake. Instead, I decided to write a series of short stories. Also, since it might get tedious if all the stories were about romance or body snatchers, some of them are likely going to get quite silly, indeed.