The Wrath of My Muses
Chapter Three
DISCLAIMER: None of this is mine, except for the broken CDs and thetribble (yes, I promised, he IS being introduced in this chapter). So the tribble is mine, although the idea of tribbles is not, this particular tribble is mine... like that made sense. XP Sorry, I've been sick and spent all of Sunday with my sister (who is now sick instead of me!) watching "Brave Little Toaster" cartoons, so now my brain is mush. LOL.
WARNING: There is a teensy-weensy little bit of 'friendly' (cough, ahem) Picard-bashing in this chapter. Sorry if it offends anyone. Now that I think of it, I probably should have put a warning on that other fic when I dumped Batgirl off a cliff, too... (laughs evilly at memory). ANYWAY. Now for the story. :)
"Boy do I feel good!" Little Joe exclaimed, swinging his arms back and forth. "I haven't felt this wonderful since before The Almighty Panamint began writing fan-fiction stories!"
"You can say that again," Dick agreed. Now that his shoulder was good again, he was practicing his old circus routines on the ceiling (don't ask me how, ask Alexis, she's in charge of the laptop, remember? Maybe she had a chandelier installed.) Doing trapeze stunts on the ceiling was something that Alfred probably would have murdered him for back at home. But since he wasn't at home, he could practice his stunts in peace. Besides that, if he did them on the floor, he'd risk crushing Agent 006, who was happily running back and forth across the Sickbay floor with some random calico tribble—spayed and nicknamed Denny for soon-to-be-obvious reasons—that Alexis had typed up for him.
Spayed or not, however, Chekov, Scotty and McCoy had decided to stay as far away from the tribble as they could, remembering what happened the LAST time tribbles had come aboard the ship. And Catwoman was also avoiding the little dog and his pal. For obvious reasons. Actually, she would have loved to do something about 006, but since he was Alexis' dog, and since Alexis was in charge of the laptop, she figured it would be safer just to avoid him for now.
And Dani was giving Heather Star Trek lessons.
"Spell quadrotriticale," Dani was saying.
"SPELL it! I can't even SAY it!"
"Well, try. It's qua-dro-trit-i-ca-le."
"Say WHAT!"
"Quadrotriticale. Can't you hear? It's from "The Trouble with Tribbles"."
"Know what I think?" Catwoman asked with an evil snicker.
Before anyone could respond, Dick jumped in and warned them not to answer. He knew Catwoman better than anyone, and he didn't want to see where this was going.
"Don't worry," Adam assured the Boy Wonder in a rather sarcastic voice. "I'll protect you from Cat-lady here."
Grabbing the front of his shirt, Catwoman pulled Adam close to her face and hissed through clenched teeth, "The name is Catwoman, buster, and don't you forget it."
Looking a tad more nervous than he had a moment ago, Adam gulped and nodded. Catwoman let go of him and repeated her question.
"Alright, what?" Bianca asked tiredly.
"I think they should have used a few of those tribbles to make a toupee for that King-of-Siam wannabe Picard!"
While most of the Secret Super Spies almost died laughing—much to Catwoman's delight—the others looked rather befuddled, especially the Enterprise crew.
"Who's Picard?" Chekov queried.
Although Catwoman mumbled a few non-G-rated words under her breath, she didn't bother to answer the Ensign's question. They'll figure it out soon enough, she thought.
Just then, Spock entered Sickbay and took in his surroundings with a raised eyebrow.
"I believe, if it is quite convenient for you, that we should return to the brig immediately and hold a court martial so that we will be rid of The Almighty Panamint as quickly as possible," the Vulcan proposed, almost failing to keep the sardonic tone out of his voice.
"You know what?" Joe said. "That's a right smart idea. Let's get down there right now and convict her of those charges!"
"We've got to prove she's guilty first," Adam reminded him.
"What do we need to prove it for? We all know she's guilty, and you yourself suggested that we hang her at sunrise after a not-so-fair trial!" his brother protested.
"Can ve just get down there?" pleaded Chekov.
"Do you do anything except whine?" Catwoman rebuked.
"No," McCoy answered for him. Chekov, although he really wanted to, didn't say anything for fear of getting an extra physical that year.
