Part Five
Kate’s tour of the Clamp Tower was filled with many facts
about the building, none of which Benson, Mordecai, Rigby, or David found
useful in their search for the other Type-Z TARDIS. That was until she brought
everyone to the Clamp Tower food court and Mordecai and Rigby recognized one
specific restaurant there…
“They have a Grill ‘Em Up here?!” Mordecai bellowed in shock.
“Dude, they have a Grill ‘Em Up!” Rigby corresponded.
“Yes, Clamp Tower does have a Grill ‘Em Up, as well as a
Taco Bell and a Burger King,” Kate said, not missing a beat in her tour
guidance. “You’re welcome to visit any
of these popular food chains, as soon as we have finished our—”
“Are they selling the Ulti-Meatum?!” Mordecai
interrupted.
Benson face-palmed in annoyance while Kate told Mordecai,
“You mean the Best Burger in the World? Yes, they are. As a matter of fact, the
Ulti-Meatum is Grill ‘Em Up’s signature burger on their menu. It’s served every
single day.” Those last few words she said echoed in slow-motion to the ears of
Mordecai and Rigby. Their mouths watered at the very prospect.
Kate led the tour group away from the food court, yet
Mordecai and Rigby remained where they were, prompting Benson and David to stay
behind with them. Knowing exactly what the blue jay and raccoon had in mind as
they stared mindlessly at the Grill ‘Em Up restaurant, Benson sternly told
them, “Don’t even think about it!”
“No way, Benson!” Rigby barked. “You owe us this!”
“Yeah, especially after what you pulled last year!” Mordecai added.
“What did he do?” David questioned.
“IT’S NOT IMPORTANT!!” Benson roared.
“He ate our Ulti-Meatums right in our faces,” Rigby told
David. “And that’s not even the worst part – in our dimension, they only sell
those burgers once every hundred years!”
David cringed, glaring at Benson. “Wow. What a jerk move,
man.”
“I did it to teach them a lesson,” Benson defended. “They
wouldn’t finish the work I gave them!”
“Well, I’ll tell ya what we are gonna finish: those Ulti-Meatums,” Mordecai declared. “C’mon,
Rigby. Let’s go order ‘em.”
“No, you don’t!” Benson demanded. “You two are gonna help
us find that other TARDIS or you’re fired!” His threat fell on deaf ears, as
Mordecai and Rigby were already ordering their burgers at the counter.
The fuming park manager was about to take action against
the disobedient duo until David grabbed his arm and said, “Benton, look!”
“My name’s Benson,”
he grumbled, turning to David to see him looking far off from the food court
and towards a janitor’s closet, out of which stepped a tall, intimidating man
wearing a brown leather jacket and snakeskin boots. “Slater!” Benson identified
the individual. “He’s here!”
They watched Jack walk off, holstering his massive gun
into his jacket. Benson’s focus then returned to the door to the janitor’s
closet afterwards.
“That’s gotta be where he’s keeping Shel,” he deduced.
Without a second thought, Benson and David rushed over to
the janitor’s closet that Slater foolishly kept unlocked. Sure enough, they
found a teary-eyed Shel sitting on the floor, handcuffed to a steel shelf. The
second she saw Benson and David, her despair was replaced with euphoria.
“Benson,” she cheered. “You found me!”
It overjoyed Benson to see how happy she was to see him
and even acknowledged only him, in spite of David being there at his side.
Benson went to her aid right away, analyzing the cuffs. “How do we get these
off you?” he asked her. “Slater’s got the key.”
“Yeah, but he forgot to confiscate my sonic,” Shel said.
“It’s in my satchel on the shelf. All you have to do is point it at the cuffs
and press the button.”
Benson saw Shel’s satchel exactly where she said it to
be. He took her sonic from out of it and unlocked the handcuffs. Shel was
relieved to have been freed, but that relief didn’t last long as she faced
Benson for the first time since her abduction in her TARDIS. “Benson, I owe you
a huge apology. Your instincts about
Jack were on the nose.”
“It’s alright, Shel,” Benson accepted. “But why the heck
did he bring you here to Gizmo’s dimension?”
“We’re in Gizmo’s world?! That’d explain the sense of
familiarity I got just sitting in this room,” the astonished Shel reacted. “As
far as why Jack brought me here, he claims that the other TARDIS is somewhere
in this building, and he blames me
for all those anomalies.”
“Unfortunately, he’s right – not about you being
responsible, of course,” Benson confirmed. “Elvira used your TARDIS to locate
the other one and bring us here to it.”
Shel rapidly blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry. Did you
say Elvira used my TARDIS?! What does
that woman even know about TARDISes?!?!”
Benson timidly rubbed the back of his glass dome. “Well,
uh, that’s the other thing I was
going to tell you…turns out that Elvira is a future regeneration of you.”
Shel’s body stiffened. “What?!”
