"Give me a break," the dark-blonde Canadian muttered under his breath, and absently tugged at his boxers wedgie.
"Hey, Gregory, is that...um, that guy who played Batman I see over there?" Mysterio spoke up, and had to cringe. Nobody could possibly fall for something that lame.
"Really? Where?!" Helms squealed, falling for the bait hook, line, and sinker. There was the sound of mad dashing, a bumping noise, a subsequent, "Ouch! My head!", before Gregory Helms finally made his way out of the limo, previously green hair freshly dyed a bright banana blonde, scrambling to get a glimpse of his favorite superhero. Helms's head swiveled eagerly from left to right as the superhero searched for the actor, then began to frown when the closest person with short hair--excluding himself and Rey-Rey--was a freaky Elvis Presley impersonator wannabe.
"Hey! I don't see Batman anywhere...!" Helms began to pout.
Just then, Mulder came out
of the studio building. He stood there for a while, surveying the scene,
before he was satisfied with what he saw.
"Good, you're all here on
time," Mulder said pleasantly. Taking notice of Helms's hair job, he commented,
"Oh, how nice, I see you've gotten your bleach job, as per requested."
"GrumblegrumblegrumbleYesgrumblegrumblegrumble,"
came the superhero's growled reply. Mulder happily ignored the grumpiness
in Helms's voice, and chirped zestily, "It looks great, it looks fabulous,
it looks like--"
"It looks like a sunburned
banana," Jericho remarked, snickering, as Helms turned around and gave
him the evil eye. Mulder shot the Canadian a warning look, before clearing
his throat and abruptly changing the subject.
"Why don't we go inside?"
he suggested. "I'll have to introduce you to your new manager for this
show, and we have to get the first taping underway in fifteen minutes."
And with that, Mulder turned on his heel and went inside, motioning for
the three wrestlers to follow him.
"...And there we have the
original
neck brace that Jaguar Forest wore--he's Tiger Wood's second cousin removed's
uncle's daughter's brother-in-law's niece's husband, you know--from when
that clumsy little circus acrobat broke his neck on our very first show,"
Mulder babbled on, while Jericho limped along in his boxers wedgie, Helms
tried to cover up his freshly bleached hair with the nearest object he
could get his hands on (it turned out to conveniently be a psychedelic
pink Santa hat with an electric orange trim), and Mysterio continuously
played around with his eyebrow rings. Just then, the newly madeover WWE
Superstars and Mulder came to a stop in front of an office, and the wrestlers'
guide twisted the knob and pushed in. Pacing restlessly around inside the
office was a pretty young woman in her late twenties to early thirties,
with long tawny-blonde hair and a pleasant smile.
"Gentlemen, I would like
to introduce you to your new manager for this show," Mulder spoke up grandly.
"Her name is Rachel Green, and she'll be the one who's going to get you
guys a deal with a record company."
"But the WWE already has
its own recording label--" Mysterio began to protest.
"Oh, that's all right, this
is only temporary. I'm only going to be your manager for the show," Rachel
assured him smoothly.
"Yes, and I believe that
your new manager's on her way now to get you guys signed up to a pop label,"
Mulder chipped in pointedly. Rachel got the hint, and cleared her throat.
"Okay, then. So, I guess
I'm off," she excused herself, and strode out of the building in her quest
to get the soon-to-be-named boy band signed to a pop label. Mulder turned
around to face the three young men standing awkwardly in the office, and
chirped brightly, "Okay, now we need to come up with a new name for your
new boy band."
"Ooh, ooh, I've got it!"
Helms's hand shot up, as if he were back in kindergarten with old Mrs.
Porter again.
"Yes?" Mulder urged pleasantly.
"How about...no...or what
if we called ourselves...uh uh, that won't work either...oh, I know, what
do you think of...hn, that's not gonna do the job..." Helms muttered to
himself. "I'm sorry, I guess I don't know after all."
"That's all right," Mulder
reassured him. "After all, you're the same people who've entertained millions
of fans every night with your dazzling brilliance on the mic (supposedly!),
I'm sure you can come up with a catchy name for a boy band."
Two hours later, the same
geniuses who'd spouted such classic catchphrases as, um, "Raw is Jericho!"
(?? x_x!) were still brainstorming. Finally, Mulder became irritable, as
he snapped impatiently, "Oh, come on! Are you trying to convince me that
the best thing the same people who claim to be huge rock stars and superheros
can come up with for a name for a frickin' bubblegum pop band is In Synch?!"
"Well, if you weren't so
picky about all my suggestions, we could have named our new band five million
times by now!" Helms huffed, sticking his lower lip out. Mulder let out
an impatient grunt.
