Title: First-Person Lamer (Part Three)
Author: Goudess
E-Mail: queequeg01@excite.com
Rating: PG (A couple dirty-words.)
Category: I'd label this as a parody, but then I wouldn't have anything to call the
episode I'm basing it on.
Disclaimer: I checked into it. I still don't own them.
Summary: Will it ever end? Will it? ....Chances are, yes.
Spoliers: First Person Shooter. No, I did not watch it a gazillion times. My stomach isn't that strong. I just know where to find episode summaries. ^_~
Author's Note: It kind of took me a while to get the final installment up. I've been working on my more dramatic pieces, and haven't been much in the parody-mood. Because of that very fact I'm still worried that this won't much match the previous installments -- be that a good or bad thing. =P Thanks to those who reviewed, especially the fans of First-Person Shooter who were so good natured about my mockery of it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I think... and hey, if not for FPS, I wouldn't have been able to have so much fun with it. These kind of pieces are always so enjoyable to write. ^_^ And, without futher ado...
First-Person Lamer
Part Three
(The Lack of Talent Leaves the Stage. Be Blessed.)
"I have a bad feeling about this." Byers said nervously, as the game space whirrled into life around them and they were absorbed into the grody city scene. He was immediately struck across the back of the head with a plastic laser-blaster. The Lone Gunmen were crouching behind the wedge-type thingy in the game space, dressed in silly Nerdito-Esque costumes. Why, no one was quite sure.
"Moron!" Langly said.
"Fool!" Frohike said.
"Snarf-muffin!" Langly said.
Frohike and Byers blinked.
"I clammed up." Langly admitted with a shrug.
"Anyway," Frohike continued, lifting his hands in order to wave them angrly at Byers. "Just what do you think you are doing, anyway? 'I have a bad feeling about this?' What do you want to do, jinx us!"
"Not to mention the fact that saying stuff like that is the cheapest form of foreboding," Langly added snidely.
"Exactly!" Frohike cried. "I mean, sure... we know that everyone who has -ever- entered the game space has met up with a painful demise--"
"Two people," Langly said. "Everyone as in two people."
"--And that Mulder is going to rush down here to try and save us from something evil and not-nice-like..."
"And..."
Both men paused, and looked down at their watches.
"Well," Langly said. "That took up a few minutes."
"Two and three-quarters." Frohike said. "Now it's three."
"This may be kind of off-subject, but I really do feel lucky today." Byers said.
It was about then when he was shot right off his feet.
A cheap, mechanicized voice suddenly filled the air.
...10
9
8
"What's going on?" Scully asked from where she stood in the control room.
"This is the countdown." Pheobe replied.
7
6
"...What are we counting down for?"
"I dunno." Pheobe shrugged. "It's more dramatic this way."
5
4
3
"Dramatic? Why?"
"I don't know. That's what makes it dramatic." Pheobe wriggled her fingers around. "What, oh -what- will happen next! Oooh! Booo!"
2
"...You're insane." Scully said.
1
Cue-Ominous Tough-Guy Music
(Dun-dun-duuuun!)
From the computer monitor, Scully watched a spray of mist fill a small room on the screen. There was a hiss and creak as a heavy metal door slid open. A lone figure, shrouded in obscurity, stepped cooly out into the open. He had exchanged his standard-issue business suit for something better fitted for a cast member of the Rocky Horror Picture show, and with a clean and smooth movement he slipped on a suave pair of shades.
Mulder tried cooly cocking his plastic blaster with one hand. Unfortunately, it was indeed plastic and hence did not cock. He looked down at it, frowned, fiddled, and eventually resorted to flipping it up and down and making a 'clicking' motion with his tongue.
Scully put her head in her hands.
"Shh!" Pheobe cried. "He's going to say something macho!"
Mulder waited until the camera panned ultra-close to his face, and with a little twitch of his eyebrow and jaw, he said in his darkest, most masculine tone:
"Ain't no lie, baby bye-bye-bye."
He then proceeded to do some jiggy puppet-like dance motions.
"Do you think if we turned off the game it would kill him?" Scully asked hopefully.
Blaster fire blared out all around the huddling Lone Gunmen, sparking and twanging shrilly.
"That's it," Frohike said over the melee. "We're going to die."
"Dead." Langly agreed.
"Just like Byers."
"I'm not dead," Byers said from where he was sprawled out on the ground.
"He was a good man." Frohike said.
"A little fruity, you know," Langly added, doing a little finger-wriggle.
"Yeah, I always wondered about that."
"Did he ever come on to -you-? I think there was this one time--"
"Hey!" Byers snapped.
"Yup. This is it. Dead. We're going to be dead. Just like fruity ol' Byers."
There was a sudden hiss and a roar, as the door behind them slid open in a spray of mist. Langly let out a squeaky little scream and jumped.
"It's... okay," Mulder said macho-ly as he did a little hip-shifting swagger out into the open. He bounced his gun powerfully on his shoulder and posed a little. "I'm here..." Head-shift, head-shift, dramatic pause. "...To save you. There is no need to..." Shift-pause. "Be...afraid..." Shift. "...Of the game anymore." Hip-cock.
"Eee! Look what he's wearing!" Langly squeaked from Frohike's lap, where he was huddling in terror.
