“Reduced to waiterin’? Aye, times are tough I know, I know. But we all can’t be as successful as me, now can we?”
“Ah ain’t no waiter, ye motif stealin’ laddie! Ah oughta rip off them arms o’ ye in return for—”
“Shorty!”
Mr. Manager snapped, “No offense to you, Mr. O’Riley.”
“None taken, I be assurin’ ye.”
Mr. Manager nodded pleasantly to Seamus and turned sharply to Angus, “You are to treat our customers with the respect they deserve!”
“Only thing ol’ Seamus deserves is a goood bashin’ in the head!”
“This is Mr. Seamus O’Riley of the breakfast cereal conglomerate Kismet Krunchies, featuring the secret ingredient Kismet Green. He’s rich and that makes him better than ordinary people. It’s called capitalism.”
“Ah bloody knows who he be! He’s the rat that stole me idea for a breakfast cereal, Scootish Squishies!”
“Ah, Angus. Ye always been having quite the imagination. Who in his right mind would eat cereal made o’ haggis?”
“Kismet Green is made o’ haggis!”
“Control yourself, Angus, or you’re fired!”
“No need to be doin’ that, good sir. Everyone in the cereal business knows about Angus’s rantin’s. Not a one of them be takin’ him serious o’ course. Kismet Krunchies wouldn’t be the number one breakfast product in the world if it were made o’ haggis. Any plain fool can be seeing that.”
__________
A dim green light pulsed, um, lightly. At first Nuklear Man couldn't tell if his mind was playing tricks on him or not. But the more he concentrated on it, the more he was certain that this was one of the few strange lights in the dark that wasn't somehow in cahoots with his imagination. The green light had a faint hum that waxed and waned with its fluctuating intensity. It seemed to Nuklear Man that it was coming from inside an old barrel that had warped and rotted over the ages, thus allowing several small imperfections to let the eerie light escape from within. He carefully crept toward it. The light was like the heartbeat of a sleeping mythical beast. His gloved hands hovered mere inches above the lid where the majority of the light peeked through gaps between it and the rim. Having grown accustomed to the green light, the Hero could make out an ancient, tattered label on the barrel's lid. It read, “Barrel O’ Cheese” with the “O” resembling a cheese wheel. Below the logo, in considerably smaller print, it said “Best if served before 1959.”
“Ick,” he said into the darkness. It was the first sound he made since happening upon this strange occurrence and seemed as loud as a gunshot to Nuklear Man.
A high-pitched hum ran through the emptiness. Nuklear Man immediately noticed the pinprick of green light that zipped out of a knothole in the barrel and hovered so close to his nose that he was forced cross-eyed to look at it. “Intruder!” the floating green speck announced far louder than its size would suggest possible.
“Eh?” Nuklear Man responded confusedly.
“I don't hear any cleaning back there!” Atomik Lad's voice was distant, as though calling from a dream.
Hundreds of green specks of light poured from the barrel’s knotholes and gaps and all of them were converging on the Hero.
“Oooh, pretty.”
“Attack!” a huge yet tiny high-pitched voice echoed from across the battlefield. A barrage of green laser bolts rained from the floating specks and assaulted Nuklear Man with thousands of piercing ouchies.
“Nuke! What's all that noise? Don't make me come back there!”
“Ouch! Quit it! C'mon!
Ow,
my eye!” the Hero whimpered as he waved his arms around uselessly.
A squadron of the Barrel Defense Force split off from the main fleet that was taking severe losses from the Invader's maniacal strategy of random counterstrikes. The splinter cell dove for the Invader’s feet and divided again into two smaller squads, each heading to one of Nuklear Man’s cape corners.
__________
“Shorty!” Mr. Manager yelled from across the restaurant.
The Iron Scotsman growled as he put away his massive mauling club and climbed down from the booth behind Seamus. The Iron Scotsman took out a small notebook and pencil from one of the many pockets in the waitress's apron he was wearing, “Mblembml?” he mumbled.
“What is it ye be askin’ me, boy-o?”
“And that’s another thing! Ye steal me cereal fortune, then ye steal me armored motif, and now ye steal me speech gimmick!”
“I’ve been talking like this since before ye was skimping pennies at the breadline.”
“I don’t think so, laddie! Ah been spoutin’ incomprehensible rhetoric since before ye had ye first slug o’ nickel beer!”
The two looked around contemplatively for a few moments.
