"Listen up with your lugholes, my posh lassies. If you think this duff attempt to prance around in those anorexic fabrics makes for a cracking display of Venutian beauty, well you're bloody daft! Back on the Queen's soil, I'd have soiled myself in horror to see so many young birds faffing around like day girls off their trolley!"
Bard is within perfect earshot of.. … of…
Well, he doesn't seem to know, exactly.
But like a good Titan, he clears out of the halo of shame that is and shall hereafter be the arcade—making his way towards the Beauty Pageant set up in the center of the interior Mall Courtyard. He gazes up towards the same spot where all the beauties, judges, and onlookers are looking and spots—
"The Tarnation?" Bard does a double-take.
A giant, ornately decorated hot air balloon is suddenly levitating beneath the sun roof. A bright, radiant emblem of the British Flash is splashed across the surface of the thing while in the basket dangling majestically below huddles a tall, proud redhead with bifocals and stereotypically hideous teeth.
"Who is this Brit?" Bard murmurs to himself. His eyes narrow. ".. ….and what the Hell did he just say?"
The foreigner in question twirls his jeweled staff and deposits a kingly crown onto his cranium before leaning over the basket edge and smiling devilishly at the trembling, paper-thin beauty pageantettes.
"This is no true competition of the estrogenical arts! Bah! This is pure rubbish, in every bloomin' sense of the cliché word! I know not the septic dip stick who conjured up this poncey pageant, but mark my words I'll get this pear shape debacle to budge up and make way for a touch of the Mod!" The British imposter skips merrily in place and rubs his hands together. "Ohhhhh, smashing! The Bees Knees!—This is going to turn this whole City upside down! And in the end, you ungrateful Yanks will sound out 'cheers' for all the artistic flare I've wrangled overseas, and all the refinement, and such a do, and Bob's your Uncle!"
Murmurs rise amidst the crowd.
Bard clenches his fists. He frowns, looks around for a clear space---and spots a line of phone booths against the wall. "… … …hmm….I reckon I suddenly have an inspiration." A beat. "… … …naaah," he jams a fist underneath his poncho, slips his fingers through sparkling, adamantium knuckles, and runs balls-first through the crowd.
In the meantime, a few security guards run up with guns aimed at the notorious villain. A sense of trembling is hard to hide as they train their weapons and shout up at him: "What crazy plan do you have up your sleeve now, ya coot?"
"Simply a declaration, chap," Mad Mod half-bows. "I am to be… …the art director.. … ..the creative designer.. … ..and the entertainment host of the Beauty Pageant Finals taking place later this week. And—bugger all—if I don't get the position that I've earned by the sheer bullocks of my artistic merit… …" He glares with a glint of his bifocals and fingers his glistening rod. "Then let's just say the Sun will never set on your little commercial Empire… ….EVER AGAIN."
The girls tremble and cling to each other.
"Hmmm …right-o!" Mad Mod twirls his rod and winks. "Looks like I've delivered my yakking quite smart. But for the lot of you who can't take a decent gutting, well, hard lines for you, shorties!" He aims the rod directly down at the feminine crowd. "Here's a little shambling to show you just what sort of business I truly mean! Ah ha ha ha ha!"
ZZZZZT! The rod charges up.
The girls shriek and cower.
The men pull at their triggers at the last second—
FLASSSSH! An electrical charge suddenly bolts up in a hot blue streak and singes the crystal at the edge of the Brit's weapon.
"Aaaaugh!" The Mad Mod reels back in the hot balloon basket and rubs his hand. "Cor Blimey!" He grits his grimey teeth and shakes a scrawny fist. "Who in the Queen Mum's hair bonnet is giving me aggro?.!.?"
"Hey Mr. Bean! You want to talk trash in two continents?" FWOOSH! Bard leaps up and perches atop a glass elevator shaft. He hums a tune and produces a fist of cold fury. "Why don't you saddle up or shut up or I reckon I might just have to send you to pasture!"
"Well, if it isn't a cattle rustler trying to give his cowchap heritage a 'how's your father'?" Mad Mod laughs, then glares. "Sod off, shammy-shagger! I haven't the time for namby-pamby nosey parkers thinking they can haggle over peace with parlor tricks and a set of trousers fit for a Philly-sniffing pillock like you! So why don't you skip over to the pisser and spend a penny while I finish playing 'squire' with these underschooled, boorish sprogs here!"
