"The Return of Jack Slater" - Part One

Part One

            “RIGBY!!”

            “Hey, you can’t fire me, if we’re not in our dimension, Benson!”

            “I think that’s the least of our concerns!”

            Shel had just met Mordecai, Rigby, and Benson – three characters from a place not-so-subtly called “The Park” that she saved from a Terminator controlled by Cybermen. Even before then, they seemed to have known her already. The name of this new body she inherited via regeneration, “Shel,” was one that she adopted only because it was what Mordecai, Rigby, and Benson referred it by.

            And now, due to the carelessness of the raccoon named Rigby, the four of them were uncontrollably careening down the infinite dimensional corridor. The takeoff was unanticipated, and because so, Shel and her new companions were juggled all around the console room like dice in a cup.

            Shel managed to end the painful experience by clasping the railing that bordered the console platform and propelling herself towards the control console itself. She then grabbed the stabilization lever. Utilizing the literal gravity of her situation, she yanked the lever as she was tossed over the control console.

            In the heartbeat of a second, the entire console room stilled, leaving Shel and the boys thudding to the floor.

            “Well, that hurt!” Rigby griped, right before Mordecai added insult to injury by punching him in the arm. “Ow! That hurt even worst!”

            “This is all your fault, dude!” Mordecai condemned his best friend.

            “How was I supposed to know what any of these buttons and doodads are supposed to do?!” Rigby argued.

            As the two bickered, Shel used the controls to dematerialize her TARDIS out of the infinite dimensional corridor. Seeing her do so, Benson asked her, “Are we still in our dimension?”

            Shel shrugged. “I have no idea. I didn’t enter any specific coordinates before we took off. We could be anywhere.” She proceeded to press a button that activated the scanner – the large viewscreen embedded in the wall across from the console platform. On the scanner, they saw a spooky forest and a yellow brick road that trailed through it.

            “That doesn’t look like the Park,” Rigby noted. “I don’t remember a yellow brick road being in it.”

            “Yellow brick road?” Shel uttered with familiarity. “I know where we are!”

            Benson detected the surprise in her tone. “Where are we, Shel?”

            “We’re in the realm of Oz!”

            “As in The Wizard of Oz? Like that movie?” Mordecai questioned.

            “That’s the one,” Shel confirmed.

            Rigby scoffed at the very idea. “That can’t be right. Since when can your TARDIS take us into movies?”

            “It’s been doing that the whole time, Rigby,” Shel said. “There are a few worlds I’ve been to within the infinite D.C. that I’ve seen in movies. Of course, some of them aren’t quite as flashy as Hollywood makes them out to be.”

            From the scanner, they suddenly saw Dorothy Gale, Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and Toto merrily trekking down the yellow brick road until their pacing slowed upon realizing the dark, scary woods they had come across. Shel, Mordecai, Rigby, and Benson knew these very woods to be where the characters first encountered the Cowardly Lion, enlisting him in their goal to obtain their desires from the Wizard himself.

            At least that was what was supposed to happen.

            From where the Cowardly Lion emerged in the dark, scary woods, there instead emerged a 7-foot-tall black alien creature with a long, muscular tail and a large, curved, oblong head.

            The sight of it horrified Benson. “What is that thing?!”

            Shel couldn’t believe her own eyes. “That’s a Xenomorph! But I don’t remember any one of them being in The Wizard of Oz!”

            Immediately, she rushed out of her TARDIS with Benson, Mordecai, and Rigby. They had to stop the Xenomorph alien from harming such innocent characters like Dorothy and her friends.

            Before they could reach them, however…

            BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

            Four powerful gunshots brought the Xenomorph down, one of them cracking open its oblong head. Its acid blood sprayed everywhere, eating away at grass and trees. Thankfully, no one was near it at the time.

            Shel doubted the shots came from Dorothy, Scarecrow, or the Tin Man.

            But when she looked their way, she was once again spellbound to see another foreign character in the realm of Oz: a tall, muscular man with a chiseled jaw wearing a brown leather jacket, snakeskin boots, and jeans kept up by a belt with a large, heavy buckle. In one hand, he brandished the smoking silver desert eagle that brought down the Xenomorph; in the other was what appeared to be a glowing movie ticket.

            To Mordecai, Benson, and Rigby, this man’s features were discernably similar to the Terminator models from their recent excursion.

            “Were we just saved by a good Terminator or a bad Terminator?” Rigby asked.

            “Neither,” said Shel, who apparently knew the stranger, judging from the smile on her face. “Guys, meet Jack Slater.”

            Holstering his desert eagle as he approached Shel and her companions, the man known as “Jack Slater” took out a cigar and lighter from his jacket. “Terminator, huh?” He even spoke with a noticeable Austrian accent that was nowhere near as lifeless as the Terminators Benson, Mordecai, and Rigby had seen. “Another Schwarzenheimer movie reference?”

            “That’s Schwarzenegger, Jack,” Shel corrected. “And what’re you doing in Oz?”

            “Shel, what’re you doing?!” Benson exclaimed. “Get away from this guy!”

            “Benson, it’s O.K.,” Shel reassured. “He’s not a Terminator, I promise you.”

            “Could a Terminator smoke a fine Cuban cigar like this?” Slater asked in between puffs. “I’ve been investigating anomalies across the infinite D.C., including that ugly I just gunned down a second ago, under the orders of the USF.”

            Slater flashed a badge to Shel. She expected it to be his LAPD badge. Instead, it was for an organization called “The Universal Security Forces.” Its insignia was that of a Spartan shield; Shel could not begin to comprehend the meaning behind it.

            “They recruited you?” Shel queried.

            “Yeah,” Jack replied. “One day, they came out of nowhere, find out about me being a dimension-hopper, and enlist me to track down another that’s been out there letting loose the anomalies.”

            Shel glanced at the glowing movie ticket in Slater’s hand. “I see you’re getting a lot of use out of that ticket Danny gave you. I take it you’ve been using it to find this rogue dimension-hopper?”

            “You bet I have,” Slater told her. “But it’s starting to look like I’ve exhausted the thing.”

            “Good thing you ran into me then,” Shel said with a smile.

            “That’s what I like about you,” Slater said. “I never have to ask you for help, ‘cause you already know that I need it.”

            Shel snickered. “Ain’t that the truth. C’mon. We’ll talk more in the TARDIS.”

            While Shel led Slater into her ship, Benson momentarily remained outside with Mordecai and Rigby to assign them an important task: “I need you two to keep a close eye on this ‘friend’ of Shel’s. She may claim to know all there is to know about him, but I just got a really bad feeling about him.”

            “Really, Benson?” Rigby said. “Don’t ya think you’re actin’ a bit jealous?”

            “I’M NOT JEALOUS!” Benson roared, involuntarily scaring the already-terrified Dorothy Gale and her friends out of the woods. “Just do what I say and do whatever’s necessary to stop this Slater guy when he shows his true colors or I swear that I’ll fire the both of you!”

            There was a more serious implication behind his usual threat of their termination.

            Benson’s feelings for Shel truly did outweigh his better judgment.