“Well,” admitted Angus. “Maybe not quite
that
soon, but ye get me meaning.”
“Aye, I do.”
__________
“Operation Trip: Go!” a commanding high-pitched voice bellowed from somewhere inside the barrel.
“Nuke, what are you doing?” Atomik Lad's voice seemed to be coming from beyond reality as we know it.
Nuklear Man's cape, with the help of many green dots, wrapped itself around his legs. He wobbled like a drunkard and collapsed on his face. “The cheese has gone bad!” he called back to his sidekick.
“Well, that's what you're there for. Clean it up!”
“But it's
winning!”
“Ugh, just hold your breath.”
__________
Seamus gingerly sipped his coffee and clicked his tongue while taking in every aspect of its character.
“No, this won’t be doin’ either.”
“That’s ye
sixth
cup o’ coffee! What’s wrong with this one?”
“It’s not quite rich enough. You ought to be knowin’ all about
that
, boy-o.”
“One more remark like that one and Ah’ll bash ye head in, laddie.”
“Boy-o.”
“Laddie!”
“BOY-O!”
“
LADDIE!”
__________
Nuklear Man felt like the universe had suddenly taken it upon itself to go upside down with the exception of himself. He was suspended by his feet in mid-air. His head was just a foot from the barrel’s lid, the bottom of his cape was resting gently on the floor. The lid rustled of its own accord and flipped open, flooding the room with a green tint. The Hero blinked groggily and squinted as a platform, built in scale for a gnat, rose from the green depths to be level with Nuklear Man’s nose. A small green dot rested atop it. He had to cross his eyes to see it properly.
Tiny music, somehow triumphant, emanated from the barrel with extremely minuscule flashes. “Victory!” the green dot proclaimed. This incited a flurry of noises and flashes from the barrel.
“Wah?” Nuklear Man inquired.
“Quiet! You are now a war prisoner of the mighty Cheesiediluvian Empire!” Another rush of excitement flowed from the barrel.
“Prisoner? Cheesiediluvian? War?”
“Yes! The outside would is ours for the taking! Your failed invasion has been repelled by our superior Cheesiediluvian Barrel Defense Force!” More cheers.
“Invasion?”
“Do not play dumb with me, Outsider!”
Nuklear Man decided to skip the obvious “Who's playing?” line, though feel free to insert it yourself at your leisure.
“We have known of your plots to usurp our kingdom for some time. But now we have proven our superiority over your kind! I, Daisy the XXVIII, shall usher in a new era! The age of Cheesiediluvian Conquest! Today, the storeroom! Tomorrow, the kitchen!” An uproar of cheers erupted from the barrel. The effect was like when a television in an adjacent room is turned up just a little too loud.
“Oh yeah, I'm really scared of a guy named Daisy.”
“Such insolence from a vanquished foe,” the despot said haughtily. “Deploy the
Cheesenaught
!”
“That's it,” Atomik Lad said from the kitchen. “Nuke, I'm coming back there, and if you're not working your cape off, or if even
one
thing is out of place, you've got some explaining to do!”
__________
Two figures stood in defiance of one another. One, a cold gray beast, crouched menacingly in the smoking section. The other, a warm green knight posed righteously in the non-smoking section. Each muttered curses to the other that neither could fully make out. They hefted their mighty weapons: a huge spiked and studded blunt instrument of destruction for the dwarf and an emerald shield-like implement bladed in the shape of a four-leafed clover for the leprechaun.
“DWARF-A-PULT!”
“LEPRE-CANNON!”
__________
A plank of wood near the barrel's bottom opened like an automatic garage door. A strange humanoid shadow splashed across the floor among a sea of green light. Slowly, a cheese-automaton waddled from the aperture like a little wind-up toy.
“Behold,” gloated the green dot, “Our scientists’ newest and most invincible creation: the Cheesenaught!”
“It's just cheese,” Nuklear Man remarked.
“You dare mock us, Defeated One?”
“Well yeah. I mean, c'mon. It's walking cheese.”
“Cheesenaught! Destroy the Mocker!”
“Feh, mock this.” Nuklear Man pointed a finger gun at the Cheesenaught and reduced it to a heap of dairy slag with a tiny dose of Plazma Power.
Sounds of chaos rose form the barrel as Daisy attempted to quell the mob below him. “Assemble the defense force! Flee to the hills! Trust in your Emperor! Destroy the Outsider!” His commands fell upon ears deafened with horror.