The Muses found TAP still in her cell (thank goodness), sitting on the cot and looking rather unhappy. The frizzy hair looked as if it had been pulled at quite a bit, too. It was quite clear what was happening—TAP was suffering from cheese withdrawal.
"You'd better get her cheese bag," Bianca said to 006. "We want to convict her, not kill her."
"That makes one of us," Catwoman disagreed.
"Can we get on with it?" McCoy interrupted. Just because Alexis was now in charge of the laptop didn't mean that bad things couldn't happen. They had had foul experiences long before TAP was even born. Of course, they just seemed to have more of them after she discovered Star Trek fan-fiction.
Scotty tried to deactivate the force field, but it wouldn't budge.
"Ah dinna unnerstand it," he shrugged as Spock came over to help. "It was workin' perfectly a few minutes ago."
"Just because I don't have my Mom's laptop anymore doesn't mean I'm completely stupid," The Almighty Panamint informed them.
"Vhy don't I like the sound of that?"
Reaching through the force field, TAP grabbed her cheese bag from Agent 006 and grinned. "I've rearranged the molecules in the force field so that I'm the only one who can come in and out—along with my cheese, of course—and I ain't goin' nowhere till yous give me back my Mom's laptop."
"What are you,nuts? No way!" Alexis exclaimed, backing up and keeping the computer as far away from the force field as possible.
Panamint shrugged. "Okay, suit yourselves."
She plunked herself down on the cot once more and began nibbling on a shred of cheese.
"I'll just make your lives miserable as long as I'm here."
"Oh, no, you won't…" Dani giggled in a sing-songy voice. "Alexis has the computer, remember?" Turning to her leader, Dani said, "Show her who's boss, amiga!"
And so, getting comfortable on a beanbag that she typed up for herself, Alexis began to write…
TAP's Billy Joel CD suddenly appeared in Agent 006's mouth. Panamint paled considerably and even stopped munching on her cheese as 006 tossed the CD over to the tribble, who promptly dropped it:
CRASH!
"My CD!" Panamint shrieked, even as Hoss and Little Joe began snickering at the look on their enemy's face. "That was a present from my uncle, and now it's busted!"
"That's nothin'," Alexis said casually. Returning to the laptop, she typed a little more, and pretty soon, Panamint's Motown and Beach Boys CDs were smashed to smithereens as well:
SMASH!
CRACK!
WHAP!
Sticking her now-trembling hand out through the force field, TAP picked up a handful of CD shards and let them fall through her fingers.
"My music," she moaned. "My wonderful music…"
"It's your fault," Chekov told her with a nod.
Meanwhile, Alexis was busy typing another CD into her dog's mouth. This one was of the Mamas and the Papas. Just before it could be broken, however, Bianca snatched it away from the little dog.
"They're my favorite band!" she cried (now you know why the tribble was named Denny. And if you don't, well… what can I say?)
"In that case," Alexis said. "I'll type you a radio."
"Thank you!" Panamint sighed in relief.
The very first song Bianca listened to was "Creeque Alley". Then she listened to it again. And again. And again…
"How can you stand that song!" Heather exploded. "It doesn't even make any sense!"
"Yes it does! You just have to listen," Bianca shot back.
"Yeah, it's the band's history, you ding-dongs!" Panamint spat.
"They had a weird history," grumbled Catwoman.
"THAT DOES IT!" TAP and Bianca yelled simultaneously. "THIS IS WAR!"
Leaping through the force field, Panamint got to the villainess first and promptly tackled her to the ground, using her eleven years of Tae-KwonDo experience to her distinct advantage.
Next on the Cat-pile was Bianca. Then Dick, then Little Joe and Adam (all of whom had completely forgotten the fact that they should never hit a lady, courtesy of Alexis' typing), then Agent 006 and finally Denny the tribble.
Even as the war was waged, Alexis continued typing. Since her own dog was busy with Catwoman, she had Chekov and Scotty do the CD-destroying instead. Pretty soon, the Monkees and Barry Manilow were history. And let's not even mention what happened to Simon & Garfunkel (does the word 'airlock' mean anything to you?)
