"Um, Wenn, you had said that your Knights of Wenn were younger than you are..." Helmet told his apprentice, frowning at the dozen or so equally elderly men lined up on Spaceball 5's bridge.
"And they are too, Helmet. Punch Fisto here's two years younger than me," Wenn patted one of his knights on the back, then moved on to the next one over, "Shokk Mee's three years younger, and Mann-Ikk-Mundi's four years younger."
"And I'm still raring to go just like I was when I killed Good Guys left and right in the Drone Wars!" Mundi declared with an emphatic fist pump. His eyes then immediately started bulging in distress, and he pounded his chest frantically for air before falling over dead to the floor. Helmet rolled his eyes in disgust. He gestured to two nearby troopers, who picked Fundy's body up, carried it over to the nearest torpedo tube, stuffed him in, and fired him out into space. "Well," he declared, yanking his visor down and pacing in front of the newcomers, "We are glad to have you augment our forces for this mission, Knights of Wenn. Soon we will be arriving on Gesundheit. You will aid us in capturing the good guys that are on the planet and detain them into our custody." He turned to face the screen descending from the ceiling for inter-ship communication, only to be standing in the wrong place and have it bonk him on the head. Groaning, he staggered backwards. "Who put that there!?" he demanded.
"If this is not a good time to talk, Lord Helmet..." Ron told him from the bridge of his own ship nearby.
"No, no, everything's OK, Ringh," Helmet shook himself back to normal, "As I was going to say to you, Also-Ron and everyone aboard your ship, I'm counting on you to get the everywherium we need to power our doomsday weapon. When you reached Gesundheit, follow the readouts on your consoles, and dispatch several of the Spaceballs the Rapid Drilling Towers aboard your ship," he held up a box containing an action figure of the ship in question, complete with dolls of Ron and his crew, "Judging by the preliminary estimates, it should take about ten minutes of hard drilling and extraction to get the amount sufficient to power the weapon. Once this is complete, return to the disembarkation point and help us mop up our primary operation."
"Certainly. And be sure to turn Lone Starr over to me for a while; I still wish to subject him to a horrific revenge fantasy the likes of which he cannot fathom," Ron rubbed his fingers in delight.
"You said it, boss," Also-Ron applauded him at his feet, "We're gonna really have fun giving out the fantasies now, aren't we?"
"Yes, yes, now go and buckle up, you little pest," annoyed, Ron shooed the midget off. The screen switched to static, ending the transmission. "All right, Sandurz," Helmet turned to the colonel, "I've learned my lesson this time. Prepare ship for light speed only."
"Yes sir. Prepare ship for light speed," Sandurz grabbed the intercom and repeated the order for the entire ship.
"And make sure you don't come out of it too close the planet. We don't want to tip them off," Helmet warned him, sitting down and buckling up this time. Sandurz did the same on the other side of the command railing, none of them noticing Wenn whispering to his knights behind them, "Regardless of what Mr. Ringh wants to do with him, boys, bring Lone Starr to me when you see him. I've got an offer to make him that I suspect he'll be receptive to..."
"For she's a jolly good fellow, for she's a jolly good fellow, for she's a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny!" most of the good guys toasted Mary Sue around a table set up on the beach that was overflowing with food.
"Dink dink dink dink dink dink dink!" the Dinks repeated the finish, clanking their mugs together. "I deny it...!" Lone Starr muttered in disgust under his breath at the foot of the table. The feast had been going on for hours, but he did not feel hungry.
"So, Miss Cometrider, what's on the slate after you save the universe?" an oblivious Barf asked the purple-haired youth at the head of the table.
"Well, saving my father's first and foremost now, Barf," Mary Sue told him modestly, "I've got a few vague Schwartz sensations on where he could be; hopefully they'll get clearer in time."
"They should; once a master of the Schwartz starts using their powers, new and more powerful ones should come pretty quickly after that. And I'll be here to help you control them. In the meantime, pass the rolls, Blinky," Yogurt asked the Dink sitting next to him, who obliged.
"Why are we serving rolls on a beach when Helmet'll likely be back here before we know it...!?" Lone Starr snarled to himself.
"Velvet's a slacker for hole it?" Meteor frowned next to him.
"Nothing, nothing, never mind," the hero waved him off.
"Oh, OK. Well, have some coffee, then," Meteor extended a pot towards him and poured it, but blindly misjudged where to pour and as such spilled the hot liquid straight into Lone Starr's lap. Howling in pain, the hero lurched upright, clutching his groin. "Everything all right down there, Prince?" Dot asked him.