Mulder's tough-guy ruse faded a little as he glanced down at his silly sleeveless muscle shirt.
"And are those retro-velcro boots?!" Byers asked from the ground.
"Hold me!" Langly cried.
Mulder shifted and self-consciously switched his blaster to his other shoulder. "Uh... anyway, the door is open. You guys can scoot, now."
"Did he just say 'scoot'?" Frohike whispered.
"Just get the hell out of here!" Mulder snapped irritably.
Langly and Frohike scrambled to their feet and ran out the open door.
"Um... hey..." Byers said. "Guy on the ground, here...?"
"Good God!" Mulder cried. "They killed Byers!"
"I'm not dead, damnit!"
Meanwhile, in the control room...
"Hmph. Byers died." Phoebe said.
"Yeah. He was a good guy. A little fruity, but..."
"Look!" Phoebe cried. "Mulder's making his way down the street!" And sure enough, Mulder's image on the screen was doing a high-kneed little jounce across the game space. "What is he doing? Why isn't he coming out with everyone else?"
The Scantily-Clad Woman did a provocative little hip-jiggle from the other end of the screen.
Scully rolled her eyes. She wasn't able to make one of her snappy, dry-as-dirt comments, however, as Langly and Frohike came bursting into the room, all in a tizzy.
"Mulder's still in the game!"
"And he's dressed like Chachi on acid!"
"We know," Phoebe said.
"Trust me," Scully added with a sigh. "We know."
"We have to get him out!" Langly said.
"We have to turn off the game!"
"That's impossible!" Phoebe cried.
"...No..." Frohike said slowly. "It is a computer. We make a kill switch. Game go buh-bye. Simple as that."
"It isn't!" Phoebe argued. "You can't just turn it off! It isn't that simple!"
"Says who?" Langly demanded.
"Uh... The Computer God...?" Phoebe tried.
"Somehow, I sense that you're not telling us something."
"I wonder if the Computer God wears a tie with his toga..." Frohike mused.
"Okay, okay, you broke me! I'll tell!!" Phoebe wailed dramatically.
"But... we didn't do anything!"
"Stop, it's too much! I gave in already, you don't have to--"
"No, really, we didn't..."
"Sheesh, I wasn't even that serious, lady!"
Phoebe pulled out her copy of the script and blew her nose on it. "It's me, it's all my fault!"
"Huh?"
"Can you imagine how awful it is, working all day with these icky-peewy men?"
Frohike discreetly lifted an arm and sniffed.
"There's so much testosterone, it drove me nuts!"
"That isn't an understatement," Langly muttered.
"So..." Phoebe sniffed. "So..." Sniff. "So I created something of my own, of my very, very own... something that doesn't fit into this stupid mass of men-driven interests in this men-filled world... So I created her. Playmate2000."
Langly and Frohike blinked.
"Playmate2000 is my silent, secret battle against men and their oppression." Phoebe finished, dabbing at her eyes. "That's why I can't turn the game off. That's why I can't let anyone kill her. She's mine, and I don't want to loose her. I'm..." Sob. "So sorry!" Snarfle.
"Wait... wait... let me get this straight," Scully said flatly. "Your statement against masculinity is a thick-lipped busty bombshell in a black leather thong?"
"Damn," Frohike said. "Why can't all feminists think like you?"
Phoebe didn't answer, as she had curled up under the desk to wail pitifully to herself.
"Sucks to be her," Langly said. "Now, let's figure out how to beat this thing!"
"Go-go Power Rangers!" Frohike chanted.
On the screen, Mulder was attempting to do stylish little flips with his blaster for the Scantily-Clad Woman, who was watching him with a blank expression. She would hold up her sword to destroy him, Mulder would extend a hand for her to wait, and then he bent over awkwardly with his bum in the air to pick up the gun, only to drop it again when he gave another attempt at flipping it. The Scantily-Clad Woman began tapping a foot impatiently.
"...Is there a way that we can just... I dunno, turn -him- off?" Scully asked.
"Scully," Frohike said. "You have no soul."
"Well, turn off the monitor so I don't have to see this, at least!" Scully whined.
Phoebe continued to cry pitifully in the wake of her stand for feminist power.
Sure enough, Mulder was impressing his way into an impending doom.
"Stupid plastic piece of..." One hand had gone constantly in the air, the only thing between him and a computer-animated woman that wanted to impale him. Meanwhile, he tried to fumble with the thing. "You wouldn't happen to know how to turn this thing on, would you?"
He was answered by a very shrill and unpleasant sounding ~clang~, as the Scantily-Clad Woman mightily swung her sword at him and missed, as villains often do when dealing with big-named heroes. Mulder let out a shrill little shriek, complete with arms-in-the-air action, and...
"He dropped his gun." Scully said flatly.
"He's doomed." Frohike added.
"....He's running?"
Indeed, Mulder -was- running. Unfortunately, he didn't quite know where to go, and ended up darting two and fro around the pillar that he and Playmate2000 were hanging around by. She looked like she was getting irritated, now, and batted at him with her hands--as her sword had gotten stuck firmly into the pillar's side--while he screeched and ducked, screeched and ducked. -Really- screeched. Ducked again.
"Don't-touch-me-don't-touch-me-don't-touch-mee! Screech!"