There was no time for her to process this shocking news,
as the entire foundation of the Clamp Tower suddenly quaked. Shel, Benson, and
David ran out of the janitor’s closet to the panicked screams of several
occupants that scurried for the nearest exit – all except for Mordecai and Rigby,
who stood frozen near one of the food court tables, their Ulti-Meatums hardly
consumed.
“What did you two do?” Benson was quick to place blame on
his slacker employees, until he noticed them looking out of the window adjacent
to the food court.
Outside, climbing up the side of the high-rise, was a
giant gorilla.
“Is that…King Kong?!” David exclaimed.
“Yep,” Shel answered rather calmly,
despite being just as traumatized as David, Benson, Mordecai, and Rigby.
“Another result of the anomaly caused by the other TARDIS…and it’s getting
worse.”
---------------
Dr. Catheter and his science
team evacuated the laboratory as soon as the incredible tremor reverberated to
the upper portion of the building. The only ones that remained were Elvira,
Billy, Gizmo, and the strange Shel lookalike they encountered.
“What’s happening?” Billy asked of the circumstances that
had befallen the tower.
“It would appear another anomaly has manifested,” the
Shel lookalike stated, her tone eerily serene.
“Alright, honey, how ‘bout some answers,” Elvira told
her. “First of all, who in the Sam Hill are you?”
“I am Logos,” the young woman said. “I am a traveler like
you, Miss Elvira. And I am not supposed to be in this dimension…also like you.”
Her assertion of Elvira confused Billy. “What are you
talking about?”
“She didn’t tell you?” Logos amusingly inquired to Billy.
“Miss Elvira is another version of your friend, Candace – the woman with the
strange, flat spaceship that’s bigger on the inside? The woman you entrusted
Gizmo to?”
Hearing this, Billy gazed on Elvira with newfound
interest. “Candace?” As he uttered the name, he heard Gizmo chirping cheerfully
in his arms while reaching his tiny, furry arms towards Elvira. The Mogwai’s
little gesture was enough to convince Billy that what Logos claimed was in fact
the truth.
Regrettably, Billy did not have a moment to converse with
Elvira on the topic, with another tremor coming over Clamp Tower.
“We must purge this anomaly from this world or it will
rip all existence within apart,” Logos urgently said. “The only way we can is
by fixing your malfunctioning TARDIS, Miss Elvira.”
“Would ya stop calling me ‘Miss Elvira’! You’re makin’ me
sound older than I look!” Elvira objected. “I’ve got my best men lookin’ for my
TARDIS right now.”
“You mean the werewolf, the two slackers, and the
lovesick gumball machine?” Logos branded. “I am afraid they were too
preoccupied with eating burgers and finding your past incarnation in a
janitor’s closet.”
“They found Shel?!” Elvira yelled. “Is she alright? I
mean, she’s gotta be, since I’m still
here!”
“None of us will be for much longer, if we do not fix
your TARDIS,” Logos said.
“Alright, alright,” Elvira conceded. “But it’s not like
we can just find it in this big, ridiculous building. It’s like findin’ a needle
in a haystack.”
“Fortunate for us I can see through the haystack,” Logos
proclaimed. “I know where your TARDIS is. Follow me.”
Elvira and Billy did as she said and followed her out of
the lab. As they departed, Elvira once again prodded Logos for information,
asking her, “Why do you look so much like Shel?”
“If we survive this, I just might
tell you,” Logos ensured.
----------------
Kicking down the door
entrance, Jack arrived in the Clamp Tower control room to find that the staff
had entirely abandoned the area. The new anomaly that materialized outside the
building’s infrastructure needed to be stopped before any lives were lost, and
Jack knew of only one way to do it: he had to destroy the other Type-Z TARDIS.
He was grateful for how keen his instincts were about it
being there in the control room, standing right at the center and emitting a
green mist that was undoubtedly leaked nuage energy. Lucky for Slater, his bio
signature was caked with the stuff, so he could interact with the Gallifreyan
ship without the risk of side effects.
Just as he was about carry on with his mission, clutching
the USF’s data orb in hand…
“JACK! STOP!!”
He didn’t want to believe it was Shel’s voice that he
heard when he turned around to see who it was that stopped him. To his surprise,
it was actually Shel, standing at the doorway and pointing her trans-temporal
sonic screwdriver towards him (he wanted to punch himself for forgetting to
confiscate it from her).
She wasn’t alone. Benson, Mordecai, Rigby, and David had
arrived there with her. Slater didn’t know how they managed to get to that
dimension, and he consciously decided not to ponder over it any longer than
necessary.
“Don’t go through with this, Jack,” Shel pleaded.
“Destroying that other Type-Z will create an even bigger rift all across the
multiverse, tearing countless worlds apart.”
“The Gladiator speaks the truth.”
Shel touched her peach-blossomed lips from the sound of
her own voice vouching for her own credibility, realizing it wasn’t her that
said it. It was then she noticed a grimly-dressed figure step forward from her
left, facing Jack. The figure was a young woman that bore a striking
resemblance to Shel, albeit while looking like Wednesday Addams.