"You suggested calling yourselves
Smallpox!" he shrilled. "What the hell is that?"
"You know, Anthrax, Smallpox...unless
you prefer Bubonic Plague?" Helms offered, and then lit up as he realized
that he'd come up with yet another name, tying him with Jericho and placing
him at two suggestions more than Mysterio. Before Mulder could tear his
hair out in frustration, Jericho thankfully interrupted to pitch in with
an idea of his own.
"Oh, oh! I've got it! I've
got the perfect name for our band!" he chirped, sounding proud of
himself.
"And what would that be?"
Mulder asked tiredly, hoping it wasn't going to be anything near the vicinity
of Vitamin C or The Boo Hoo Dolls, and wondering to himself why exactly
he had even bothered to take up this job in the first place.
"Why not call this new band
Jericho? You know, since Jon Bon Jovi named his band after himself, I can't
see why we can't name this new band after me," Jericho suggested.
"There's just one problem
with that," Helms broke in. Jericho looked insulted.
"What?" he demanded grumpily,
wondering what could possibly be wrong with his suggestion.
"Jericho is a stupid name
for a band. Now Hurricane, there's something you don't hear in rock
everyday. Stylish yet simple. Cool yet not cliché. Suave yet..."
Helms began to ramble, listing off all the good qualities of his moniker.
"Okay, okay, I get the point,
you've got a cooler stage name than I do!" Jericho yelled huffily. "But
I'm the pretty boy of the band, and the pretty boy always gets the most
say, since he's the most popular!"
"Hah! Yeah right!" Helms
scorned, puffing his chest out and running a hand through his new bottled
blonde hair. "Girls always go after the shy blonde guy!"
"Do not!" Jericho yelled,
sticking his tongue out childishly at Helms.
"Do too!" Helms retorted,
mimicking Jericho's immature gesture.
"Do not!"
"Do too!"
"Not!"
"Too!"
"Not!"
"Too!"
Just then, Mysterio broke in to interrupt the shout-fest.
"Um...there isn't any chance
you two will consider naming the band Mysterio, is there?" he wanted to
know. Jericho and Helms stopped shouting for a second and turned around
as one, zooming in on Mysterio as the new enemy.
"NO!" they both yelled together.
Mysterio discreetly backed away a couple--or several--feet from the duo.
"Eh...I kind of thought
so," he mumbled to himself.
Meanwhile, over at the lobby
of the Lè Major Teenybopper Labels record company, Rachel was sitting
patiently on a dull gray couch, awaiting her turn to meet with the executive
in charge. Finally, the nineteen-year-old bleach-blonde receptionist bounced
over to the tawny-haired manager of the currently unnamed boy band, and
chirped, "Like, the boss is, like, totally ready to see you, Miss Raquel."
Rachel forced out a smile.
"That's Rachel," she corrected
the bimbo, clearing her throat. The receptionist shrugged.
"Like, whatever," she muttered.
"Like, come this way, please."
Rachel was led into a lavishly
furnished executive's office, which boasted so many platinum and gold records
that she had to wonder whether they were real, or whether the snobby-looking
middle-aged man seated behind the antique desk had purchased them at the
local K-Mart.
"Yeah, like, Miss Rachel
Green is here to see you," the receptionist introduced her, and then left
the office, quietly closing the door behind her. The executive stared boredly
at Rachel as she took a seat, and fingered his pencil-thin black mustache.
"Yes? What can I do for
you, Miss Green?" he demanded in a nasal, obviously fake French accent.
Rachel cleared her throat, before diving into her sales pitch.
"Yeah, I'm trying to sign
a trio of very promising pop stars to a label, and since your company boasts
a most impressive list of clients, I was hoping that--" she began to say.
"Do they have big boobs?"
the executive wanted to know. Rachel was caught off-guard, completely stunned
and bewildered by the words that had come out of this snotty-looking little
man. She wondered if she had heard him correctly. Surely he wouldn't have
the audacity...
"Ex...Excuse me?" she asked,
blinking rapidly
"You heard me the first
time. Do these bimbos have big boobs?" the executive demanded. "Because
if they don't, there's a plastic surgeon right next door."
Rachel lowered her head, flustered, and cleared her throat again as
she tried to construct some comprehensible sentences in her head.
"Um...well, you see...the
funniest thing...They're a male group," she finally stammered out in a
tiny voice.
"Oh." The executive immediately
canceled all plans for a guest appearance at a Thanksgiving gravy bowl
wrestling match at the local Big Guns Strip Club. "Well then, can they
dance?"