Mulder then promptly, and quite ungracefully at that, ran right smack into the side of the sword stuck in the pillar. His feet went into the air, and he landed on the ground with a well-placed thud.
Everyone watching him on the monitor slapped their hands on their foreheads at precisely the same time.
The Scantily-clad Woman blinked twice, and then shrugged. She bent over, legs straight and round thong-clad buttocks neatly extended, to pick up Mulder's discarded blaster. Cocking her hips a little, she aimed it at the man, who was beginning to groan and regain consciousness.
He lifted his head just in time to see her cute little fingers tug at the trigger.
And then there was a blast. And nothing. The Scantily-clad Woman's shapely legs went flying up, as she was knocked off her feet by a well-aimed laser-blast. Mulder's eyes went very wide from beneath his crooked shades, and he looked shockedly over his shoulder in the direction that the shot came from.
Scully stood there, looking to be at the height of PMS, with a blaster professionally tucked into both hands.
She was also in the tacky little black-vest getup. Mulder, despite his great relief to not have a hole through his head, could not resist a snorty little snicker.
Scully, not amused, cocked her blaster.
Mulder gulped.
"Lets get out of here," she said.
And then, suddenly, the game-space warped and twisted. Mulder screamed shrilly... again.
"What's happening?" Langly asked.
Frohike blinked and quickly minimized the !Free Gillian Anderson Erotic Alien-Probing Photo Extravaganza Forum! and tapped idly at the mouse. "Uh... I dunno."
Langly narrowed his eyes. "It's... switching to the next level..."
"Why are you surprised?" Frohike asked.
"I dunno. Running across a street and into a building doesn't seem like a huge, difficult task to me, that's all. Furthermore, that chick's head is obviously pasted onto another woman's body."
"I was wondering why she seemed Latino from the neck down."
While the Lone Gunmen (minus Byers, who had strangely become obsolete) were fiddling with the main computer in the real world, Mulder was squeaking in terror in the fantasy one. Scully, meanwhile, looked from side to side warily, with her blaster ready. They were in some western setting, something that made the woman's eyes roll madly.
However, the game space was vacant. She didn't like this.
There was a crackle. "Scully?"
The voice came from overhead. Mulder and Scully peered up into the bright blue sky.
"Chris Carter?" Mulder asked meekly to the heavens.
"Don't press your luck," Frohike said. "The episode isn't over yet. But that's not important right now. We need to get you out of here."
"Obviously." Scully said.
"But we've got to figure out a way to beat Playmate2000 first," Frohike said.
"Playmate2000?!" Mulder exclaimed. His mouth made a cute little 'o' shape. Scully heaved a sigh and tapped her gun against her thigh.
"That's right," another voice said. Scully and Mulder's heads snapped down from where they were looking, and on the other side of the street stood the Scantily-Clad Woman herself, scantily-clad as her name suggested and equally quite half-dressed like. She had a cute little cowboy hat on, and her leather-lace thong had a little Indian fringe.
"Nifty." Mulder said.
Scully cocked her jaw and swiftly punched a few rounds from her blaster. Playmate2000 flickered, and then twirled like a prop on a shooting range. And then, suddenly and much to Scully's dismay, she multiplied into a whole row of yummy sex-vixens.
Mulder boggled. Scully could swear that the sky was panting. This, naturally, irritated her.
The little chorus-line of Scantily-Clad Women did a little jangling shoot-from the hip retort. Scully dodged and fired, and Playmate2000 fired back...
Langly set his chin in his palm. "This isn't working."
"I'm trying to figure out a kill switch," Frohike said, "But I'm not getting anywhere. I-" His beady eyes began to fill up with tears, and his shoulders shook pathetically. "I just want to get past this..." Choke-choke. "...episode!" Gag. "Make it stop, Langly, oh make it stop!"
"Oh, Frohike," Langly said. "Be a man!"
He stuck a little red clown-nose on his friends face, and gave it a cute little pat.
Scully hit the dust with a thud. Mulder's eyes widened and he shimmied over to her on his belly. "Scully! Psst! Scully! Are you alive?"
Scully, coughing and gagging, bopped him atop of his head with a fist. "Why don't you -do- anything?! We're going to die!"
"You have the blaster," Mulder replied promptly.
"The blaster..." Scully said firmly. "...obviously...isn't working..."
A shadow fell over them in mid-discussion. Mulder and Scully's heads turned up at the same time, a dusty and pitiful duo. Glistening and gorgeous, the Scantily-Clad Woman stood over them, her legs spread and her feet tightly apart in their little cowboy boots, a pair of pistols in hand.
"Get along, little doggy." She said. Shook some boo-tay, you know the drill.
Mulder, who was staring at her heaving chest, could only nod as if she had said the most brilliant thing possible, as opposed to another tacky little I'm-going-to-kill-you catch phrase. Scully, astounded, looked over at him and then stared disbelievingly up at Playmate2000.
"I don't get it," She finally said. "I really don't."
"I am everything that a man wants," Playmate2000 said. She motioned for Scully to get to her feet with a tip of one pistol. "Wit, intelligence..." She paused. "...And how do you say it?"
"A nice rack?" Scully offered.
"Yeah, that's it." She cocked her hips. "I'm beautiful and undefeatable. Perfect. I have no flaws, I have no imperfections...."
