The Final Countdown - Season I

Episode 4: Part 6: The Kyle Formerly Known as Fancypants

Previously on The Final Countdown...

Ronnie the Indomitable is plummetting...plummeting...plumetting...falling really very far and quite quickly down a shaft that may or may not lead directly to the heart of Nowhere.

Allow us now to return to our other three survivors, now in full panic mode with their brawn now reaching terminal velocity down the aforementioned shaft.

Venti leaned over the railing, uncertain if the black dot she was staring at was Ronnie or a totally unrelated black dot simultaneously tumbling down the bottomless shaft. "Ronnie!"

Fancypants squinted with the imbecilic hope of a man that somehow believed narrowing his eyelids improved his vision. "I can't see her! Can you see her?"

Another black dot caught Venti's eye, but it ended up being the same black dot. She still couldn't tell if it was Ronnie or not. 

"Come along, disgusting space parasites." T'Iguidou stood several metres further ahead. Java was giving her some trouble, and had abandoned the placid feline role she'd been so committed to only moments before. "Your monkey is agitated."

"Please, you have to let us help her!" Venti pushed away from the railing and clutched at T'Iguidou's shimmering robes. "There are only three of us left, and she's Ronnie!"

"How does her being Ronnie make any difference?" T'Iguidou grimaced as Java's scratches grew swifter and angrier. "What if she were Bob? Or Ploppywobbles? Would someone named Ankylosing Spondylitis not garner as much of your concern?"

"I don't...wait...what?" Fancypants made a face so stupid three of his cells reverted to Cro-Magnon.

"Please, please, tell me she's not lost..." Venti bowed her head, unable to stem the flow of tears. "We can't be the last two...we just can't..."

T'Iguidou leapt back and retched. "You beasts leak, too?" 

Java took the moment of distraction as her chance to escape, and sank her needle-sharp teeth into T'Iguidou's arm. The alien queen roared, and the robot cat squirmed out of her arms and darted away.

T'Iguidou snapped her fingers at two of the guards bringing up the rear. "You two, which one of you is Kyle?"

The guards glanced at each other, horrified by the prospect of what might happen next.

"Neither of us is Kyle, Extremely Amazing Overlady of the Greatest Imperial Empire in All the Cosmos." The fatter guard licked his lips and took a deep breath. "Kyle's dead, ma'am."

T'Iguidou crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her toe. "So, what you're saying is neither of you is Kyle."

Neither guard wanted to shake his or her head first. 

T'Iguidou snapped her fingers, and both guards were dead before they hit the floor. The empress pointed at the two Earthlings, a murderous gleam glimmering from two of her three eyes.

"What are your labels on Earth?"

Fancypants just gaped. 

"He's Fancypants." Venti offered the alien queen her hand. "I'm Venti."

T'Iguidou stopped Venti dead in her tracks with a simple glare. "Your label is sufficient." She gave Fancypants a onceover. "Yours is stupid. You will now be Kyle."

"What?" Fancypants graduated from gaping to asking open-ended rhetorical questions.

"Kyle! Venti!" T'Iguidou stretched to her full imperial and wondrous height. "You are now guards of the Greatest and Most Imperialest Bestest Group of Empirical Planetoidy Planets in all of Everything! Now bring back my monkey!"

T'Iguidou twirled on the spot and marched away. The Earthlings watched her go, too stunned to move.

"What the hell just happened?" The Kyle formerly known as Fancypants was getting a headache.

Venti gave her head a hearty shake and dragged the captain down the corridor by the arm. "Shut up and run, Kyle! We have a Ronnie to save!"

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