"Well, you see, they're
very talented vocalists and performers, and if you could just wait a couple
of weeks--or months--I'm sure that the band will learn--" Rachel started
to say.
"I'm sorry, Miss, but we've
got around twenty boy bands scrambling to be signed, and unlike your bunch,
they
actually know how to dance right now, so if you'll excuse me, I
have a meeting with the manager of the next big thing in pop girl groups,
T&A," the executive snapped haughtily.
"But you don't understand,
unlike T&A, my band won't have to rely on a gimmick--in your case,
two-cent sluts--to draw in concert crowds--" Rachel started to protest.
"Go on, now, there's the
door," the executive prodded.
"But...hey, if you want
sex appeal, you've got it, my band is made up of three former professional
athletes who're in tip top shape, not to mention the fact that they've
all got perfect tans and--" Rachel tried to plead.
"Listen, we're not interested
in male sex appeal; these are eight-year-old girls we're trying to sucker,
and they'll get embarrassed if they see three shirtless guys on the CD
cover," the executive interrupted nastily.
"But--" Rachel made a last-ditch
effort to grovel for a contract. The executive pointed at the door.
"Go!" he barked, seemingly
having lost his phony French accent for a while. Rachel's eyes began to
mist over.
"Okay," she choked out,
and scrambled to get out of the office.
"JERICHO!" Jericho yelled,
raising his voice yet another octave, which just a minute ago, Mulder and
Mysterio had deemed humanly impossible.
"HURRICANE!" Not to be outdone,
Helms increased the volume of his voice as well, until it teetered dangerously
on the edge of supersonic. A few dogs began to howl in the distance.
"JERICHO!"
"HURRICANE!"
"JERICHO!"
"HURRICANE!"
"WILMA!"
At this, even Jericho and
Helms stopped their yelling, and all eyes turned to gape at Mysterio, who
blushed under his luchador mask and mumbled, "What? I was beginning to
feel left out." Mulder let out an irritable grunt, as he threw up his hands
in the air in frustration and growled, "Forget about it, you two! From
now on, you'll be called..." He paused for a while to think, but after
even he couldn't come up with a good name, he snatched the first one that
came to mind. "Seven Degrees Celsius!"
"Huh?"
This, time, all eyes turned to stare at Mulder.
"Isn't that ripped off from
98°?" Helms wanted to know.
"Isn't that ripped off from
Saturday
Night Live?" Jericho pointed out.
"Well, have you two literary
geniuses any better ideas?" Mulder challenged grumpily, and quickly added,
"And no, don't tell me your last names, or In Synch, or Smallpox, or Vitamin
C, or any of those others!" At this, both Jericho and Helms fell silent.
Mulder crossed his arms, satisfied.
"Fine, then," he snapped.
"Unless you prefer 3 Count v. 2.0, then from now on, your boy band will
be called Seven Degrees Celsius!"
At that moment, a dejected
Rachel arrived, and Mulder glanced up and at her eagerly, demanding, "So?
Did you get the deal?" Rachel lowered her head.
"No," she admitted in a
small voice. "I mean, I really tried to, but he wouldn't listen to me,
and kept on asking if the band had big boobs, and then he kept on saying
something about T&A and eight-year-old girls and a shirtless Gregory
Helms--oh, no, wait, that was me--and...and..." Rachel was on the verge
of tears. Mulder reached over and said comfortingly, "Hey, it's okay. We
all fail pathetically at some point in our lives." Rachel looked up and
sniffed.
"So...you're not mad at
me?" she asked hopefully. Mulder smiled kindly.
"Of course I'm not mad,"
he told her. "Here: just to show you how not mad I am at you, I'm giving
you a new assignment."
"Really?" Rachel perked
up. Mulder nodded.
"Yup. From now on, you've
been demoted to answering machine operator," he told her. Rachel's face
fell.
"Oh." A pause. And then,
"You mean I'll be checking people's messages?" Mulder smiled.
"No, you're going to be
the one who goes beep," he told her, propelling her out of the room.
He turned back and caught
the surprised looks of the WWE Superstars, now known as Seven Degrees Celsius,
mistook it for something else, and hastened to assure, "Oh, don't worry,
I've already found your replacement." He then opened the door, just as
somebody was about to knock on it, and revealed a very familiar glow-in-the-dark-cargo-pants-and-red-fishnet-tank-top-clad
young woman standing framed behind the doorway. She had fiery red hair
and a green-blue-and-purple tattoo of what appeared to be an island monster
on her shoulder and arm.
"All right, Seven Degrees
Celsius," Mulder introduced, motioning to the tall, sultry redhead standing
beside him. "Meet your new manager, Lita."