She also seemed to have an inability to shut up. Being locked in some tacky boring game-space since the moment of one's existence has a tendency to do that to a person. This was fortunate for Scully, forever, on account that she had a few moments to check the girl out.
Yes. Check the girl out.
Mulder watched Scully's eyes start to roam with a little bit of surprise. His eyebrows went wide and then he shrugged a little. Maybe he'd get to see some action before he died. A man really couldn't ask for much more than that.
But Scully was thinking something else entirely. Naturally.
"My muscle tone is perfect, my hair never gets messy, I never smell bad... I have no weaknesses. Nothing. I am, quite simply... perfect."
"Perfect?" Scully asked with a dry little cock of her head.
"Perfect." The Scantily-Clad Woman confirmed.
And Scully promptly planted her four-inch clunky heel right dab between Playmate2000's shapely legs.
"Aaaagh!" Mulder cried.
"Aaagh!" Frohike cried.
"Aaagh!" Langly cried. "Pain-Infliction and she-male humor all in one!! We've hit the lowest of the low!"
"I'm so ashamed." Frohike said.
Playmate2000 made a painful, gaspy face, gripped herself, and plopped over onto her side in a stiff, straddled position. Mulder, eyes wide, stared blankly at the spectacle.
Scully dusted off her shoe.
Mulder stared.
Scully tucked at her hair and set her hands on her hips tiredly.
And Mulder stared.
Scully felt a twinge of irritation. "What?"
"You... just..." He blink-blinked. "Huh?"
Scully threw her hands up. "Weren't you paying attention to anything for this entire episode?"
Mulder stared.
"...Greg...?" Scully said leadingly, gesturing down with her hands.
Mulder paused thoughtfully to consider this statement--
("Well," The Scantily-Clad Woman said in flashback mode, crossing one gorgeous shapely leg over another. "They laid me out naked in this little thing that reminds me of a tanning booth. Then they let these soft blue lights tingle along.... every..... inch....of my flesh...")
--and then promptly came to a painfully nauseating and somewhat shocking realization.
At that, he fainted.
Which suited Scully just fine.
"Scully!" Frohike cried.
Scully walked nobly across the game space starting chute, supporting a woozy and mumbling Mulder on one shoulder.
"I was -not- checking her out, I was -not- checking her out." Mulder garbled.
"That was great, I can't believe you saved the day!"
"And you didn't even write the episode!" Langly added.
"I was -not- having sexual fantasies in which she and I were the key players, I was -not- having sexual fantasies in which...."
Scully dropped her partner.
"Ouch. The floor is cold, the floor is cold..."
"Well, the mystery is solved," Langly said. "Phoebe created the monster that lives in the game. Scully defeated it. Case closed."
"But wait..." Mulder said.
"What do you mean, wait?"
"This is an X-File," Mulder said. "There has to be a catch. There's always a catch." He wriggled his fingers up and down. "Creepy-twisty ending, woooo." He dropped his hands. "You know."
Scully and the Lone Gunmen exchanged a glance.
"Well, I guess while we're on the subject of hidden and obscure genders..." Scully said. "Mulder, I have something that I've been meaning to tell you..."
Mulder's eyes rolled back in his head and plopped over for the third or fourth time this episode. Everyone else put their hands on their hips and lifted their faces in a hearty, family-sitcom-esque laugh.
"Oh, that Mulder! He's such a card!" Frohike waggled a hand on its wrist.
"Men." Scully said disdainfully.
Meanwhile, some Evil-Corporation-Boss Guy slides behind the monitor of the computer room that runs the game space. Curious, but Evily-Curious mind you, he clicks on the !Free Gillian Anderson Erotic Alien-Probing Photo Extravaganza Forum!. His eyes widen a little, and then a brilliant (and evil!) look of joy slips all over his face like some gooey mud-mask (it's good for the pores...and evil!).
He pushes his fingertips together and lets out a drawling, Simpsons-esque, "Eeexcelllent."
Fade to black.
Chris Carter pops up in a gaudy Hawaiian-print shirt and delivers a million-dollar-bleach-toothed-smile. With a bright and giddy thumbs-up, he proclaims:
"I made money! Tee-hee-hee!"
THE END.
"Finally!" Scully cried. "I am -never- getting trapped into a crappy episode like this ever again! -Ever-!!" She gripped her hands into tight little fists.
Mulder tugged off one of his ugly retro-gloves and nodded empathetically. "Damn straight -- we've learned our lesson... Hey, wait, Scully! Look!" Grinning madly, Mulder pointed to a large sign hanging ever-so-obviously on a nearby wall. "There are free spa sessions in the tap-dancing ghost section of Area 51!"
"Oh, come on, Mulder! Are you -really- that stupid?"
Mulder blinked blankly at her.
Scully threw up her hands. "Nothing's -free-! They're just going to try and sell us stuff the whole time!"
Mulder pouted. Both Agents stood around for a while, brooding in self-misery and whatnot. After a long pause, however, Scully lifted her head and looked into her partner's eyes. "Oh, what's the worse that can happen -- lets go!"
"Yippie!" Mulder cried. "Things are looking up for us!"
And as the duo exited, a man with a huge plastic garbage bag over his head came waddling in, looking about with a wad of toilet paper in one hand.
"...Hey? Where's the guy that wanted the giant mutated swamp monster?"
