Daddy Dearest
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Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story, except Excel and Hyatt: The Previous Generations (i.e. the daddies).
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Summary: Ilpalazzo discovers the true horror of a vengeful, protective daddy. Oh, boy...
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There are few things on earth more terrifying to a young man than the seven small words, "I want you to meet my father".
Although Ilpalazzo, would-be conqueror of the simplistically named city of F, was of unknown and indeterminate age rather than 'young', per se, and although he had not heard these words exactly, the same terror that filled prospective suitors the world over at the infamous phrase was would soon manifest itself in him to the fullest extent.
The afternoon was a very typical one for the three officers of the ideological organization of ACROSS, safe in its very familiarity.
A pity it wouldn't last.
Ilpalazzo had just closed his eyes wearily in an attempt to fight off a video game induced headache as his two loyal young followers, hands raised triumphantly, shouted out, "Hail, Ilpalazzo", just as they always did, when it occurred to him that it was not, indeed, just as it always was.
The 'Hail' bit was ordinary enough, with Excel shouting enthusiastically and Hyatt providing a percussion section of coughs.
At the 'Ilpalazzo' bit, however, it seemed oddly as though there were more voices than simply those of Excel and Hyatt. And these additional voices seemed both angry and male.
Still not fully realizing the extent of the terror he was about to feel, he opened his eyes, sat up straighter, and looked, perplexed, out over the ACROSS underground headquarters.
Yes, there was definitely something awry here.
The two girls looked very much as they always did, with Hyatt sprawled out over the cold tile, apparently not conscious, and with Excel bouncing about the room, rambling about everything under the sun.
The two oldish men standing where the girls ordinarily did, and glaring daggers at him, on the other hand...well, he was fairly willing to claim that he was sure they hadn't been there before.
"Who are you?" he demanded, standing up and sweeping his cape about him, doing his best to look imposing.
The man on the right, a tall, dark-haired, sickly pale fellow, simply glared back.
The man on the left, however, clenched his fists, his reddish-blonde beard fairly bristling with fury.
"Well? You realize that you are trespassing on ACROSS property."
"Yeah!" Excel, who had chosen that moment to decelerate enough to see her surroundings clearly, agreed. "This is OUR leaky basement hidden in a rundown building in a weird part of – Dad?"
"Oh, my," Hyatt murmured from the floor, sitting up dizzily. "Father? What are you doing here?"
The dark-haired man looked down, and an expression of joy swept over his face.
"Daughter!" he cried, kneeling and holding his arms out.
"Father!" Hyatt cried.
"Daughter!"
"Father!"
"Have you been taking your medicine, daughter? You know you tend to die without it," he told her, brushing a bit of hair out of her eyes.
"Eh?!" Excel exclaimed, leaping into a variety of strange poses for no apparent reason. "You mean, all that time, you were dying forty-seven times a day on a good day, and we could have prevented it if you'd remembered to take your medicine every once in a while?! Do you know how much stress this has caused Excel, having to save you from being buried and cremated and autopsied and cut up for parts and sold on the black market that once?! That was a really weird evening. Who knew that a simple girl's night out could have led to fleeing those guys with scalpels in their socks that burped up frogs all the time? In retrospect, maybe we should have tried to grab some of the frogs to take home to keep as our emergency food supply so we could give Menchi a break for a while, but I guess I kinda had other things on my mind at the time, and I guess you probably didn't have anything on your mind since you were dead and all. All because you didn't take your medicine!"
"Sorry, Senior," Hyatt said sheepishly.
"Fascinating," Ilpalazzo said boredly, tugging the rope.
"ARGH! Guess it's that time again," Excel noted curiously on her way down the pit.
"You bastard! Bring back my daughter!" the redheaded man bellowed, starting forward menacingly.
"Oh, no need to worry," Ilpalazzo said. "It's a fairly common occurrence around here. It helps to keep her in shape. Although, the teeth marks do become a problem. Not that I would know, Mr. Excel," he hastened to add as certain bearded redheaded death drew a few steps nearer, fist clenched tightly. "Yes, I suppose that would be your name."
"A common occurrence?! Do you mean to tell me that you drop my sweet little Excel down a mysterious pit in the floor every day?!"
"Of course not," Ilpalazzo replied uneasily. "We don't have meetings everyday."
"So, I suppose she has weekends off to not be beaten up and torn to bits by whatever the hell you keep down there?"