Benson, David, Mordecai, and Rigby noticed her as well
and were just as surprised. “What the heck?!” Benson shouted. “Another Shel?!”
“Um, not quite,” they heard Elvira say, as she stepped in
with Billy Peltzer and Gizmo. “It’s a long story. Wait. What am I saying? I
don’t even know what the story is
behind this chick!”
Slater looked upon Shel’s doppelganger with just as much
bewilderment. It had then dawned on him, “You’re the one the USF sent me for.”
In comprehending his mistake, he briefly gave Shel an apologetic gaze.
Logos verified his suspicions with a firm nod. “And I
will willingly turn myself in, Officer Slater, as soon as I have fixed that
TARDIS you’re so adamant to destroy.”
Jack, however, didn’t comply so easily. He pulled out his
gun from his jacket and aimed it at Logos. “I don’t think so,” he resolutely
forbade. “I know who you are. I’ve seen your rap sheet. You’re a threat to the
whole multiverse.”
“This lil’ thing’s that much of a threat?!” a puzzled
Elvira said.
“Who is she?”
Mordecai asked Jack, who appeared to be the only other one to know.
“She works for the Twilight Phantom,” Slater replied.
“I am the
Twilight Phantom,” Logos underscored, “but not the one you should be concerned
about, Officer Slater. I will make the logical choice and save this world. I
only require that data orb…and your trust.”
Yet another quake and the roar of
the giant gorilla mounted on the high-rise convinced Jack that he had no other
choice in the matter. He gave the USF data orb to Logos, permitting her entry
inside Elvira’s TARDIS. Once inside, she reversed the polarity that brought
Kong to Gizmo’s world, erasing the titan from the foundation of the Clamp
Tower.
----------------
Logos kept her end of the
bargain. She voluntarily gave herself up to Jack, who slapped the cuffs on her
right at the moment she stepped out of Elvira’s now-operational TARDIS.
Mordecai was a bit disconcerted with the arrangement. “Do
you really have to take her in, Jack? She saved the world, if not the whole
multiverse!”
“I must answer for the crimes of my past,” Logos told
Mordecai, “although I hope that my past self does not catch onto this… or else the consequences will be dire for everyone.”
“Your past self,” Shel pondered over the phrase. “You’re
a Time Lord? Another one of me?”
Logos shook her head. “No, I am not of your timeline but
of one very much like it.” She then forlornly warned Shel, “Watch the shadows,
Gladiator.”
“Time to go,” Jack told her, tugging on her cuffs to pull
her in closer to him. With his magic movie ticket, he activated the portal out
of Gizmo’s world. Prior to stepping through it, he waved farewell to Shel and
her companions, who returned the gesture.
Shortly after Slater departed with Logos, Shel articulated
her disbelief and astonishment of the day’s events, particularly the idea of
Elvira being a future Neas incarnation. “I’m not sure whether to be terrified
or amused that I’m one day gonna be you,”
she stated.
Elvira tried not to be too offended. “Either way, ya
ain’t gonna remember us ever meetin’, as soon as I’m back in the infinite D.C.”
She turned to David afterwards and said, “You still stickin’ with me, sweet
thang?”
“Like I have any other choice?” David lamented. “I can’t
ever return home in my…condition. I’m surprised you even want to take me in, Elvira.”
“Oh, you ain’t the first wolf I ever had to deal with,”
she scoffed.
“Are you taking Gizmo back, too?” Billy asked her.
Elvira saw the Mogwai, cradled in Billy’s arms, still
reaching out for her with his tiny hands like a baby reaching for its mother.
It broke both her hearts to see how much Gizmo wanted to be back with her,
after so many years apart since the day she returned him to the late Mr. Wing.
“No,” she choked on the word, tears
running down her face and ruining her heavy mascara. “You take care of him now,
Billy. I know he loves you just as much as you love him…as much as I love him.” She leaned in over Gizmo to
give one last kiss to her lifelong companion. “I’m gonna miss you, lil’ buddy.”
--------------
Just as predicted, Shel had
forgotten all about Elvira once she and David dematerialized away in the other
Type-Z TARDIS. “We should be going,” she told Benson, Mordecai, and Rigby. “Now
that Jack and the USF have found their rogue dimension-hopper and the threat to
the infinite D.C. has been averted.”
“We’re not leavin’ until me and Mordecai have finally
eaten an Ulti-Meatum,” Rigby contended, much to the aggravation of Benson.
“Ulti-Meatum?” Shel reflected. “Oh, man. I remember
eating those in a few dimensions during my last body. Of course, I could pack
‘em in way better, being as big as I
was. What’s taken you guys so long to eat one?”
“This guy,”
Rigby pointed directly at Benson. “He ate ours right in our faces!”
Shel gave Benson a scolding look, “Oh, no, he didn’t!”
“Oh, yes, he did!” Mordecai and Rigby condemned their
boss.
Benson
shamefully palmed his face, once again looking like a complete jerk in the eyes
of his friends, specifically Shel. “Oh, boy.”
NEXT WEEK!