Author: Goudess
E-Mail: queequeg01@excite.com
Rating: PG (A couple dirty-words.)
Category: I'd label this as a parody, but then I wouldn't have anything to call the
episode I'm basing it on.
Disclaimer: I checked into it. I still don't own them.
Summary: Will it ever end? Will it? ....Chances are, yes.
Spoliers: First Person Shooter. No, I did not watch it a gazillion times. My stomach isn't that strong. I just know where to find episode summaries. ^_~
Author's Note: It kind of took me a while to get the final installment up. I've been working on my more dramatic pieces, and haven't been much in the parody-mood. Because of that very fact I'm still worried that this won't much match the previous installments -- be that a good or bad thing. =P Thanks to those who reviewed, especially the fans of First-Person Shooter who were so good natured about my mockery of it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I think... and hey, if not for FPS, I wouldn't have been able to have so much fun with it. These kind of pieces are always so enjoyable to write. ^_^ And, without futher ado...
First-Person Lamer
Part Three
(The Lack of Talent Leaves the Stage. Be Blessed.)
"I have a bad feeling about this." Byers said nervously, as the game space whirrled into life around them and they were absorbed into the grody city scene. He was immediately struck across the back of the head with a plastic laser-blaster. The Lone Gunmen were crouching behind the wedge-type thingy in the game space, dressed in silly Nerdito-Esque costumes. Why, no one was quite sure.
"Moron!" Langly said.
"Fool!" Frohike said.
"Snarf-muffin!" Langly said.
Frohike and Byers blinked.
"I clammed up." Langly admitted with a shrug.
"Anyway," Frohike continued, lifting his hands in order to wave them angrly at Byers. "Just what do you think you are doing, anyway? 'I have a bad feeling about this?' What do you want to do, jinx us!"
"Not to mention the fact that saying stuff like that is the cheapest form of foreboding," Langly added snidely.
"Exactly!" Frohike cried. "I mean, sure... we know that everyone who has -ever- entered the game space has met up with a painful demise--"
"Two people," Langly said. "Everyone as in two people."
"--And that Mulder is going to rush down here to try and save us from something evil and not-nice-like..."
"And..."
Both men paused, and looked down at their watches.
"Well," Langly said. "That took up a few minutes."
"Two and three-quarters." Frohike said. "Now it's three."
"This may be kind of off-subject, but I really do feel lucky today." Byers said.
It was about then when he was shot right off his feet.
A cheap, mechanicized voice suddenly filled the air.
...10
9
8
"What's going on?" Scully asked from where she stood in the control room.
"This is the countdown." Pheobe replied.
7
6
"...What are we counting down for?"
"I dunno." Pheobe shrugged. "It's more dramatic this way."
5
4
3
"Dramatic? Why?"
"I don't know. That's what makes it dramatic." Pheobe wriggled her fingers around. "What, oh -what- will happen next! Oooh! Booo!"
2
"...You're insane." Scully said.
1
Cue-Ominous Tough-Guy Music
(Dun-dun-duuuun!)
From the computer monitor, Scully watched a spray of mist fill a small room on the screen. There was a hiss and creak as a heavy metal door slid open. A lone figure, shrouded in obscurity, stepped cooly out into the open. He had exchanged his standard-issue business suit for something better fitted for a cast member of the Rocky Horror Picture show, and with a clean and smooth movement he slipped on a suave pair of shades.
Mulder tried cooly cocking his plastic blaster with one hand. Unfortunately, it was indeed plastic and hence did not cock. He looked down at it, frowned, fiddled, and eventually resorted to flipping it up and down and making a 'clicking' motion with his tongue.
Scully put her head in her hands.
"Shh!" Pheobe cried. "He's going to say something macho!"
Mulder waited until the camera panned ultra-close to his face, and with a little twitch of his eyebrow and jaw, he said in his darkest, most masculine tone:
"Ain't no lie, baby bye-bye-bye."
He then proceeded to do some jiggy puppet-like dance motions.
"Do you think if we turned off the game it would kill him?" Scully asked hopefully.
Blaster fire blared out all around the huddling Lone Gunmen, sparking and twanging shrilly.
"That's it," Frohike said over the melee. "We're going to die."
"Dead." Langly agreed.
"Just like Byers."
"I'm not dead," Byers said from where he was sprawled out on the ground.
"He was a good man." Frohike said.
"A little fruity, you know," Langly added, doing a little finger-wriggle.
"Yeah, I always wondered about that."
"Did he ever come on to -you-? I think there was this one time--"
"Hey!" Byers snapped.
"Yup. This is it. Dead. We're going to be dead. Just like fruity ol' Byers."
There was a sudden hiss and a roar, as the door behind them slid open in a spray of mist. Langly let out a squeaky little scream and jumped.
"It's... okay," Mulder said macho-ly as he did a little hip-shifting swagger out into the open. He bounced his gun powerfully on his shoulder and posed a little. "I'm here..." Head-shift, head-shift, dramatic pause. "...To save you. There is no need to..." Shift-pause. "Be...afraid..." Shift. "...Of the game anymore." Hip-cock.
"Eee! Look what he's wearing!" Langly squeaked from Frohike's lap, where he was huddling in terror.
Mulder's tough-guy ruse faded a little as he glanced down at his silly sleeveless muscle shirt.