"I'll give you a hint: it isn't a puppy."
"It's kind of like a puppy!" a voice drifted up from the pit. "But it looks like it's got three heads! And it's wearing a sign around one of its necks that says 'Property of Hades'!"
"We have a close understanding with the Underworld," Ilpalazzo explained.
"What, like the Mafia?" the redheaded man asked, grudgingly curious.
"No," Ilpalazzo replied, affronted. "Didn't you hear the capital 'U'?"
"Believe it or not, no. Those don't come across very well."
"Well...uh...shut up. Either way, I suppose our 'understanding' is why we never entirely lose Hyatt."
"Urk!" came the timely input from that same dark-haired girl, as she slumped forward to the ground.
"Hmm. She's early today," Ilpalazzo noted.
"Daughter!" the dark-haired man wept. "My poor Hya—urgh!"
With that, he too slumped to the ground and lay, unmoving.
"Whoa! Hatchan's all dead again," Excel noted as she crawled, soaked and shivering, from the pit. "And so is that weird guy that Dad showed up with. Hey, while we're talking about that, even though I guess I'm the only one who is, what the hell are you here anyway, Dad?"
Mr. Excel wheeled on her and pinned her with such a furious glare that Ilpalazzo nearly felt sorry for the poor idiot.
"Alright, little missy, you have got one hell of a lot of explaining to do! Your mother and I send you away to F-City for schooling, only to hear that you were hit by a semi on graduation day! And then, just as we had reconciled ourselves to being childless once more, we get a postcard! Who is it from? Our dead daughter! What does it say? 'Dear Mom and Dad, staying in F-City for a while. Probably forever-while. I met a really nice guy who gave me all sorts of fun animals to play with! As soon as I get out of the hospital, I'm going to work for him! Tell Uncle Joe I said hi, and tell Rover he can rest easy, 'cause Excel ain't comin' back! P.S. Send money, or I will eat this puppy.' We still have the enclosed photo of the poor creature hanging on the fridge. Rover seems oddly taken with it."
"You memorized all that, Dad?" Excel asked, scratching her head. "I don't know whether that's really impressive or kind of creepy."
"It wasn't easy to forget," Mr. Excel sighed, pulling at the end of his beard. Then he glared again at his daughter. "So after many sleepless nights, I left your mother alone in our humble home in the countryside—"
"We live in the countryside?" Excel asked.
"—and traveled here to find my dear runaway daughter."
"Excel ain't comin' home, Dad!"
He stared at her oddly.
"Coming home? Excel, you are by far old enough to be on your own by now. I'm just here to make sure this nice guy you mentioned was treating you right. And since he apparently isn't..."
"Oh, God, this is embarrassing," Excel whined, turning pointedly away and hiding her face as her father began to glow pink and turn vaguely sparkly, and to twirl about in mid-air.
"By the light of moon, I will begin my spectacular transformation to become...Ensign Moon Man!"
"Ack!" Excel and Ilpalazzo shrieked in unison as Ensign Moon Man's clothes began to vanish.
"Is it safe yet?" Excel asked, voice muffled by her hands.
"How would I know?" Ilpalazzo demanded, voice similarly muffled. "I'm not looking."
"Yeah, I'm done," Ensign Moon Man replied, annoyed.
"Well, finally," Ilpalazzo grumbled, looking up. "Argh! Are you wearing a tiara?!"
"It is my manly crown of might! And now, you evil overlord, I will compel you by the power of the moon to do the right thing and make an honest woman of my daughter!"
"Excel feels pretty honest already," Excel called, tugging her father's befrilled arm, "so you can go away now!"
"Never! Until I have heard from that man that he intends to do the right thing and marry you, I will continue to unleash the wrath of the moon!"
"Lord Ilpalazzo? Can you please pull the rope again? Excel is having a very strong moment of wishing the floor would open up and swallow her."
"At this moment, Excel, I'm very strongly considering joining you. No man should ever wear that much lace," he concluded sadly, eyeing Mr. Excel's pink lacy tutu sadly.
"I wouldn't be talking about what a man ought to wear if I were you, Mr. Color Contacts," a voice from the floor proclaimed.
"Oh, what now?" Ilpalazzo demanded.
"Yes, it is I, Mr. Ayasugi, returning from the clutches of death! And now, my brave comrade, I will stand beside you as we face this badly- dressed evil!"
