7: Fightin' Time, Part One

Previously on We’re Not in Edison City Anymore, John Cute strikes an alliance with the dreaded Professor Cthulhu and heads straight for Candystriper in the hospital! The Wombat and his team are on their way to help, but will they arrive in time? Before we find out, a quick a commercial word:

Edison City, Present Day

It was a quiet night on Candystriper’s floor at St. Cupertino. The doctors had gone through their rounds, the night-shift nurses had done their vitals and wouldn’t be around again for a while, and visiting hours had come and gone. Candystriper was sound asleep, as she had been for the better part of the day, but she was definitely improving. The attending physician had been at some pains to assure the Malevolent Med-Student on that point; she didn’t think he’d attack the place if his henchwoman took a turn for the worse, but these days one never knew. John Cute was supposed to be a hero, but he’d smashed up a vitals monitor and threatened a doctor, or so rumor went. Strange times.

At any rate, the Malevolent Med-Student felt assured that Candystriper was doing well, so he had taken the opportunity to get a little shut-eye. He hadn’t thought at all that day about his most recent villainous plan involving the Soul-Sucking Scope-O-Sadness, or further development of the compact version of the Pharma-Death Beam. Indeed, he hadn’t planned anything diabolical that day at all. He was now as close to asleep as one could get in a hospital where various machines are constantly beeping and humming, and where one never knows when medical personnel might come through the door to do vitals or clean or some other important task. Thus, he was not immediately awake when John Cute, infused with the power of the Old Ones, returned to the building.

Captain Happily Married, however, was. After Candystriper had gotten a bed in her own room and the Malevolent Med-Student had insisted that he would stay there until (always until, never if) she recovered, Super Soccer Mom had decided to take the kids home so they could get some sleep as well. She, the Captain, and Meg had worked out a revised patrol schedule so that someone would be on hand in case trouble turned up. The Captain was on the point of swinging by the hospital cafe for a coffee refresh and a snack (“they have surprisingly delicious pastries!” when he heard a sudden and disturbingly loud THWOOMP, as if a gigantic bass speaker outside the hospital had just laid down a sick beat.

Captain Happily Married realized that this was no longer a moment for pastries. This was a moment for heroes. “This was a moment for- “ Before he could finish the thought, he emerged out the ER entrance of the hospital and saw John Cute, hovering in the air outside the shaken building. Funnily enough, although the Captain had understood the man to be heroic, he didn’t appear to be doing anything terribly inspiring, not searching for injured persons, not summoning help, not seeking out whatever evildoer had arrived on scene. He was just floating there, glaring at the building as if it had done him a personal injury.

“Excuse me!” the Captain shouted. “Mr. Cute, this is no time for games! Something untoward is going on!”

John Cute wheeled towards Captain Happily Married, and out of his mouth came a torrent of horrible words that had not been spoken in the living world for eons of ages. (Cthulhu had not provided a translator for Old One to English nor a dictionary, so although John meant to say something intimidating like “Of course something untoward is going on, it’s ME!”, what he actually said was “Blue flower guts red red library man poo!”

“What?” Captain Happily Married said, who hadn’t taken ancient Old One in college or elsewhere.

John tried to make an appropriate movie reference, “What we have here is a lack of communication!” but this came out in Cthulhu as “gargragftagnrakurgwgahlagnu,” which translated into English back again meant “Your planet is too melon.”

“You seem unwell!” said Captain Happily Married, his mighty brows furrowing in concern. “Perhaps you should go inside and seek medical-”

But at that moment John Cute decided to give up further attempts at dialogue. He threw himself straight at the Captain, screaming in incoherent rage. Captain Happily Married had just enough time to brace for impact before John slammed into him, causing a shock wave that shattered windows for blocks in every direction. John rebounded, the Captain swung a mighty blow that knocked him straight into a nearby car, and the battle was on.

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Thirty-Seven Years Ago, Humanoid Colony on the Veronii One moon of Verin Prime

Sam Superlative Jr. hadn’t had the time to ask basic questions like “Who’s attacking us?”, “Who are you?”, or even “Where’s the bathroom?” The moment the battleships had appeared in the sky over the little moon, he’d been hustled off to a vacant gunnery station, shoved in front of a weapons-control panel, and given a lightning tutorial on lunar defense.

“There’s your firing control, there’s your targeting system, there’s no fancy tricks here, you just point and shoot until the sky’s clear, got it?” the humanoid leader said.

“Y-yeah,” Sam said. “But-”

“No time, gotta go, find me after and we’ll debrief. Name’s Cork. See you if we live,” he said, and he was gone. Sam was alone. Other guns were already firing, his own targeting screen was filling up with dots, and the door of the little room he’d been put in was locked. He could’ve tried his super-strength to smash it, but then what? Fight his way out of one battle straight into another? All he knew was that the people here were maybe human, and the being who’d sent him there had seemed friendly; the ships attacking the moon now apparently weren’t. Not much to go on, but what could you do?

With a sigh, he gripped the firing control, chose a dot, and fired. The control panel gave a distinctly unimpressive bloop noise. Sam thought he heard a rumble in the distance, but he couldn’t be sure. He shrugged and went looking for another dot.

Read the Next Episode.

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