"And are those retro-velcro boots?!" Byers asked from the ground.
"Hold me!" Langly cried.
Mulder shifted and self-consciously switched his blaster to his other shoulder. "Uh... anyway, the door is open. You guys can scoot, now."
"Did he just say 'scoot'?" Frohike whispered.
"Just get the hell out of here!" Mulder snapped irritably.
Langly and Frohike scrambled to their feet and ran out the open door.
"Um... hey..." Byers said. "Guy on the ground, here...?"
"Good God!" Mulder cried. "They killed Byers!"
"I'm not dead, damnit!"
Meanwhile, in the control room...
"Hmph. Byers died." Phoebe said.
"Yeah. He was a good guy. A little fruity, but..."
"Look!" Phoebe cried. "Mulder's making his way down the street!" And sure enough, Mulder's image on the screen was doing a high-kneed little jounce across the game space. "What is he doing? Why isn't he coming out with everyone else?"
The Scantily-Clad Woman did a provocative little hip-jiggle from the other end of the screen.
Scully rolled her eyes. She wasn't able to make one of her snappy, dry-as-dirt comments, however, as Langly and Frohike came bursting into the room, all in a tizzy.
"Mulder's still in the game!"
"And he's dressed like Chachi on acid!"
"We know," Phoebe said.
"Trust me," Scully added with a sigh. "We know."
"We have to get him out!" Langly said.
"We have to turn off the game!"
"That's impossible!" Phoebe cried.
"...No..." Frohike said slowly. "It is a computer. We make a kill switch. Game go buh-bye. Simple as that."
"It isn't!" Phoebe argued. "You can't just turn it off! It isn't that simple!"
"Says who?" Langly demanded.
"Uh... The Computer God...?" Phoebe tried.
"Somehow, I sense that you're not telling us something."
"I wonder if the Computer God wears a tie with his toga..." Frohike mused.
"Okay, okay, you broke me! I'll tell!!" Phoebe wailed dramatically.
"But... we didn't do anything!"
"Stop, it's too much! I gave in already, you don't have to--"
"No, really, we didn't..."
"Sheesh, I wasn't even that serious, lady!"
Phoebe pulled out her copy of the script and blew her nose on it. "It's me, it's all my fault!"
"Huh?"
"Can you imagine how awful it is, working all day with these icky-peewy men?"
Frohike discreetly lifted an arm and sniffed.
"There's so much testosterone, it drove me nuts!"
"That isn't an understatement," Langly muttered.
"So..." Phoebe sniffed. "So..." Sniff. "So I created something of my own, of my very, very own... something that doesn't fit into this stupid mass of men-driven interests in this men-filled world... So I created her. Playmate2000."
Langly and Frohike blinked.
"Playmate2000 is my silent, secret battle against men and their oppression." Phoebe finished, dabbing at her eyes. "That's why I can't turn the game off. That's why I can't let anyone kill her. She's mine, and I don't want to loose her. I'm..." Sob. "So sorry!" Snarfle.
"Wait... wait... let me get this straight," Scully said flatly. "Your statement against masculinity is a thick-lipped busty bombshell in a black leather thong?"
"Damn," Frohike said. "Why can't all feminists think like you?"
Phoebe didn't answer, as she had curled up under the desk to wail pitifully to herself.
"Sucks to be her," Langly said. "Now, let's figure out how to beat this thing!"
"Go-go Power Rangers!" Frohike chanted.
On the screen, Mulder was attempting to do stylish little flips with his blaster for the Scantily-Clad Woman, who was watching him with a blank expression. She would hold up her sword to destroy him, Mulder would extend a hand for her to wait, and then he bent over awkwardly with his bum in the air to pick up the gun, only to drop it again when he gave another attempt at flipping it. The Scantily-Clad Woman began tapping a foot impatiently.
"...Is there a way that we can just... I dunno, turn -him- off?" Scully asked.
"Scully," Frohike said. "You have no soul."
"Well, turn off the monitor so I don't have to see this, at least!" Scully whined.
Phoebe continued to cry pitifully in the wake of her stand for feminist power.
Sure enough, Mulder was impressing his way into an impending doom.
"Stupid plastic piece of..." One hand had gone constantly in the air, the only thing between him and a computer-animated woman that wanted to impale him. Meanwhile, he tried to fumble with the thing. "You wouldn't happen to know how to turn this thing on, would you?"
He was answered by a very shrill and unpleasant sounding ~clang~, as the Scantily-Clad Woman mightily swung her sword at him and missed, as villains often do when dealing with big-named heroes. Mulder let out a shrill little shriek, complete with arms-in-the-air action, and...
"He dropped his gun." Scully said flatly.
"He's doomed." Frohike added.
"....He's running?"
Indeed, Mulder -was- running. Unfortunately, he didn't quite know where to go, and ended up darting two and fro around the pillar that he and Playmate2000 were hanging around by. She looked like she was getting irritated, now, and batted at him with her hands--as her sword had gotten stuck firmly into the pillar's side--while he screeched and ducked, screeched and ducked. -Really- screeched. Ducked again.
"Don't-touch-me-don't-touch-me-don't-touch-mee! Screech!"
