by Kathy Bosman
spectators in the balcony. Patrons in the nosebleed section immediately clamored down to fill in the empty seats. As I swung past again I noticed my disembodied arms at the post waving the universal, I’m open, signal. I hatched a plan. Throw the blaster to my severed arms and command them through my antennae link to blast spider’s ugly mug to smitheroids. But alas, the best laid plans of mites and mantis’ often fall by the wayside. When I let go, my Tuba blaster sailed out into the crowd and I thought I heard an, “I got it, I got it!” before it lodged squarely onto the head of a spectator. Let me tell you from personal experience, it is very difficult to get head-marks out of the brass, horn shaped barrel of a tuba blaster.
Spider Murphoid was feeling confident and started taunting the crowd. I had seen enough of his fights to know this was not a good sign. He would offer bits and pieces of his opponent to the pleading spectators before finally finishing his helpless victim off. It was a real crowd pleaser. If you were lucky, you could nab a real nice souvenir and sometimes he would even autograph the larger appendages. You know, he really was a good guy at heart.
He held me out far over the seats and offered me whole to a snot-nosed spiderling clutching eight shiny balloons. When the stupid kid reached out for me, Spider Murphoid snatched me back again as the little spiddler cried and his balloons sailed into the rafters. Then he offered me to a pretty young centipede with legs that went for miles. He pointed to my different appendages and presented them like items on a desert menu. The centipede shied away coquettishly and batted her eyes. A fat Squirrelian next to her pushed her aside and yelled, “Spider,Spider, gimme a foot!”
“Oh, it’s a foot ya want eh?” Spider sneered. He brought one of his muscular legs down on top of the squirrelian’s head and smashed it down into his torso so hard nuts popped out of his overalls. Then he wrote his autograph and hotel room number on the squirrelian’s tail, tore it off and handed it to the centipede.
I flailed helplessly as he played his little game to the delight of the crowd. This way and that I was held over the audience and offered as a prize until I saw another one of the Don’s bodyguards, this one with my trusty Oric 3000 Whispersonic Bowling ball cannon.
I reached for the cannon as Spider Murphoid lit another cigar.
He saw what I was doing and pulled me back just out of reach. Then he held me out again towards my weapon. The guard caught on to the game and held the cannon up for me and then pulled it away, causing everyone to burst into laughter. I grasped and stretched as they played their little game. I made a final, desperate lunge for my bowlingball cannon and fell short, snatching the bottomless popcorn inter-dimensional vortex container out of the fat kid’s greasy hands. This sent the crowd into uproarious laughter and Spider Murphoid took that as his cue to finish me off. Always go out on a high note, so they say.
As he raised me up high to deal the death blow, I plopped the inter-dimensional vortex popcorn container onto his head. The crowd gasped at my insolence. I reached down and slid the switch on the side of the container from, All You Can Eat for Only 7.99, to No refills, Cheapskate, and the vortex snapped shut.
With a great shudder, Spider Murphoid’s lifeless body collapsed to the canvas while his severed head came to rest on a pile of popcorn somewhere out in the All-Popcorn alternate universe with a smoldering cigar in its mouth and no doubt a very surprised look on his face.
I made a mental note not to order popcorn for a while.
The crowd was stunned into silent paralysis.
But I wasn’t.
My severed arms scurried into the crowd, retrieved my tuba blaster and, with an E below middle C sonic wave, started disintegrating beings at random, cutting large swaths through the fleeing mob. I strolled purposefully toward the terrified bodyguard fumbling with my bowlingball cannon, snatched it from his hands, and then snatched his head away from his body with a sixteen-pound Brunswick. Another ball left a clean hole through the torso of one of the other guards as he reached for his atomizer. I smashed the snout of yet another bodyguard and rifled through his pockets, retrieving my switchblaster and my Wallhallah toad sticker, an adorable little pistol that would open a hole in the side of the arena large enough to drive a Pachydwerp school bus through.
The return of my weapons left me refreshed, and with my severed arms, weapons in claws, beside me, I proceeded to unleash a wave of violence greater than the combined history of every ultimate fight-to-the-death match that had ever taken place in that or any other arena, including the Osmond clone family reunion killing spree and sing-along. The horrific screams of the dying was music to my ear-holes as I dealt death and destruction to the hapless crowd. Beings just minutes ago calling for my demise were now facing their own untimely end at my all too eager claw tips. The air crackled with blaster residue and the fleeing souls of the dear departed, which I also blasted into oblivion with the special, Give up the Ghost, setting on the tuba blaster. Tuba blasts, bowling balls, and toad sticker lightning criss-crossed the arena, wrecking havoc on the living, dying, and dead.
When the dust settled I found the Don cowering under the ring and hauled him out by his tail, leaving two sets of deep claw marks in the hardwood floor. I slammed him into a seat and leveled the Oric 3000 Whispersonic Bowlingball cannon at his head.
“Bug, please, we’re both reasonable beings.” He composed himself. “Let’s not forget, I’m a very wealthy and powerful businessman. Let’s let bygones be bygones. Surely there’s something you need more than revenge.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I sneered. “Revenge is pretty high up on my list right about now. I can’t think of a way to settle this particular score that doesn’t involve killing you.”
Don Corporealeone licked his paw and brushed his whiskers “Come now bug, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
It turned out he was right.
Also, it turns out my office is not too small to swing a dead cat in.
PeeDee3 is dead: to end with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. Old PeeDee3 is dead as a cross-dimensional portal stabilizing ring bolt…Frass.
-Next Time-
A bird who’s nearly as big and yellow as he is dangerous, a turtle with just two arms but a lot of attitude, and a fish wielding both a grudge and the most dangerous weapon in the entire galaxy. Whoever said that a bug’s life had to be family friendly or fun? PeeDee3 just might be the best assassin ever, but this time even the weapon’s got him outsmarted.
PeeDee3, Intergalactic, Insectoid, Assassin
Season 1, Episode 11
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