With that, before the horrified eyes of Excel, Ilpalazzo, and Hyatt, who had just pulled herself from the floor and was strongly considering dying again, merely as a way to escape this humiliation, Mr. Ayasugi began to twirl amid a background of twinkling lights, and to glow purple as his clothes began to vanish.
"Father, I wish you would skip the nude transformation sequence," Hyatt whimpered, her expression and posture indicating that she would have been bright red with embarrassment if she had had enough blood.
"Grgh! Damn belt is stuck," Mr. Ayasugi grunted.
"Please tell me when he's done," Ilpalazzo requested, hiding under his cape.
"Who's looking?" Ensign Moon Man demanded, his tutu flipped up and covering his head.
"Hey; room for one more under here?" Excel asked, creeping under the edge of Ilpalazzo's cape.
"What do you think, Excel?"
She considered this carefully.
"If I don't go away, you'll shoot me?"
"Oh, just get in here before I accidentally catch a glimpse of something that may send me to therapy."
"Ensign Pluto Man is here!"
"I've never been so embarrassed in my life..." Hyatt proclaimed weakly from the ground.
"Oh, God, he has a tiara, too," Ilpalazzo noted despairingly.
"It's a manly crown of might!" Ensign Pluto Man exclaimed, annoyed.
"I am Ensign Moon Man," Ensign Moon Man proclaimed, striking a pose.
"And I am Ensign Pluto Man," Ensign Pluto Man proclaimed, leaning against his comrade's back in a coquettish pose. "And together..."
"We will punish you!" they proclaimed together. "For we are the Ensign Rangers!"
"At least they aren't the Ensign Power Rangers," Ilpalazzo muttered, thanking the universe for what small blessings were still his.
Ensign Moon Man's eye glinted.
Ensign Pluto Man's eye glinted.
"Funny you should mention that," they said in unison.
"Our foe has proven too mighty to take down as merely the Ensign Rangers," Ensign Moon Man proclaimed.
"But you haven't tried to do anything yet!" Excel pointed out. "You just struck stupid poses and twirled around amid a shower of lights, and made all your clothes come off and made Hyatt die of embarrassment!"
"And so," Ensign Pluto Man continued, ignoring Excel, "we will combine our power to become..."
"The Mega-Ensign Super Ranger!" they bellowed together.
Ensign Pluto Man turned to Ensign Moon Man.
"I don't want to be the bottom this time."
"But you have to be the bottom this time! I did it last time!" Ensign Moon Man countered.
"But I hate being the bottom!"
"We all hate being the bottom! It's only fair that we take turns!"
"But I'm naturally more delicate!"
"Do it for justice, Ensign Pluto Man!" Ensign Moon Man implored. "And without further ado..."
"MEGA-ENSIGN SUPER RANGER NUDE TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE!"
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Ilpalazzo exclaimed, swinging his cape back over his head.
"Is this gonna be over soon?" Excel demanded, diving under it with him. "Not that this is all bad..."
"I am very tempted to simply stay dead this time," Hyatt croaked before losing consciousness. "Not that I probably have much of a choice."
"Mega-Ensign Super Ranger!" the two befrilled men shouted together. "And now, with the power of teamwork, we will punish you! And that means you!"
"I haven't been punished enough?" Ilpalazzo muttered.
"Yeah! And what the heck did Excel do to deserve this?" that same Excel wondered angrily as she emerged from the safe confines of Ilpalazzo's cape.
"Father, why are you giving Senior Excel's father a piggy-back ride?" Hyatt asked during her brief moment of reanimation, before collapsing once again to the ground.
Ilpalazzo's mind was meanwhile racing. Wouldn't it be worth any price to be rid of these two idiots? Even if the price they were asking would lead to his being related by marriage to one of them? Surely, even marriage to Excel couldn't be bad enough to justify putting up with any more of this insanity. It would be horrifying, certainly...the thought of spending his nights being violently molested by a cute, extremely energetic young blonde girl...er...what had he been talking...or...thinking about again? Oh, life had become altogether too perplexing all at once.
"No...no more," he whimpered. "If I promise to marry Excel, will you both go away?"
A silence descended upon the room.
Ensign Pluto Man looked up as best he could.
Ensign Moon Man looked down as best he could without losing his grip on the other man's shoulders.
Hyatt continued to leak blood.
Excel joined her in leaking blood, although it was from her nose as thoughts that a honeymoon tended to accompany a wedding, and that a honeymoon generally involved a removal of clothing, danced a tango around her brain.