Mulder then promptly, and quite ungracefully at that, ran right smack into the side of the sword stuck in the pillar. His feet went into the air, and he landed on the ground with a well-placed thud.
Everyone watching him on the monitor slapped their hands on their foreheads at precisely the same time.
The Scantily-clad Woman blinked twice, and then shrugged. She bent over, legs straight and round thong-clad buttocks neatly extended, to pick up Mulder's discarded blaster. Cocking her hips a little, she aimed it at the man, who was beginning to groan and regain consciousness.
He lifted his head just in time to see her cute little fingers tug at the trigger.
And then there was a blast. And nothing. The Scantily-clad Woman's shapely legs went flying up, as she was knocked off her feet by a well-aimed laser-blast. Mulder's eyes went very wide from beneath his crooked shades, and he looked shockedly over his shoulder in the direction that the shot came from.
Scully stood there, looking to be at the height of PMS, with a blaster professionally tucked into both hands.
She was also in the tacky little black-vest getup. Mulder, despite his great relief to not have a hole through his head, could not resist a snorty little snicker.
Scully, not amused, cocked her blaster.
Mulder gulped.
"Lets get out of here," she said.
And then, suddenly, the game-space warped and twisted. Mulder screamed shrilly... again.
"What's happening?" Langly asked.
Frohike blinked and quickly minimized the !Free Gillian Anderson Erotic Alien-Probing Photo Extravaganza Forum! and tapped idly at the mouse. "Uh... I dunno."
Langly narrowed his eyes. "It's... switching to the next level..."
"Why are you surprised?" Frohike asked.
"I dunno. Running across a street and into a building doesn't seem like a huge, difficult task to me, that's all. Furthermore, that chick's head is obviously pasted onto another woman's body."
"I was wondering why she seemed Latino from the neck down."
While the Lone Gunmen (minus Byers, who had strangely become obsolete) were fiddling with the main computer in the real world, Mulder was squeaking in terror in the fantasy one. Scully, meanwhile, looked from side to side warily, with her blaster ready. They were in some western setting, something that made the woman's eyes roll madly.
However, the game space was vacant. She didn't like this.
There was a crackle. "Scully?"
The voice came from overhead. Mulder and Scully peered up into the bright blue sky.
"Chris Carter?" Mulder asked meekly to the heavens.
"Don't press your luck," Frohike said. "The episode isn't over yet. But that's not important right now. We need to get you out of here."
"Obviously." Scully said.
"But we've got to figure out a way to beat Playmate2000 first," Frohike said.
"Playmate2000?!" Mulder exclaimed. His mouth made a cute little 'o' shape. Scully heaved a sigh and tapped her gun against her thigh.
"That's right," another voice said. Scully and Mulder's heads snapped down from where they were looking, and on the other side of the street stood the Scantily-Clad Woman herself, scantily-clad as her name suggested and equally quite half-dressed like. She had a cute little cowboy hat on, and her leather-lace thong had a little Indian fringe.
"Nifty." Mulder said.
Scully cocked her jaw and swiftly punched a few rounds from her blaster. Playmate2000 flickered, and then twirled like a prop on a shooting range. And then, suddenly and much to Scully's dismay, she multiplied into a whole row of yummy sex-vixens.
Mulder boggled. Scully could swear that the sky was panting. This, naturally, irritated her.
The little chorus-line of Scantily-Clad Women did a little jangling shoot-from the hip retort. Scully dodged and fired, and Playmate2000 fired back...
Langly set his chin in his palm. "This isn't working."
"I'm trying to figure out a kill switch," Frohike said, "But I'm not getting anywhere. I-" His beady eyes began to fill up with tears, and his shoulders shook pathetically. "I just want to get past this..." Choke-choke. "...episode!" Gag. "Make it stop, Langly, oh make it stop!"
"Oh, Frohike," Langly said. "Be a man!"
He stuck a little red clown-nose on his friends face, and gave it a cute little pat.
Scully hit the dust with a thud. Mulder's eyes widened and he shimmied over to her on his belly. "Scully! Psst! Scully! Are you alive?"
Scully, coughing and gagging, bopped him atop of his head with a fist. "Why don't you -do- anything?! We're going to die!"
"You have the blaster," Mulder replied promptly.
"The blaster..." Scully said firmly. "...obviously...isn't working..."
A shadow fell over them in mid-discussion. Mulder and Scully's heads turned up at the same time, a dusty and pitiful duo. Glistening and gorgeous, the Scantily-Clad Woman stood over them, her legs spread and her feet tightly apart in their little cowboy boots, a pair of pistols in hand.
"Get along, little doggy." She said. Shook some boo-tay, you know the drill.
Mulder, who was staring at her heaving chest, could only nod as if she had said the most brilliant thing possible, as opposed to another tacky little I'm-going-to-kill-you catch phrase. Scully, astounded, looked over at him and then stared disbelievingly up at Playmate2000.
"I don't get it," She finally said. "I really don't."
"I am everything that a man wants," Playmate2000 said. She motioned for Scully to get to her feet with a tip of one pistol. "Wit, intelligence..." She paused. "...And how do you say it?"
"A nice rack?" Scully offered.
"Yeah, that's it." She cocked her hips. "I'm beautiful and undefeatable. Perfect. I have no flaws, I have no imperfections...."