Hoss calmly headed over to the bunch and picked TAP out by her wild and frizzy hair.
"Now that we got 'er outta there, we kin hold court," the big man smiled as Panamint harrumphed unhappily.
"You tricked me," she grumped.
"No, it was just dumb luck," Dick replied innocently.
"Yeah," snickered Catwoman. "She's dumb and we got lucky!"
There was laughter all around (well, except from TAP and a certain 'unfeeling' Vulcan we all know) as the group headed up to the court-martial room. Well, technically speaking, they should have beamed over to the nearest Federation Starbase and held a court-martial there, but since Alexis had typed them up a court-martial room right there aboard the Enterprise, they didn't have to do that.
"We'll need a jury, a judge and a couple of lawyers, though," Adam told them.
"That's easy," said Alexis. "Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov, Adam, Hoss, Little Joe, Dick, Bianca, Heather, Dani and Robin will be the jury. I will be the judge. Catwoman will be our lawyer and Agent 006 will be Panamint's."
"I've got a dog for a lawyer?" TAP protested. "And you can't have Catwoman as your lawyer, and you can't be the jury, either—YOU'RE THE PROSECUTORS!"
"Alright then," said Scotty. "We'll make it fairer for ye—our lawyer will be Denny the tribble instead."
"We don't stand a chance with a two-inch-high fuzz ball as our lawyer!" Dick whispered. At a soft growl from Denny, he hastily added, "Er… no offense…"
"We'll do fine," Robin exclaimed breezily.
"Okay then."
Alexis, being very careful to take the laptop with her, climbed up to the judge's podium and sat down. Right after typing up a rug-style white wig, a black robe and a gavel, that is.
She gave the gavel a whack and cried, "Order in the court! Order in the court!"
"There is order," Little Joe said, looking around with a puzzled expression on his face. "You're the only one making any noise, Judge!"
"Well… this court is now in session!" Alexis said. She hit the gavel on the desk again. "We are here today to—"
"We know what we're here for!" Catwoman interrupted. "So let's do it!"
"ORDER in the COURT!" Alexis yelled in reply, smashing her gavel once more. "Now. We are going to hear from the prosecuting attorney. Or whatever it's called. That would be Denny."
Denny rolled out in front of everyone and began squeaking. Sometimes it was loud, sometimes it was soft, but it always held a very angry tone. Which was directed mostly at The Almighty Panamint.
Five minutes later, long after everybody's eyes had glazed over, Denny stopped squeaking and rolled back to his desk.
"Thank you, Denny," said Alexis.
"You don't mean to say that you actually understood that!" said Adam.
"Of course I did—I translated it with the laptop."
"But that laptop doesn't have a translator!" TAP cried. "It doesn't even have Internet access, for crying out loud!"
"Does now."
Alexis thwacked the gavel again and called TAP's lawyer up to the front. Agent 006 trotted out in front of the crowd and began barking. Sometimes it was loud, sometimes it was soft, but it always held a very angry tone. Which was directed mostly at The Almighty Panamint.
Five minutes later, long after everybody's eyes had glazed over, 006 stopped barking and trotted back to his desk.
"Thank you, 006," said Alexis. "Now let's begin with our first witness. That would be Dick."
Dick, still not looking very confident in his lawyer's abilities, moved to take the stand.
"WAIT A MINUTE!" TAP yelled. "I OBJECT!"
"On vhat grounds?" Chekov asked.
"That's my line," grumbled Alexis.
"I object on two grounds!" Panamint ranted. "First—how can a member of the jury also be a witness? It's unconstitutional!—or… something…"
"She has a point for once," Dani agreed.
Typing quickly, Alexis produced twelve random redshirts and had them take their places as jurors instead. Unfortunately, before they could take their seats, three of them tripped over a few of those random exploding rocks and blew up. They were hastily replaced with three more redshirts.
"I still object!" Panamint cried.
"On what grounds?" Alexis jumped in before Chekov could open his mouth.
"I don't have my cheese."
"Och, for the love of…" Scotty started in a very aggravated tone, even as Spock raised an eyebrow, McCoy cussed and Chekov giggled.