"No, no, everything is not all right, Matrix! I have had it with all this!" Lone Starr raged, glaring everyone at the table down, "How is throwing a big party on the beach supposed to train someone in the usage of the Schwartz, especially when they've done so little to earn training in the first place!?"
"Well, no offense, but that's the way it's written down in the Journal of the Won'ts," Yogurt held the book up, "I can't go against sacred and solemn tradition."
"Besides, boss, what's the big deal?" a confused Barf asked him, "It's not every day you get to have a buffet lunch with a savior of the universe."
"OOOOOOOOOO!" Lone Starr threw up his arms and slammed his head off the table in disgust-or at least tried to, but instead accidentally smashed his face straight into a pineapple upside-down cake. Sputtering, he wiped away the cream and pineapples. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold that pose," Yogurt advised him, then hefted a camera and took his former protégé's photo. "Good. That's make for a good new doll to sell in stores next month. Cake-faced Prince Lone Starr; we'll get a big influx of money from all the pineapple upside-down cake makers for it..."
"YOGURT!" Lone Starr yelled, "I've had...what!?" he barked at Meteor, who was tugging his jacket sleeve.
"Uh, if you're done with the cake, can I have it?" the mole asked him. Lone Starr bellowed in rage again. "Here, take it!" he tossed it in Meteor's face, then stormed up to the head of the table. "I've had enough of you," he snarled at Mary Sue, "Had enough of you upstaging me, had enough of you getting rapid advancement without just cause, had enough of you turning all my friends and loved ones into out of character shells who fawn over you worse than a whole herd of deer! Well, I'm putting an end to this right now! I'm going to prove I'm more worthy of being the chosen one in the Schwartz than you! You and I, a race down the beach, each of us using the power of the Schwartz to the best of our abilities! Let's see how good you are at the core Schwartz level when it counts!"
"Well, if you insist," Mary Sue shrugged innocently, "But so you know, you're not going to be able to beat someone who's perfect..."
"Lady, unless your name's Curt Henning, you're not perfect; no one's...!"
"A race, good," Yogurt interrupted, clapping his hands in delight, "That should settle things. OK everyone, let's go have a race."
"Racers ready?" he called to Lone Starr and Mary Sue at the head of the beach ten minutes later from the far end.
"Ready," they called back in unison.
"Finky, Pinky, ready?" Yogurt called to the two Dinks standing atop a makeshift gantry over the finish line that had been drawn in the sand.
"Dink dink," both Dinks gave him thumbs up.
"All right," Yogurt turned back to face the two racers, "On your mark...get set...wait for it...wait for it...wait for it some more..."
"Yogurt...!" they shouted impatiently.
"GO!" the Schwartz master declared, waving a green flag. Lone Starr took as fast as he could and appeared to get an early lead. "May the Schwartz be with me, may the Schwartz be with me..." he pleaded in his head, reaching out for the power of the Schwartz that he had been told was inside himself. And indeed, he could feel something stirring in him, and it was giving him the strength to go faster than he ever had before...
...but unfortunately, this was not fast enough, as Mary Sue easily overtook him after a few strides and flew down the beach like a rocket, likely faster than any human could possibly run. Before the astonished Lone Starr could fully process what was happening, she blazed across the finish line well ahead of him. "Winner and champion, the Knickknack Paddywhack!" Yogurt declared, raising her arm high.
"You did it!" Vespa hugged him, "You're an idol to girls everywhere!"
"Well, I wouldn't say...oh thanks," Mary Sue commended the Dinks, who lifted her up on their shoulders and carried her off in celebration to their familiar theme of, "Dink dink, dink dink dink dink dink dink, dink dink,dink dink dink dink dink dink..." With no further reason to run, Lone Starr slid to a stop in the middle of the beach, deflated. "How can she do that!?" he mused, furiously watching the girl be carried away by her admiring crowd, "Well, this isn't the end, lady; oh no is this by no means the end...!"
"Make a fool out of me, will you!?" he muttered under his breath, storming towards Mary Sue's deluxe tent on the beach later that night, "I've been in this hero game too long to just be thrown aside like this! No one drives Captain Lone Starr out of his own story without paying a price...!"
He reached the tent's front flap. Checking all around to make sure no one was watching, which they weren't, he then slipped inside. Mary Sue slept soundly in a queen-sized bed in the back of the tent. "Sound asleep, perfect," Lone Starr nodded in satisfaction. He put his Schwartz ring onto his finger and started to raise his hand...