She also seemed to have an inability to shut up. Being locked in some tacky boring game-space since the moment of one's existence has a tendency to do that to a person. This was fortunate for Scully, forever, on account that she had a few moments to check the girl out.
Yes. Check the girl out.
Mulder watched Scully's eyes start to roam with a little bit of surprise. His eyebrows went wide and then he shrugged a little. Maybe he'd get to see some action before he died. A man really couldn't ask for much more than that.
But Scully was thinking something else entirely. Naturally.
"My muscle tone is perfect, my hair never gets messy, I never smell bad... I have no weaknesses. Nothing. I am, quite simply... perfect."
"Perfect?" Scully asked with a dry little cock of her head.
"Perfect." The Scantily-Clad Woman confirmed.
And Scully promptly planted her four-inch clunky heel right dab between Playmate2000's shapely legs.
"Aaaagh!" Mulder cried.
"Aaagh!" Frohike cried.
"Aaagh!" Langly cried. "Pain-Infliction and she-male humor all in one!! We've hit the lowest of the low!"
"I'm so ashamed." Frohike said.
Playmate2000 made a painful, gaspy face, gripped herself, and plopped over onto her side in a stiff, straddled position. Mulder, eyes wide, stared blankly at the spectacle.
Scully dusted off her shoe.
Mulder stared.
Scully tucked at her hair and set her hands on her hips tiredly.
And Mulder stared.
Scully felt a twinge of irritation. "What?"
"You... just..." He blink-blinked. "Huh?"
Scully threw her hands up. "Weren't you paying attention to anything for this entire episode?"
Mulder stared.
"...Greg...?" Scully said leadingly, gesturing down with her hands.
Mulder paused thoughtfully to consider this statement--
("Well," The Scantily-Clad Woman said in flashback mode, crossing one gorgeous shapely leg over another. "They laid me out naked in this little thing that reminds me of a tanning booth. Then they let these soft blue lights tingle along.... every..... inch....of my flesh...")
--and then promptly came to a painfully nauseating and somewhat shocking realization.
At that, he fainted.
Which suited Scully just fine.
"Scully!" Frohike cried.
Scully walked nobly across the game space starting chute, supporting a woozy and mumbling Mulder on one shoulder.
"I was -not- checking her out, I was -not- checking her out." Mulder garbled.
"That was great, I can't believe you saved the day!"
"And you didn't even write the episode!" Langly added.
"I was -not- having sexual fantasies in which she and I were the key players, I was -not- having sexual fantasies in which...."
Scully dropped her partner.
"Ouch. The floor is cold, the floor is cold..."
"Well, the mystery is solved," Langly said. "Phoebe created the monster that lives in the game. Scully defeated it. Case closed."
"But wait..." Mulder said.
"What do you mean, wait?"
"This is an X-File," Mulder said. "There has to be a catch. There's always a catch." He wriggled his fingers up and down. "Creepy-twisty ending, woooo." He dropped his hands. "You know."
Scully and the Lone Gunmen exchanged a glance.
"Well, I guess while we're on the subject of hidden and obscure genders..." Scully said. "Mulder, I have something that I've been meaning to tell you..."
Mulder's eyes rolled back in his head and plopped over for the third or fourth time this episode. Everyone else put their hands on their hips and lifted their faces in a hearty, family-sitcom-esque laugh.
"Oh, that Mulder! He's such a card!" Frohike waggled a hand on its wrist.
"Men." Scully said disdainfully.
Meanwhile, some Evil-Corporation-Boss Guy slides behind the monitor of the computer room that runs the game space. Curious, but Evily-Curious mind you, he clicks on the !Free Gillian Anderson Erotic Alien-Probing Photo Extravaganza Forum!. His eyes widen a little, and then a brilliant (and evil!) look of joy slips all over his face like some gooey mud-mask (it's good for the pores...and evil!).
He pushes his fingertips together and lets out a drawling, Simpsons-esque, "Eeexcelllent."
Fade to black.
Chris Carter pops up in a gaudy Hawaiian-print shirt and delivers a million-dollar-bleach-toothed-smile. With a bright and giddy thumbs-up, he proclaims:
"I made money! Tee-hee-hee!"
THE END.
"Finally!" Scully cried. "I am -never- getting trapped into a crappy episode like this ever again! -Ever-!!" She gripped her hands into tight little fists.
Mulder tugged off one of his ugly retro-gloves and nodded empathetically. "Damn straight -- we've learned our lesson... Hey, wait, Scully! Look!" Grinning madly, Mulder pointed to a large sign hanging ever-so-obviously on a nearby wall. "There are free spa sessions in the tap-dancing ghost section of Area 51!"
"Oh, come on, Mulder! Are you -really- that stupid?"
Mulder blinked blankly at her.
Scully threw up her hands. "Nothing's -free-! They're just going to try and sell us stuff the whole time!"
Mulder pouted. Both Agents stood around for a while, brooding in self-misery and whatnot. After a long pause, however, Scully lifted her head and looked into her partner's eyes. "Oh, what's the worse that can happen -- lets go!"
"Yippie!" Mulder cried. "Things are looking up for us!"
And as the duo exited, a man with a huge plastic garbage bag over his head came waddling in, looking about with a wad of toilet paper in one hand.
"...Hey? Where's the guy that wanted the giant mutated swamp monster?"