Hello again, my surprisingly loyal* fanbase!
* - I assume if you're reading this then you actually care enough to follow this blog, which produces next to no content on a regular basis. If so, great! Thanks for existing! You da real MVP.
So I'm back! I'm sure the crickets are sorely disappointed that they're out of the job. In a long-overdue move, I've decided to finish the intrepid tale of Captain Potato. I'm not sure if it will be any good, but hey, closure is closure right?
There's one particular person who's been waiting on this for a long time. They know who they are, but I want them to also know that this is, in part, my gift to them.
As a reminder, the subjects of this story challenge are:
- All the possible uses of a potato
- "Choo choo mother fucker"
- A fancy Christmas party gone horribly, messily wrong
- Justice
- Rampant and unabated climate change
- BONUS: a guest appearance by Nathan Fillion
Vas-y!
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Captain Potato.
Dave said the name again and again in his mind, but despite his best efforts he was utterly unable to turn the sound of it into something that made even a hint of sense to him.
What the hell did they spike the punch with? There's a dude in a potato costume getting ready to square up with heavily-armed terrorists...
To their credit, the terrorists seemed just as confused as poor Dave was. Aside from the distant sound of sobbing (which Dave assumed was Brenda, since she could barely keep it together on the best of days... this was not the best of days...) the whole floor was covered in a thick veil of shocked silence. Even the obnoxious Christmas music playing over the PA had fallen quiet, unable to deal with the sheer ridiculousness of the office workers' current predicament.
The good Captain himself seemed to be too caught up in his posing to notice, though after nearly a full minute of this he began to take stock.
"Ahem. Yes, Captain Potato is here to save the day! You terrorists are the root of all evil, and you will be squashed in the name of tuberous justice!"
No reaction. Not a soul in the place -- save perhaps CP himself -- had the wherewithal to plan their next steps. Id and ego alike were still busy processing.
After what seemed like an eternity, one of the assailants let out a frustrated groan from behind his Grinch-like (if the Grinch were made in China by someone who had no idea what the Grinch actually looked like) mask. "Can we just kill this dude please?"
The assertion seemed to wake the whole gathering from their collective trance. Dumbfounded stares turned to enlightened blinking to grimaces of rage wholly befitting the well-armed cadre of eco-warriors gathered hence. Grips universally tightened around all manner of dastardly weapons in the hands of their equally-dastardly wielders, prompting a smirk to appear on the face of our intrepid hero.
"The potato," he began, "is a truly versatile vegetable."
From behind the captain, one of the terrorists (this one with a mask that vaguely resembled a reindeer crossed with a balaclava made from an old sock) charged toward him with machete raised high and voice eliciting an angry howl. Captain Potato was unphased, and as the blade began to come toward his fleshy neck, he simply pulled a cord on the side of his cannon. The action caused a gout of white steam to shoot out behind him, and as it enveloped the attacker his battlecry turned into a scream of pain as he clawed at his blistering eyes.
"They can be boiled..."
The next brave contender, this one a woman in a modest hood and bandana, positioned herself to the left of the captain and brought a pistol to bear. Without missing a beat, he stepped back and turned, allowing the bullet to pass harmlessly in front of him while bringing his own shooter in line with his foe. Two quick pulls on the trigger and another shower of tater bits showered onto the collapsing terrorist.
"You can mash them..."
All at once, the room exploded into action now. Three downed terrorists was probably two too many to ignore, and thus shit had just gotten serious. Every bad guy (and girl) in the room had now turned their attention to Captain Potato and his unconventional tool of mash destruction. Knives, pipes, rifles, and possibly even a grenade (which, Dave realised, might explain the pin drop he heard before, but he was REALLY hoping that that was metaphorical) were now levelled squarely in his direction, yet he seemed completely unphased.
"You can even stick them in a stew!"
The third or so of the remaining terrorists smart enough to bring projectile weapons quickly set about finding both cover and clear angles of fire, ducking behind cubicles and human shields in the hopes of avoiding the spud cannon's deadly(?) barrage. The others simply charged, hoping that brute force and intimidation through numbers would be enough to fell their crafty foe before he could foil their evil plans of taking down TerraCorps. Dave, for his part and from his admittedly unfavourable vantage point, imagined that the latter group were kind of like Team Rocket grunts throwing out Zubats and Rattatas in the hopes that the one guy with a Haunter might actually be able to put up a fight. And much like those grunts, what followed was a massacre.