Ensign Moon Man laughed triumphantly.
"Our foe has fallen before the might of our Ensign Ranger powers!"
"Good," Ensign Pluto Man croaked weakly. "Now can you get off? Feeling...weak..." he added as his companion climbed off of his shoulders.
"A job well done, my friend!" Ensign Moon Man said, giving the other man a hearty thump to the spine.
"..." Ensign Pluto Man said as he slumped forward, his soul already departing for...ANOTHER DIMENSION!
"Uh...heh-heh-heh...well, if that's all, we'll be going now! Goodbye, son."
With that, Ensign Moon Man threw one last beaming smile at everyone in the room, heaved Ensign Pluto Man up onto his shoulders, and scampered from the room.
"So...uh...now that they're gone," Excel began, fidgeting nervously, "are you really going to marry me?"
"Will they come back if I don't?"
"Y-yes," she replied, eyes shifting nervously from side to side.
"Hyatt, go find us a justice of the peace or something," he ordered.
"Um...she's kind of dead again..."
"Well, that's never been a tremendous problem in the past," he said, exasperated.
"One more thing!" a voice from just outside the room, growing gradually closer, proclaimed.
"I wish I were an orphan," Excel whimpered as her father dashed back into the room, still sporting the tiara and tutu.
He jogged through the hall, high heels clicking against the tile, until he reached the front.
"Now, where is it?" he muttered, searching for something.
Finally, as his eyes lit on the rope, he grinned.
"Ah-hah!"
He gave it a quick tug and giggled delightedly as his only offspring descended, screaming, into the pit.
"I love you, too, Dad!"
"Gee...that was kinda fun," he admitted to Ilpalazzo. "I kinda wish we'd had one around when she was growing up."
Ilpalazzo glanced a few times between his tiara-wearing future father-in- law, and the pit, from which his future bride's terrified shrieks were drifting.
The decision was, of course, an easy one.
"Oh, I know this is going to hurt," he grumbled as, for the second time ever, he gathered up his cape and took a running leap.
Mr. Excel grinned hugely as he sauntered away, arms crossed proudly.
"Match-making's not so hard, once you get the hang of it."
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End Notes: Oh, boy...what's there to say this time? ()
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Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story, except Excel and Hyatt: The Previous Generations (i.e. the daddies).
------------------------------------------------
Summary: Ilpalazzo discovers the true horror of a vengeful, protective daddy. Oh, boy...
------------------------------------------------
There are few things on earth more terrifying to a young man than the seven small words, "I want you to meet my father".
Although Ilpalazzo, would-be conqueror of the simplistically named city of F, was of unknown and indeterminate age rather than 'young', per se, and although he had not heard these words exactly, the same terror that filled prospective suitors the world over at the infamous phrase was would soon manifest itself in him to the fullest extent.
The afternoon was a very typical one for the three officers of the ideological organization of ACROSS, safe in its very familiarity.
A pity it wouldn't last.
Ilpalazzo had just closed his eyes wearily in an attempt to fight off a video game induced headache as his two loyal young followers, hands raised triumphantly, shouted out, "Hail, Ilpalazzo", just as they always did, when it occurred to him that it was not, indeed, just as it always was.
The 'Hail' bit was ordinary enough, with Excel shouting enthusiastically and Hyatt providing a percussion section of coughs.
At the 'Ilpalazzo' bit, however, it seemed oddly as though there were more voices than simply those of Excel and Hyatt. And these additional voices seemed both angry and male.
Still not fully realizing the extent of the terror he was about to feel, he opened his eyes, sat up straighter, and looked, perplexed, out over the ACROSS underground headquarters.
Yes, there was definitely something awry here.
The two girls looked very much as they always did, with Hyatt sprawled out over the cold tile, apparently not conscious, and with Excel bouncing about the room, rambling about everything under the sun.
The two oldish men standing where the girls ordinarily did, and glaring daggers at him, on the other hand...well, he was fairly willing to claim that he was sure they hadn't been there before.
"Who are you?" he demanded, standing up and sweeping his cape about him, doing his best to look imposing.
The man on the right, a tall, dark-haired, sickly pale fellow, simply glared back.
The man on the left, however, clenched his fists, his reddish-blonde beard fairly bristling with fury.
"Well? You realize that you are trespassing on ACROSS property."
"Yeah!" Excel, who had chosen that moment to decelerate enough to see her surroundings clearly, agreed. "This is OUR leaky basement hidden in a rundown building in a weird part of – Dad?"
