The Fan Zone

By JadeRabbyt

Group Therapy: Part I

The audience fills the room in minutes, but many people quickly wonder whether they should've gone next door to the 'Ned's Declassified' set instead. There's a tremendous racket going on backstage, and every once in a while some minor lackey runs across the set with a mysterious piece of equipment. They hear me screaming angrily at something, and then there's this biiiiiig ole' friggen flash of light that makes people wonder if they should have brought lead aprons, but then I walk onstage, my burgundy suit slightly ruffled and my glasses askew.

"Happy Valentine's Day, everyone," I say, smiling calmly and fixing my glasses. "How we doin' today?"

The audience stays quiet. Somebody in the front pipes up. "How are YOU doing today. What the crap was that?"

"Oh, that? That was nothing. Our guests had a slight altercation with the staff backstage." I take a seat at my desk. "Speaking of my guests, as soon as my butt-savingly clever garbage men set up some chairs we can get this show on the road!" Immediately they run onstage and set up a bunch of chairs in a semicircle facing the audience. "That's better. If you remember from last time, I promised we'd be doing some kind of crazy psychoanalysis thing with the 'villains.' Their lawyers have informed me that they shall henceforth be called 'misunderstood persons.' May I have several volunteers to help me deal with the lawyers?"

Hands go up all over the place.

"Alright, let's getLiaranne, Creator-Chaos, and Blossoming O- uh, I mean 'Muffy teh Boy Slayer.'" The people I called jump onstage, and I hand them over to a nearby garbage man. "Follow him. He'll show you to the armory and give you the enemy coordinates."

They scurry away, giggling in anticipation of the wonderful hi-tech destruction I shall allow them to wreak upon the doomed heads of those filthy lawyers.

"Now that that's taken care of, we can get to the good stuff. Please welcome Vlad Plasmius, Ember McClane, Sydney Poindexter, Mr. Lancer, the Fright Night, and the Box Ghost!"

They parade onstage, looking just as sour as ever. Except for Lancer, who looks more terrified than sour, and the Box Ghost, who looks like… the Box Ghost.

"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"

"I'll be back! And I'll win! I'll have a BIGGER SWORD next time, you mortal IMBECILES!"

"Finnegan's Wake! Who are you people!"

"Will you guys just SHUT UP!" shoutVlad and Ember in unison.

I rub my hands together. "I'd say we're off to a great start. Ember, tell us why you dress like a whore and dance like a boy."

She whirls on me, hair flaming. "EXCUSE ME?"

I shrug. "Well, this is a therapy session."

The audience turns as Jazz walks onstage. "That's my job."

"Jazz?" Vlad asks.

"Yes, Jazz," I answer. "She's here to keep you from kicking your own collective butts."

"How thoughtful of you," comes Poindexter's nasally retort.

"Don't mention it, Geek-bait." Poindexter glares at me. Nonchalantly, I tap the control panel for their wrist-bands, devices my garbage men designed to curb their powers. Vlad catches my meaning and glares at me. I shrug and roll my eyes toward the Fright Night, who is currently trying to knock the block off the Box Ghost.

"I will have my vengeance!"

"Ha! You can never penetrate the flawless rectitude of my box-fu!"

Jazz taps my shoulder. "Can we do something about those two?"

"Yeah, sure." I call out a garbage man and whisper something. I sit back to wait as Lancer begins to chum around with Poindexter.

"Say, weren't you in my band class?"

Poindexter squints at Lancer for a minute, and his face brightens. "Yeah, I was! Hey, you were pretty good on the trombone."

Lancer laughs. "Oh, I haven't picked that thing up in years."

"You're kidding me! You should try it again sometime."

Vlad rolls his eyes at what is, quite possibly, the most boring conversation in existence. I discreetly roll back the restraints on his wrist band. Vlad nods gratefully at me and sets Lancer's hair on fire. Lancer jumps up from his seat and begins running circles around the stage, and a swarm of garbage men bearing ruby-red fire extinguishers rush out from backstage to chase after him. Ember nearly laughs herself out of her seat as Vlad smirks.

In the midst of the chaos, a couple of my staffers slip up behind the Box Ghost and the Fright Night and clap muzzles over their faces. I wonder how they got one to work on the Fright Night, who has no discernable mouth, but it doesn't matter because the volume has come down enough for everyone to hear their own thoughts again. The audience has been staring in delighted shock, and now they snuggle down in their padded chairs for something slightly less hectic.

I bring two hands down on my desk. "Okay! So if we can bring the preliminary nonsense to an end, I'll give the floor to Jazz." I motion for her to go ahead. She smiles nervously and folds her hands on her lap as all the villains take their seats.

"So, let's start with…" She looks among them, trying to pick out the sanest, no doubt. "Let's go with you, Lancer. What was your childhood like?"

"It was fine. Nobody ever lit my hair on fire." He takes another look at Jazz. "How did you end up here?"

I sigh. "I'm paying for roughly half of her tuition to Stanford."

Lancer blinks. "Oh."

Jazz blushes and mumbles something.

"I'll tell you about my childhood," grumbles Poindexter. "Evil. Those guys were ALL-ways picking on me!"

"RETREAT! RETREAT!" somebody shouts backstage. There's a crash, and tiny pieces of ceiling fall onto the set.

Jazz glares at me. I smile and sit up in my chair. "I guess the battle against the lawyers isn't going so well."

Muffy teh Boy Slayer tumbles backward onto the set, heavily armored in hi-tech battle gear and holding a sizeable firearm in one hand. She leaps up and shouts, "You'll never take me alive!" before racing back into the off-stage fray.

"They're fighting lawyers?" asks Lancer.

I shake my head. "Yeah. Man, those guys canget nasty."

"I haven't even started yet," Jazz shouts. "What are you—"

I shush her. "Just think: Stanford." She simmers but doesn't protest. The Fright Night and the Box Ghost start to mumble insistently through the muzzles, while Ember and Vlad turn their chairs for a better view of the mayhem. The audience wonders what's going to be done about this mess. Little do they know that I plan to take what has been classically termed the 'glacial creep' option: ignore everything until it either calms down, explodes, or gets bored and wanders off.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to exercise this strategy somewhere else, because the lawyers are armed with imperial walkers, those long-legged machiney-things from Star Wars IV. I dive behind my desk and curse as they shoot out the wrist-band controls. The audience is really worried now, and I am forced to abandon the 'glacial creep' strategy for the 'pass out lasers and shoot like hell' strategy. Entrenched behind my desk, I shout for my staff to distribute the weapons to the audience, which shouts with glee at the prospect. On an impulse, I glance up at the ceiling.

All my 'misunderstood persons,' including Lancer, are sitting up there in the rafters, eating popcorn and laughing their asses off.

A/N: JadeR's back with more violent, seizure-inducing joy! Cameo-fest up ahead. Review for your chance to star.