...but stopped, staring hard at Mary Sue. His gaze then shot down to the Schwartz ring. "What am I doing!?" he lamented softly, slapping both hands to his face, "This isn't how a hero acts, even if she is a colossal pain! There's...!"
Suddenly Mary Sue let out a low moan and turned her own hand towards him in her sleep. Lone Starr was jerked hard off his feet and turned upside-down in the air. "What the hell...!?" he started protesting, then yelped as his head was slammed hard into the floor over and over again. Making matters worse, his hand abruptly shot outward involuntarily, curled into a fist, and started punching him hard in the balls repeatedly. Lone Starr gritted his teeth to keep from yelling out from the horrific pain all this was causing him, but while he was successful with this, he now crashed into a bookcase, sending it toppling over with a loud bang. Lone Starr was released from the power of the Schwartz and fell to the floor at this point. He then heard Vespa's voice ringing out on the beach, "What's going on over there?", followed by an army of footsteps coming towards the tent. He looked around frantically for an emergency exit. Seeing none readily available, he grabbed the shade off the nearest lamp, stuck it over his head, and assumed a ramrod straight posture in the corner right before the tent's flap was thrown open. "Is everything OK in here, Mary Sue?" the princess asked her.
"Huh?" Mary Sue rose up in bed, looking confused, "Oh, yeah, everything's fine, it's just...I had a firm vision about your father and mine."
"My father? Is he all right, where is he!?" Vespa demanded.
"He's safe, imprisoned in Spaceball City, but unharmed. My father was just captured by another Spaceball force; they're taking him back there now too."
"Well then we'd better hurry and get them both out of there, right Yogurt?" Dot turned to the Schwartz master.
"Sounds good to me," Yogurt agreed. "I'll have the boys make the repairs to the Winnebago, and you can be out of here and to the rescue by down, Miss Cometrider," he told her, "Before you go, though, I've got a new set of action figures of you I drew up for merchandising I'd like your approval on."
Lone Starr suppressed a scream. "Well, if you say so, Yogurt," Mary Sue somehow remained modest despite having toys made after her.
"I do indeed. Well, everyone, might as well let the lady get some sleep before..."
"Wow, look at this new lamp!" Barf exclaimed, his feet appearing Lone Starr's field of view under the lampshade, "It looks exactly like the boss. Let's see how it works."
Lone Starr gulped nervously. Barf's paws reached under the shade, seized his nose and started twisting it. "Click, click, click, click, click, click!" he sputtered out loud with each twist. "Ah, too bad, it's burned out. See if you can change the light bulb soon," the mawg advised Mary Sue.
"Guess so, Barf. Well, have a good night's sleep."
"You too, Miss Cometrider," Barf told her. The footsteps exited the tent, and soon all was quiet again. Lone Starr removed the lampshade and breathed a sigh of relief...
...and suddenly, Mary Sue's voice rang out in his head. "I know what you were planning to do just now," she told him sternly. Lone Starr shot a gaze at the bed, but the girl was seemingly sound asleep. "Listen, I'm sorry," he hissed under his breath, "I wasn't thinking just then. Maybe it's out of character for me, but I wasn't going to kill you, just leave you with a huge tickling or itching rash..."
"You realize I could fold you into a Tic Tac dispenser, or worse, expose you to the others for this," Mary Sue's voice warned him, "But I'll let you go this time. If you do it again, though, I'm going to..."
Suddenly a low roar from the skies above rang out. "What's this now?" Lone Starr frowned, exiting the tent. Hovering over the beach were a half dozen or so oversized derricks with the words SPACEBALLS THE RAPID DRILLING TOWER emblazoned on their sides in large white letters. They all zoomed towards the forests behind the beach and landed with a thud. Loud drilling sounds rang out from behind the trees-but Lone Starr's attention was now diverted to a supersonic scream piercing through Gesundheit's atmosphere. In a flash, Spaceball 5 came to an abrupt stop not more than ten feet away from him, the still due vertical spaceship's nose mere inches from the ground. "Sandurz, I told you that you were going to come out of light speed too close to Gesundheit!" Helmet could be seen upbraiding the colonel on the bridge.
"Sorry sir, but I felt that...Captain Lone Starr at two o'clock!" Sandurz exclaimed, pointing to the hero outside the window.
"Aha," Helmet had noticed him too. The villain grabbed for the intercom. "Attention, men, Lone Starr and the others are outside!" he ordered his troops, "Seize them and make them unbelievably dead!"