Monday 25 October 2010

For you, Quoth! Happy birthday!

This would have been printed out, but unfortunately technology was not our friend, so here it is instead. Happy birthday, Quoth! Enjoy!

Scribblers
The Wedding

A bad dress rehearsal means a good first performance, so the superstition goes. In the interests, then, of a smooth actual wedding, I present to you this: the disaster.


The Scribblers are, of course, in the Pit, which is a hive of activity.

Lyric is busily creating additional bedrooms and living rooms, and generally making everything more suitable for the additional guests who are invited to the wedding of Chronal and Finesse.

Shift, in Woodpecker form, is punching holes in the walls to put nails in, and Wraith in his flying shoes is following her around hanging up bunting on the nails.

Finesse is supporting Chronal, who is holding the whole Pit in a time bubble, which is why no-one is stressed that it is 7.25 in the evening, and all the guests are due at 7.30.

Amity is generally spreading the already sizable amount of good will, while following Lyric around and making excitable suggestions.

Finesse - Lyric, don’t forget the high ceiling in the room by the garden. We don’t want a cranky Balloon Girl.

Lyric - Yeah, high ceiling get.

Amity - Oh my God! I forgot to say: Balloon Girl’s going out with The Sword Fish, so she RSVP’d for a plus one.

Lyric stops what he is doing and looks despairingly at the room at large.

Lyric - Seriously? You want me to create a room that’s suitable for a woman whose internal body is consistent with helium, and a man who lives in a pond?

Finesse - They’re a couple? Really? How does that..?

Amity - She wouldn’t say, she just murmured something about phallic naming and “benefits outweighing the negatives.” She was really firm about the room, though.

Everyone looks at Lyric.

Lyric - What? What, you want an innuendo? That’s already an innuendo. Jesus.

Amity giggles. Finesse looks scornful.

The clock ticks.

Chronal - Sorry.

Finesse - Now see what you’ve done.

She goes back to her preparations.

Elsewhere, Shift morphs back into human form.

Shift - So the Assembly’s really letting us all have a week off?

Wraith shrugs.

Shift - I mean, that’s good. But doesn’t it seem like a good chance for villains to make a move?

Amity - Finesse blackmailed Ret Con. They’ve promised that if anything really bad happens, they’ll un-happen it.

Shift - Oh. Um, couldn’t we just do that all the time?

Chronal - Mutters something about the fabric of time.

Shift - Oh. So...we’ve actually just got a week off from villainy?

Finesse - Well, yes, unless, you know, some kind of espionage takes place with too many seeds sewn for Ret Con to unpick, or they break their word, or...

Chronal - (Looking out of the window) Or they forget what they were supposed to be doing, and turn up to the wedding.

Finesse - Well, yes, but that would be... oh.

And now everyone can see the main staff of Ret Con, glad rags on, approaching the Pit without a care in the world.

Before they can receive the collective rage of the Scribblers, however, everything goes dark.

Wraith - Lame.

The voice of Discord, one of the Scribblers’ many nemeses, is heard not in their ears but in their minds.

Discord - Hello, Scribblers. You will, I am sure, have noticed that you cannot see. On further inspection you will discover that you are suffering from complete sensory deprivation. You cannot hear, you cannot touch, you cannot taste...

Chronal - And we cannot smell, yes, thank you, could we hurry it up? I’ve got a wedding to plan.

Discord - Fine.

Chronal - And also, could you get your information right? It’s not complete sensory deprivation. I can still feel the passage of time.

Lyric - Cranky much?

Chronal - Well, yes, I am actually. Normally I’m very happy to have my time occupied by super-villains with dastardly plans but a week off is a week off.

Lyric - OK.

Wraith - I, like, know this darkness.

Amity - Yeah, and I’m still picking you all up. Everyone’s registering faintly amused frustration, by the way.

Finesse - OK. So what have we learned, people?

Amity - Oooh! He can shut down our regular senses but not our super senses! Yes!

Pause.

Amity - Oh, that was obvious, wasn’t it?

Finesse - Well done, though. What else? Come on.

Chronal - He can’t open a telepathic channel without allowing us to use it too. Oh, and he’s a long way away or Finesse would have shut him down.

Finesse - Well done.

Discord - (Peevishly) I’m still here, you know.

Shift - We know.

Discord - Don’t you want to hear my plan?

Lyric - You know you don’t actually have to tell us, don’t you? You’re allowed to just get on with it.

Discord - Oh.

Amity - Er, he’s serious. No irony.

Lyric - Really? See, the idea is that you do everything you can to make sure we don’t win, and if you tell us your plan, we’ve got a better chance of stopping you.

Sinister pause.

Discord - I see. Well, in that case, you might as well know. I have planted a psychic bomb inside the heads of Finesse and Chronal. It will detonate, causing lifelong mental anguish, at the moment their relationship is consummated.

He does some telepathic maniacal laughter.

There is an awkward silence.

Amity - Um, are you a Catholic, Discord?

Discord - I am. I moved straight from the Convent school to my Nemesis training camp.

Finesse - I see. Well, they certainly trained you well. You, um, you’ve defeated us. The next time we have sex for the first time, that’s it. Scribblers is without a leader and a deputy. Well done you.

Chronal - Oh, yes. I’m filled with masculine frustration.

Discord - Oh. Right. Good. Um, you’re taking this quite well.

Chronal - Ah, well, that’s our superhero training, you see. We’re able to hide our deepest emotions.

Amity - Yes, they’re crying inside. Honestly.

Discord - Oh. Good. Well, I’m off then.

The lights return to normal.

Lyric - That was surprisingly uneventful.

Shift - Yeah, who wants to watch Finesse yell at Ret Con?

The Scribblers all tumble outside.

The end.