"Oh, my," Hyatt murmured from the floor, sitting up dizzily. "Father? What are you doing here?"
The dark-haired man looked down, and an expression of joy swept over his face.
"Daughter!" he cried, kneeling and holding his arms out.
"Father!" Hyatt cried.
"Daughter!"
"Father!"
"Have you been taking your medicine, daughter? You know you tend to die without it," he told her, brushing a bit of hair out of her eyes.
"Eh?!" Excel exclaimed, leaping into a variety of strange poses for no apparent reason. "You mean, all that time, you were dying forty-seven times a day on a good day, and we could have prevented it if you'd remembered to take your medicine every once in a while?! Do you know how much stress this has caused Excel, having to save you from being buried and cremated and autopsied and cut up for parts and sold on the black market that once?! That was a really weird evening. Who knew that a simple girl's night out could have led to fleeing those guys with scalpels in their socks that burped up frogs all the time? In retrospect, maybe we should have tried to grab some of the frogs to take home to keep as our emergency food supply so we could give Menchi a break for a while, but I guess I kinda had other things on my mind at the time, and I guess you probably didn't have anything on your mind since you were dead and all. All because you didn't take your medicine!"
"Sorry, Senior," Hyatt said sheepishly.
"Fascinating," Ilpalazzo said boredly, tugging the rope.
"ARGH! Guess it's that time again," Excel noted curiously on her way down the pit.
"You bastard! Bring back my daughter!" the redheaded man bellowed, starting forward menacingly.
"Oh, no need to worry," Ilpalazzo said. "It's a fairly common occurrence around here. It helps to keep her in shape. Although, the teeth marks do become a problem. Not that I would know, Mr. Excel," he hastened to add as certain bearded redheaded death drew a few steps nearer, fist clenched tightly. "Yes, I suppose that would be your name."
"A common occurrence?! Do you mean to tell me that you drop my sweet little Excel down a mysterious pit in the floor every day?!"
"Of course not," Ilpalazzo replied uneasily. "We don't have meetings everyday."
"So, I suppose she has weekends off to not be beaten up and torn to bits by whatever the hell you keep down there?"
"I'll give you a hint: it isn't a puppy."
"It's kind of like a puppy!" a voice drifted up from the pit. "But it looks like it's got three heads! And it's wearing a sign around one of its necks that says 'Property of Hades'!"
"We have a close understanding with the Underworld," Ilpalazzo explained.
"What, like the Mafia?" the redheaded man asked, grudgingly curious.
"No," Ilpalazzo replied, affronted. "Didn't you hear the capital 'U'?"
"Believe it or not, no. Those don't come across very well."
"Well...uh...shut up. Either way, I suppose our 'understanding' is why we never entirely lose Hyatt."
"Urk!" came the timely input from that same dark-haired girl, as she slumped forward to the ground.
"Hmm. She's early today," Ilpalazzo noted.
"Daughter!" the dark-haired man wept. "My poor Hya—urgh!"
With that, he too slumped to the ground and lay, unmoving.
"Whoa! Hatchan's all dead again," Excel noted as she crawled, soaked and shivering, from the pit. "And so is that weird guy that Dad showed up with. Hey, while we're talking about that, even though I guess I'm the only one who is, what the hell are you here anyway, Dad?"
Mr. Excel wheeled on her and pinned her with such a furious glare that Ilpalazzo nearly felt sorry for the poor idiot.
"Alright, little missy, you have got one hell of a lot of explaining to do! Your mother and I send you away to F-City for schooling, only to hear that you were hit by a semi on graduation day! And then, just as we had reconciled ourselves to being childless once more, we get a postcard! Who is it from? Our dead daughter! What does it say? 'Dear Mom and Dad, staying in F-City for a while. Probably forever-while. I met a really nice guy who gave me all sorts of fun animals to play with! As soon as I get out of the hospital, I'm going to work for him! Tell Uncle Joe I said hi, and tell Rover he can rest easy, 'cause Excel ain't comin' back! P.S. Send money, or I will eat this puppy.' We still have the enclosed photo of the poor creature hanging on the fridge. Rover seems oddly taken with it."
"You memorized all that, Dad?" Excel asked, scratching her head. "I don't know whether that's really impressive or kind of creepy."
