Post by The Wonderful Wachter on Oct 2, 2012 21:34:31 GMT -5
All Star Fantastic Four #0.1
The Elephant in the Room
The Elephant in the Room
By Allan Mezzaro and The Wonderful Wachter[/center]
This is cool… like SOOOO cool. I’m IN SPACE! Hours ago I was in New York talking to Spider-Girl, watching a flash mob and freaking chilling on a gargoyle. But now I’m IN SPACE! That sure is a nice guy, Franklin. The tips of my mask tilt up to express my smile. “I’m just going to mosey on through…” My mouth drops within my mask as I notice the giant elephant in the room. Like no shit, there is a GIANT ELEPHANT being guided into a giant door by some giant men. This is so cool, an elephant…IN SPACE!
But on to the weirder part…
Amongst the sea of wearing white, Ben Reilly AKA the Scarlet Spider found himself the only person wearing anything that needed to be washed with colors. RED! for scarlet… Franklin forgot to give him the rundown and dress code before vanishing to do whatever it was he had to do. Awkward feelings welled up inside of him. He felt like, well, a spider on display. Everyone. Nothing a short jaunt down a long, steelish corridor couldn’t solve. All he had to do was jump to the ceiling and he’d only be noticed if people looked up.
People never looked up.
On every side of him were doors after doors, all like something straight out of a Sci-Fi movie.. Each one was labeled restricted. Damn Franklin. The one thing he did tell Ben not to do was go into “restricted” areas. As if Ben couldn’t read… Help on the dress code would have been far more appropriate. Just wrong.
His nostrils flared. What did he smell? He detected the scent of something he’d never expect to smell in space. Pizza… It definitely was pizza. The wonders would never cease. First an elephant and now PIZZA. He trailed the smell, following his nose as the saying goes. Finally, he found a door NOT labeled restricted. It had his stomach’s favorite word… KITCHEN. Why had he never come to space before?
He dropped down from the ceiling and the door slid open without being prodded. Inside was a kitchen that you could find in the back of any restaurant except more sciency. Everything looked all chic and new, including the single chef… A robot with multiple arms. “Excuse me friendly looking cook man, may I have a slice of that OH CRAP!”
The TV screen the cook had for a face flashed static. A single word replaced the eyes. Exterminate… Exterminate was never a good word to hear from a machine. Pest Control Protocols Activate! followed below. A spatula spiraled at Ben’s face and he barely managed to duck in time. The robot spoke and Ben’s eyes filled his mask.
“Pests are to be exterminated.” A Dalek’s voice… Who in the hell programs their robot chef to talk like the Doctor’s greatest foes?
Ben didn’t need to be told twice. He scurried out of the room, for a moment wishing he had those web-shooters of Spider-Girl’s to lock the door behind him. His legs carried him down several more corridors before he stopped for a breather just to make sure the insane killer robot wouldn’t catch up. Would be very, very bad for him to start off his first day as a member of the Fantastic Four by destroying their property… Even if it had tried to destroy him first.
Still, paranoia gripped him so when a big man with crew cut hair in the pure white uniform of the Future Foundation walked towards him with a swagger and big grin on his face. The man could be a Dalek in disguise.
“Hey man, you know why your chief just tried to take off my head?”
A hardy laugh was his answer. “A few months ago, an experiment involving roaches went wrong and we had foot sized bugs terrifying the engineers. The H.E.R.B.I.E.s were programmed to kill on sight.” The robot thought he was a bug? What kind of screwy programming was that? “Name’s Bill Hardman.” He thrust out his hand and Ben gripped it in a shake.
“Hi Bill.”
“I wish I was sent here on better terms but, you see, you’ve been flagged with numerous complaints, being mistaken as a giant roach and walking on the ceiling among them. And given your appearance, you’re obviously not one of the crew or one of the visiting dignitaries… You don’t have a white suit.”
All that fancy equipment on the station and one of the complaints was that he didn’t have white on? Damn you Captain Fantastic.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Franklin brought me on board. Totally clean. Not a giant bug.”
“I still have to escort you to a holding area until that can be confirmed.” Bill held out a hand. “And I’ll have to take your mask.”
“No abla Engle me amigo!” Ben sprinted off in the opposite direction, hoping he wouldn’t call security on him. He needed to find Franklin… Or Mr. Fantastic. Or someone that had respect for heroes. He could have handled the waiting, they probably would have given him food, but the mask was a giant no-no. Soon enough, he found himself back in the main room that he had been in earlier, unsure how it happened. No giant elephant this time around. Without the big gray mammal filling up space, he realized just how big it was. The few people wandering about on their way to other corridors and elevators.
He wandered up to a respectable looking man with glasses and a coat over his white uniform. “Is there a phone I can use? My cell kinda lost service.”
He gives Ben the “Your breathe smells, please brush your teeth before talking to me” kind of look before answering. “You should have been assigned one upon arrival.”
Damn it Franklin…
“Oh…they forgot. I don’t suppose I could borrow yours?”
“Excuse me but may I ask who you are?”
“Not sure myself at the moment. I’ll take a rain check on that phone…assuming it rains up here…” The Spider bounced off away from him once more and headed straight into the big room the elephant had vanished into earlier. Elephants are kind of cute if you just tilt your head to the right a little, squint your eyes and picture Megan Fox’s…face on them. Yeah, kind of cute.
He stood in the entryway staring at the larger-than-life elephant before me. His trunk extends at least thirty feet and he has to be about the biggest animal Ben had ever seen before…even bigger than that black bear at the end of The Fox and the Hound, and that was a mighty big black bear. That farm had to have been near nuclear testing.
Back to the majestic elephant:
Its skin was bumpy and gray and if its size was any indication of how big those roaches must have been, he was slightly mollified over it..
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I can’t just pass up this chance, can I? Nope.
He dashed across the room, ran up the wall and did the most Bruce Willis back-flip he could manage to land right onto the elephant’s back. “I’m riding an elephant…IN SPACE! WOOO!”
Good idea, right? Wrong. Bad idea. VERY bad idea. The elephant bucked, trying to throw Ben off of its back. For a moment, he forgot that he had super powers and remained clinging to its back. Scientists and handlers approach, screaming at him to get off. A whirling sounded. A security guard raised a bazooka-sized rifle that glowed a dangerous blue. Ben finally remembered that he was only atop of the elephant by virtue of his powers. He leaped off the beast’s back and got out of the way before it could smash him.
He really should have thought that one through…
I run down hall after hall after hall and finally come to a breather. It takes me some time to regain my breathe, but I finally I manage to do so. That is, before the beautiful woman walks before me, all curvy and beautiful. I think I’m in love…