Bard lifts his hand to speak.
His mouth falls agape.
He blinks.. …goes cross-eyed for a beat---then shakes his head.
"Yeah… …Um… …I'm going to remover that yapper of yours now. Thank you kindly." CHIIIIING! He produces a handful of icey daggers and flings them at the hovering villain at full force. "Hope your Ma taught you to FLOSS!"
FWISSSSSSSSSSSSSH!
The cold knives sing through the air. They slice through Mad Mod's lips.. … ..and soar out the other side of the flickering miscreant's image—as well as his fake balloon. Fw-Fwooosh! "Ha hah hahhhh!"
Bard's eyes widen.
The icicles sail up, up, and smash through the ceiling skylight. SHATTTTTTER!.!.!
"DRRRNRNNGH!" Bard winces and whips out his guitar for a murderous strumming of the Wind Song. "Son of a---"
FWOOO-OOO-OOOOSSSH!
An indoor gale roars through the Mall, knocking signs over and shoving people to their feet and fannies. The hurricane force shoves the falling shards of glass in midair over the heads of the guards and the beauty pageant contestants and slams the serrated debris into a huge mural advertisement of the Playstation Three.
"… .. …," Bard shrugs.
"HAH! Don't get shirty with me, young man!"
Bard looks up.
The hovering dirigible starts to disappear in a flickering mirage of craziness. The Mad Mod's voice continues bodilessly.
"My royal air balloon and I might be holograms. But I most emphatically assure you that my robotic yankee-smassher is NOT."
WHURRRRRRR!
Decloaking in full-figured glory is a levitating android shaped quite ridiculously like a Royal Guard. It twists its toy-soldier head around and rears up a bayonet'd rifle. CLAK-CLAK!
The cowboy Titan adjusts the brim of his hat and takes a breath. "Sorry, Crocket.. ….but it's Paul Revere time… …"
BL-BLAM! A blast of shot soars in at him.
"Nnngh!" Bard leaps off the elevator shaft. CLANG! The metal reverberates from the shot behind him. In the meantime, the cowboy glides his way towards the robot, shoulders his guitar in mid-air, and swings his adamantium fist down just in time—"AAAAAH!"
SMASSSSH! The robot sails towards the floor, forming a deep crater in the black and white tile as pedestrians, shoppers, and girls in prom dresses go running every which way.
Plop! Bard lands in a pancho-flapping crouch and pants for breath. He wipes his brow and smirks. "You reckon you like some of that Bunker Hill for your tease—Aw shucks."
WHURRRR! The robot hovers back up, straightens its metal skull, and soars straight at Bard. "SODDING SHALL COMMENCE!"
"Now that's just plum lame---"
WHAM!
"OOOF!" Bard is shoved, shoved, shoved across the courtyard. He and the robot smash through benches, trash bins, and a palm tree or two. The mighty Titan grits his teeth, flings his cross pendant safely around the back of his neck, and raises his arms—gripping into the metal hide of the automaton. "RRRRRRRGH-YEAAAAAAAAAAAH!" SWOOOSH! He swings the hulking weight of the beast over his head and suddenly reels uncontrollably in the wielding of such. "Whoah-Whoah-Whoah—DARN IT!" And he and the robot go plunging straight towards the windows of a hapless western clothing store.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Erm… …," a customer scratches his thin head of hair and makes an uncertain face at the leather jacket in his grasp. "I'm not so sure. Forty bucks a pop?"
"It's just your thiiiiing, Mister Smith!" an overweight, bubbly sales clerk winks suggestively and 'flings' a wrist. "You want to strut down a street in that disastrous sweatervest for another day?"
"I-I thank you for your creative input, Mister---"
"Heheeee," the clerk points at his name badge. "Just call me Jenny."
"… .. ….right. Uhm, thank you. But ever since I dropped out of the police academy, I've been looking for something a little less… …Well….Something that doesn't scream 'excitement'."
'Jenny' gasps dramatically with a hand over his left chest. "Oh, but Mister Smith! Who's screaming?"
SMASSSSSSSSSSH!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" the clerk howls and leaps lardily into the customers arms.
"AAUGH!—" THWUMP!