"It wasn't easy to forget," Mr. Excel sighed, pulling at the end of his beard. Then he glared again at his daughter. "So after many sleepless nights, I left your mother alone in our humble home in the countryside—"
"We live in the countryside?" Excel asked.
"—and traveled here to find my dear runaway daughter."
"Excel ain't comin' home, Dad!"
He stared at her oddly.
"Coming home? Excel, you are by far old enough to be on your own by now. I'm just here to make sure this nice guy you mentioned was treating you right. And since he apparently isn't..."
"Oh, God, this is embarrassing," Excel whined, turning pointedly away and hiding her face as her father began to glow pink and turn vaguely sparkly, and to twirl about in mid-air.
"By the light of moon, I will begin my spectacular transformation to become...Ensign Moon Man!"
"Ack!" Excel and Ilpalazzo shrieked in unison as Ensign Moon Man's clothes began to vanish.
"Is it safe yet?" Excel asked, voice muffled by her hands.
"How would I know?" Ilpalazzo demanded, voice similarly muffled. "I'm not looking."
"Yeah, I'm done," Ensign Moon Man replied, annoyed.
"Well, finally," Ilpalazzo grumbled, looking up. "Argh! Are you wearing a tiara?!"
"It is my manly crown of might! And now, you evil overlord, I will compel you by the power of the moon to do the right thing and make an honest woman of my daughter!"
"Excel feels pretty honest already," Excel called, tugging her father's befrilled arm, "so you can go away now!"
"Never! Until I have heard from that man that he intends to do the right thing and marry you, I will continue to unleash the wrath of the moon!"
"Lord Ilpalazzo? Can you please pull the rope again? Excel is having a very strong moment of wishing the floor would open up and swallow her."
"At this moment, Excel, I'm very strongly considering joining you. No man should ever wear that much lace," he concluded sadly, eyeing Mr. Excel's pink lacy tutu sadly.
"I wouldn't be talking about what a man ought to wear if I were you, Mr. Color Contacts," a voice from the floor proclaimed.
"Oh, what now?" Ilpalazzo demanded.
"Yes, it is I, Mr. Ayasugi, returning from the clutches of death! And now, my brave comrade, I will stand beside you as we face this badly- dressed evil!"
With that, before the horrified eyes of Excel, Ilpalazzo, and Hyatt, who had just pulled herself from the floor and was strongly considering dying again, merely as a way to escape this humiliation, Mr. Ayasugi began to twirl amid a background of twinkling lights, and to glow purple as his clothes began to vanish.
"Father, I wish you would skip the nude transformation sequence," Hyatt whimpered, her expression and posture indicating that she would have been bright red with embarrassment if she had had enough blood.
"Grgh! Damn belt is stuck," Mr. Ayasugi grunted.
"Please tell me when he's done," Ilpalazzo requested, hiding under his cape.
"Who's looking?" Ensign Moon Man demanded, his tutu flipped up and covering his head.
"Hey; room for one more under here?" Excel asked, creeping under the edge of Ilpalazzo's cape.
"What do you think, Excel?"
She considered this carefully.
"If I don't go away, you'll shoot me?"
"Oh, just get in here before I accidentally catch a glimpse of something that may send me to therapy."
"Ensign Pluto Man is here!"
"I've never been so embarrassed in my life..." Hyatt proclaimed weakly from the ground.
"Oh, God, he has a tiara, too," Ilpalazzo noted despairingly.
"It's a manly crown of might!" Ensign Pluto Man exclaimed, annoyed.
"I am Ensign Moon Man," Ensign Moon Man proclaimed, striking a pose.
"And I am Ensign Pluto Man," Ensign Pluto Man proclaimed, leaning against his comrade's back in a coquettish pose. "And together..."
"We will punish you!" they proclaimed together. "For we are the Ensign Rangers!"
"At least they aren't the Ensign Power Rangers," Ilpalazzo muttered, thanking the universe for what small blessings were still his.
Ensign Moon Man's eye glinted.
Ensign Pluto Man's eye glinted.
"Funny you should mention that," they said in unison.
"Our foe has proven too mighty to take down as merely the Ensign Rangers," Ensign Moon Man proclaimed.
"But you haven't tried to do anything yet!" Excel pointed out. "You just struck stupid poses and twirled around amid a shower of lights, and made all your clothes come off and made Hyatt die of embarrassment!"
"And so," Ensign Pluto Man continued, ignoring Excel, "we will combine our power to become..."
"The Mega-Ensign Super Ranger!" they bellowed together.