"Just get me my bag of cheese and I'll be happy. I might even cease to object to anything in the near future," TAP said.
Alexis typed up TAP's cheese bag and tossed it to her. She opened the bag and chewed away quite contentedly and Dick was finally able to sit down.
Denny walked (or whatever) up to him and squeaked something in tribblish—which, as everyone knows, is the universal language of the tribbles.
"Ummm… could you repeat the question?"
Denny squeaked again.
"…One more time?"
Denny squeaked a third time and wiggled to show that this was getting irritating.
Finally, Dick shrugged in resignation. "Holy foreign languages… this isn't going to work, Judge."
Alexis, who had been snoozing for the past thirty seconds, awoke with a start and asked, "Why not?"
"Because I don't understand our lawyer."
"Neither do we!" some random redshirt agreed. "Either I quit or you replace that rusty pompom!"
Denny attacked, thus ridding the court room of yet another redshirt. A completely-calm Alexis just typed up another one and proceeded to plug the tribble into the computer.
"What are you doing!" Heather screeched. "That's animal cruelty!"
"Don't worry—I'm just hooking Denny up to the translator," Alexis explained placidly. She attached something to Dick as well before adding; "Now we'll be able to understand each other. Okay, Denny, go ahead and repeat the question. Again."
This time, Denny's squeaks came out as English words: "I SAID, what's your name!"
Dick stared.
"That was it?" he said incredulously. "All this time, you were just trying to figure out my name?"
"English is not exactly a specialty of mine. Now what is it?"
"Umm… Dick."
"I OBJECT!" The Almighty Panamint declared.
"On what grounds?" groaned Alexis.
"On the grounds that everybody should have to use their full names in a court martial."
"Sure, whatever. Okay, Dick, your full name."
"If I may speak?" Spock interrupted.
"Why not?" Alexis moaned with a 'why me?' look on her face.
"When the judge relents to the objector's demands, it is the unwritten law to say 'sustained', not 'sure, whatever'."
"Well, excuse me, Mr. Perry Mason!" barked Alexis. Spock decided it would be in his best interest not to point out that his name wasn't Perry Mason and that Mason was actually a fictional character portrayed by Raymond Burr on 1960's American television.
"Okay, well… sustained, then. Full names, everybody."
Dick shrugged and amended his answer to 'Richard John Grayson'.
"Alright, then, Dick," Denny started. Alexis screamed in exasperation and clunked her head down on the desk as TAP snickered and Denny continued, "Why do you wish to see The Almighty Panamint placed behind bars?"
"Because she's a villain, like Catwoman," Dick enunciated those last two words very carefully. "And villains shouldn't be allowed to run free in our society. Or, your society, or ANY society!"
"I OBJECT!" yelled Panamint. "I object because the witness is already referring to the defendant—or whatever—as a villain when she hasn't been proven guilty yet."
"Sustained."
Denny nodded (or whatever) just as a redshirt stubbed his toe and promptly shriveled up into a pile of jelly. Alexis, who was trying not to laugh, typed up another redshirt, even as 006 was lapping hungrily at the jelly. Then she told Denny to get on with the interrogation. "Or whatever the stinkin' thing is called," as she put it.
"Okay," Denny said amiably. "Have you ever been injured or attacked by Panamint in any way, shape or form?"
"YES!"
"Explain. And make sure that these things wouldn't have happened if TAP hadn't been writing at the time."
"She almost gave me a heart attack back in A Conversation with Catwoman—"
"Apoplexy," Spock corrected.
"Who gave YOU permission to speak!" Catwoman spat. Apparently, she was still quite sour about how that specific conversation had gone. It had almost cost her Batman's affections. She would have to get revenge on Dick for that little incident later…
"Yeah, well," Dick muttered, rolling his eyes. "She almost killed me, and that's the point."
"I OBJECT!" Panamint exclaimed.
"Not again!" Alexis whimpered. "On what grounds this time?"
"If Dick doesn't know what happened to him, then how do we know he's not lying or making it up?"
"Because we do. So cork it."
"That ain't fair!" wailed TAP.