True to his earlier assertion, as the captain ducked behind a cubicle of his own he launched an array of taters at the oncoming horde. One or two struck the lead runners in the chest, stopping them in their tracks and slowing those behind them. The others flew past the group and collided heavily with the glass wall of the office aquarium. It didn't take much for the assault to cause the glass to groan and then shatter, unleashing hundreds of gallons of water that surged over the immobile terrorists and swept them away in a heap. The squishy mass was quickly joined by a host of miscellanea that disgruntled office workers had used to decorate their desks before the wave washed the desks away as well. By the time it hit the outside windows, the once-clean water had turned a fetid mix of brown and red, having collected a decidedly non-trivial number of desk plants and their associated soil as well as no small amount of blood from the now-wounded terrorists. After all, if you put enough sharp objects in close proximity with a group of people too disoriented to control them, there are bound to be a few cuts and scrapes. The situation only got worse as the sheer pressure of the crashing pile caused the exterior glass to shatter, sending the screaming terrorists to their untimely end in the streets below. Amazingly, not a single hostage was caught in the fleshy tsunami -- a feat not lost on the remaining attackers that were now huddled even closer to their respectively cover.
Dave was in shock. Who IS this guy?
At this point there were at least five of the terrorists left in commission, though from his place on the floor Dave realised it really could be any number. He wasn't in much of a position to confirm, and being an accountant in the midst of the weirdest gun fight in the history of weird gun fights, he figured that it was probably better to keep it that way. What was clear, however, was that the forces of good and evil were currently in a standoff, and neither group was willing to risk making the first move.
Then, to Dave's complete and utter surprise, things got weirder.
"Get hammered, evildoer!"
Seemingly out of nowhere, a man in a blue shirt with a hammer emblazoned on the chest barrelerled heavily into one of the terrorists hiding behind a terrified intern. The extremist -- this one wearing a surprisingly detailed JFK mask -- went flying through the nearby cubicle with a resounding crunch, unable to brace themselves for the surprise attack. Immediately, all eyes shot to the new challenger, including Dave's.
Is that... It that Nathan Fillion?
The man, who may or may not most maybe-ly not (not?) have been Nathan Fillion, stepped forward with a flex and a dazzling smile. "Never fear, good citizens! Captain Hammer has arrived to save the day!"
Captain Potato, not one to waste an opportunity when it presented itself, hastily sprang into action, rushing toward the now-distracted terrorists with a renewed gusto. Bullets began flying everywhere, with the newcomer diving behind cover while one after another the remaining foes were dropped by the first captain's deadly-accurate spuds.
In a flash, everything was quiet again. Dave's heart was racing as if he'd just run a marathon. Watching this crazy, ta-terrific display was a better workout than all of the last year's half-hearted gym sessions combined. Needing a change in orientation to catch his breath, Dave slowly rose from the floor and stretched his shaky arms. As he did so, the captains approached reconvened nearby,
"Good work, spudsy! Looks like I came just in the nick of time and, of course, saved the day again."
"Saved the day? You took out like one guy."
"Yeah, but it was THE guy. You clearly would have been lost without meee--yello there, beautiful."
Captain Hammer caught himself mid-sentence as Linda rose from the floor and began to brush bits of potato off of her skirt (the back of which had the not-so-good captain rather captivated). At hearing his voice, she turned around with a start. She glanced behind her nervously, before settling back on Hammer with a shocked gaze that seemed to say: "Who, me?"
"You are in luck. With these nasty bungers taken care of I've just freed up my evening. Care to join me for a burger?" He leaned closer and brought the back of his hand to his mouth, as if to share some secret. "The hammer is my penis, by the way."
Before Linda's red cheeks and growing scowl could transition into a rejection, Captain Potato sighed and grabbed his compatriot's arm. "As much as I hate to come between a man and his plate of fries, leave the poor girl alone, Hammer. Besides, we've got stuff to do. Come on."
And thus the pair hobbled out, with Hammer mouthing "call me" to Linda and miming his hand into a phone before disappearing into the stairwell. Just as quickly as it had begun, the adventure had ended, and pretty much everyone was left shivering and confused in a sea of utter chaos. There was little activity, with all of the TerraCorps staff still trying to wrap their heads around what had transpired. Dave and Linda were the only two that even bothered standing up.
Shaking his head, he turned to the secretary. "So where does Gerald keep his stash? I need a damn drink."
"Amen," she agreed. She looked over to her boss, now fully unconscious and contentedly sucking his thumb on the floor ahead, then motioned with her head toward his office. "Come on. The sooner we kill these memories, the better."