Ensign Pluto Man turned to Ensign Moon Man.
"I don't want to be the bottom this time."
"But you have to be the bottom this time! I did it last time!" Ensign Moon Man countered.
"But I hate being the bottom!"
"We all hate being the bottom! It's only fair that we take turns!"
"But I'm naturally more delicate!"
"Do it for justice, Ensign Pluto Man!" Ensign Moon Man implored. "And without further ado..."
"MEGA-ENSIGN SUPER RANGER NUDE TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE!"
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Ilpalazzo exclaimed, swinging his cape back over his head.
"Is this gonna be over soon?" Excel demanded, diving under it with him. "Not that this is all bad..."
"I am very tempted to simply stay dead this time," Hyatt croaked before losing consciousness. "Not that I probably have much of a choice."
"Mega-Ensign Super Ranger!" the two befrilled men shouted together. "And now, with the power of teamwork, we will punish you! And that means you!"
"I haven't been punished enough?" Ilpalazzo muttered.
"Yeah! And what the heck did Excel do to deserve this?" that same Excel wondered angrily as she emerged from the safe confines of Ilpalazzo's cape.
"Father, why are you giving Senior Excel's father a piggy-back ride?" Hyatt asked during her brief moment of reanimation, before collapsing once again to the ground.
Ilpalazzo's mind was meanwhile racing. Wouldn't it be worth any price to be rid of these two idiots? Even if the price they were asking would lead to his being related by marriage to one of them? Surely, even marriage to Excel couldn't be bad enough to justify putting up with any more of this insanity. It would be horrifying, certainly...the thought of spending his nights being violently molested by a cute, extremely energetic young blonde girl...er...what had he been talking...or...thinking about again? Oh, life had become altogether too perplexing all at once.
"No...no more," he whimpered. "If I promise to marry Excel, will you both go away?"
A silence descended upon the room.
Ensign Pluto Man looked up as best he could.
Ensign Moon Man looked down as best he could without losing his grip on the other man's shoulders.
Hyatt continued to leak blood.
Excel joined her in leaking blood, although it was from her nose as thoughts that a honeymoon tended to accompany a wedding, and that a honeymoon generally involved a removal of clothing, danced a tango around her brain.
Ensign Moon Man laughed triumphantly.
"Our foe has fallen before the might of our Ensign Ranger powers!"
"Good," Ensign Pluto Man croaked weakly. "Now can you get off? Feeling...weak..." he added as his companion climbed off of his shoulders.
"A job well done, my friend!" Ensign Moon Man said, giving the other man a hearty thump to the spine.
"..." Ensign Pluto Man said as he slumped forward, his soul already departing for...ANOTHER DIMENSION!
"Uh...heh-heh-heh...well, if that's all, we'll be going now! Goodbye, son."
With that, Ensign Moon Man threw one last beaming smile at everyone in the room, heaved Ensign Pluto Man up onto his shoulders, and scampered from the room.
"So...uh...now that they're gone," Excel began, fidgeting nervously, "are you really going to marry me?"
"Will they come back if I don't?"
"Y-yes," she replied, eyes shifting nervously from side to side.
"Hyatt, go find us a justice of the peace or something," he ordered.
"Um...she's kind of dead again..."
"Well, that's never been a tremendous problem in the past," he said, exasperated.
"One more thing!" a voice from just outside the room, growing gradually closer, proclaimed.
"I wish I were an orphan," Excel whimpered as her father dashed back into the room, still sporting the tiara and tutu.
He jogged through the hall, high heels clicking against the tile, until he reached the front.
"Now, where is it?" he muttered, searching for something.
Finally, as his eyes lit on the rope, he grinned.
"Ah-hah!"
He gave it a quick tug and giggled delightedly as his only offspring descended, screaming, into the pit.
"I love you, too, Dad!"
"Gee...that was kinda fun," he admitted to Ilpalazzo. "I kinda wish we'd had one around when she was growing up."
Ilpalazzo glanced a few times between his tiara-wearing future father-in- law, and the pit, from which his future bride's terrified shrieks were drifting.
The decision was, of course, an easy one.
"Oh, I know this is going to hurt," he grumbled as, for the second time ever, he gathered up his cape and took a running leap.
Mr. Excel grinned hugely as he sauntered away, arms crossed proudly.
"Match-making's not so hard, once you get the hang of it."
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End Notes: Oh, boy...what's there to say this time? ()