The Golden Guardian felt an impish tingle in his nose. “Ahem, Mr. Twenty-Eight?” Nuklear Man interjected.
“The Cheesiediluvian Empire shall persevere! We are the Chosen Race to populate the restaurant! Lobbyfest Destiny shall be ours!”
“WAAAH-
CHOOOO!”
__________
The two armored and high-speed bullets collided in mid-air. An epic battle defying description ensued which is terribly convenient for me since I won't have to think up the details. But, I will say there was biting, clubbing, bashing, swatting, slapping, punching, kicking, throwing, and poking of the eyes. All this and a constant tirade of curses, eloquent unto a Shakespearean level in their rudeness, filled the restaurant, driving away what few customers remained. Then, as if the entire event had been elaborately rehearsed, both warriors simultaneously fell flat on their backs. They wheezed and panted and stared up at the ceiling.
__________
Panic washed over the Cheesiediluvian populace. The pilots of the Defense Force that had been holding the Hero for all to see fled their positions and allowed Nuklear Man the kind of freedom of movement he was used to. Their great and powerful leader, who would have certainly led them to someday conquer lands as distant as the Men’s Restroom had he not just been sneezed into oblivion, had failed them. Their faith in Lobbyfest Destiny had been shaken with all the force of when that sack of potatoes had been tossed against the barrel in 3458 A.D. (“Anno Daisy”).
Nuklear Man, being of kind heart and motive, could not bear to see them suffer. He pleaded to them, “Please, don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you.”
The chaos ceased. All was silent.
He stared at them with the kind of awe most people experience when watching ants. These creatures were powerless before Nuklear Man. He held the fate of an entire world within his grasp. “You'll evaporate nanoseconds before your little neurons have the chance to transmit the intense pain to your little brains! MUWA HAHAHAHA!”
Chaos began anew.
“PLAZMAAA—”
A plastic click and the lights exploded to life.
“Nuke!” Atomik Lad tackled him from behind. The golden orbs around Nuklear Man's hands disappeared as the two fell in a heap on the floor.
“Hey, Sparky. Meet the Cheesiediluvians,” he motioned to the Barrel O’ Cheese barrel. “They were going to take over the restaurant, but I overthrew their leader and destroyed their most powerful weapon,” he pointed to the congealing cheese slag on the floor.
“I can't take you anywhere, can I?” Atomik Lad sighed as he stood up and dusted himself off. “And where did you learn such a big word?”
“From the Cheesiediluvians,” Nuklear Man insisted as he also stood up and did away with every particle that could possibly mar his spiffy outfit.
“Cheesiediluvians? I suppose this is some idiotic race of creatures that super-evolved from a barrel of cheese left forgotten for decades and they mistook you for an intruder and started this big war thing, but you, being such a great hero, were able to stop them?”
Nuklear Man thought on this while rubbing his eyes to help them adjust to the lights, “Well...yeah.”
“You have such an overactive imagination. You should have turned the lights on before you came back here.” Atomik Lad picked up the barrel’s lid, “Man, 1959? Phew, I bet these fumes weren't any help either. Probably knocked a few screws loose...er.” Atomik Lad put the lid back on. Its dim green glow was completely drowned out by the overhead lights.. “We'll have to throw this out.”
“But the Cheesie—”
“Hallucinations, Nuke. Just your little brain playing tricks with you so that it might get you to pay attention to it once and awhile.”
“The Cheesiediluvians. War. Saved Earth. Me did.”
Atomik Lad hefted the large and strangely heavy barrel. “Would you stop worrying about it? It's nothing. There are no little cheese people.” He kicked open the back door and tossed the barrel into a nearby dumpster. “Done and done,” he said while dusting off his hands. “Now c'mon, I finished washing the dishes. Let's get Angus and go home, huh?”
__________
Issue 8 – Serial Cereal Industrial Espionage...ial.
They walked into the kitchen and Atomik Lad opened the door to the dining area while waving away Nuklear Man’s insistence that the papers be contacted first thing in the morning to alert them that he'd just saved the world, yet again, from another crisis and large front page photos were called for. Really big color ones.
“Nuke, I seriously doubt they’d—”
“Angus!” Nuklear Man exclaimed.
Angus the Iron Scotsman was going fisticuffs with a green armored stranger no higher than the Surly Scot himself and very definitely not bussing tables.