"Too bad. Get on with it Denny."
Denny nodded (or whatever) once again and told Dick to get on with the list of tortures he'd endured at the hands of The Almighty Panamint. That included the apoplexy, the dislocated shoulder, the unintentional trip to Alaska, the pop-ups, the Whining, Tinsel and Bugle Incidents and, most recently, the purple hair.
"Your witness," squeaked Denny.
Agent 006 barked something, which Denny translated as 'No questions'.
"No questions!" TAP roared. "You have to ask questions! How else will I win this case!"
"I don't want you to win," was the blunt response.
Panamint made a strange choking noise before the youngest Cartwright was called to the stand. He did so with the air of someone who had done this kind of thing many, many times before.
Well, by the time the final witness—Catwoman—took the stand, things were not looking good at all. Every one of the Muses in the Muse Protection Association had accused The Almighty Panamint of at least one thing, and Agent 006 had refused to ask any questions the whole time. So, all in all, things were looking pretty bleak.
And not just for Panamint. Over the course of the court martial, seven more redshirts had 'bitten the big one'—four from Denny-attacks, two from passing tidal waves and one who got a bit too close to the fire extinguisher.
"So your name is Catwoman, right?"
"Yeah. What's it to you, you little fuzz ball?"
"He's our lawyer—he means a lot," Adam reminded her gently. And I say 'gently' because Adam still remembered what had happened the LAST time he got Catwoman mad.
The villainess (Catwoman, not Panamint) shrugged.
"Whatever."
"So has The Almighty Panamint done anything to you?" squeaked Denny, still looking rather miffed.
"She had me get stuck on an island with that overgrown bedbug Penguin, and in her first Batman story, she almost made me lose Batman's love!"
"Objection!" Dick cried.
With a loud, angst-ridden, long-suffering sigh, Alexis asked on what grounds.
"How does she know Batman loves her? He never told you. And how could Panamint do that? I don't think even she's capable of that. She doesn't even LIKE romance, remember?"
"That does it!" Catwoman yelled. Standing up, trembling with barely-controlled rage, she continued, "Do you know how much I've had to put up with from you? You're constantly getting in the way whenever Batman and I come close to kissing, and if it weren't for you, he would have married me by now!"
"Would not!"
"Would too!"
"Would not!"
"ORDER in the COURT!" Alexis screamed, banging her gavel several times in a row. Her wig almost flew off, she was banging so hard. In fact, when the wig flopped down over her eyes, Catwoman took the opportunity to snatch the laptop away from her and dash madly down the hall (don't ask how she can run in those shoes, because I don't know, either).
"I OBJECT!" Panamint cried. "The prosecutor shouldn't steal something from the judge, especially in the middle of a case!"
"Objection sustained!" Alexis agreed. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she bellowed, "Catwoman, you come back here with that computer or we'll forget about The Almighty Panamint and throw you in the brig instead!"
"Not on your life!" Catwoman shouted from a distance. "I've got the power now, and you'll do what I say or else!"
"Or else what?" Adam and Scotty chorused.
As a response, Catwoman sat herself down in a corridor reeeeaaaaaallllllllllyyyyy far away from the court-martial room and, muttering something that sounded like "I've been taking orders from those bozos long enough", began typing…
Me: Yay, long chappie! I didn't know where to end it, so it just kept going and going...
Dick: You can't fool me.
Me: Huh?
Dick: You LIKED watching those "Brave Little Toaster" cartoons. In fact, YOU started it by suggesting that you and your sister watch the Mars one.
Me: ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS DEFOREST KELLEY'S LAST ACTING ROLE!
McCoy: Whose last acting role?
Me: Uh... Dick... do the replies while I try to figure out how to escape this disaster without doing anything drastic...
Reviewer Replies
The Tribble Master-Glad you liked. Panamint thought your suggestion was very funny, but since this story was finished over a month ago, I'm afraid she won't be able to use it... blow torch?...
Dick: Have you figured anything out yet?
Me: Yes. I clonked him over the head.
Dick: What!
Me: If we're lucky, he'll get amnesia and forget about what he overheard.
Dick: Holy stupidity...