"The Return of Jack Slater" - Part Four

Part Four

            “I KNEW IT! I FREAKIN’ KNEW IT! I KNEW I WAS RIGHT ABOUT JACK SLATER! THE GUY’S A TRAITOR!”

            “Yeah, that’s great, Benson,” Rigby flippantly said. “But, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a TARDIS without a pilot!!”

            “And Jack kidnapped Shel,” Mordecai added.

            Benson’s jubilation was cut short from that reminder. “Oh, my gosh! You’re right! We have to go rescue her!”

            “Again, TARDIS without a pilot!” Rigby restated with more vexation.

            “You know, finding out that I’m a werewolf was one thing,” David argued, “but being trapped in whatever this thing I’m in right now with you guys has gotta be the worst part of my day!”

            His disparaging remark enticed an intense shouting contest between him and the Park crew. It only stopped when Elvira yelled from near the control console, “Oh, pipe down! I got this!”

            The boys watched her take reign of the controls, proficiently and successfully bringing them out of the dimensional corridor. It took Benson by complete surprise, prompting him to ask Elvira, “Where did you learn how to fly a TARDIS?”

            Mordecai already had it figured out. “Wait a sec. You’ve traveled with Shel…erm, I mean, you’ve traveled with Neas before, haven’t you?”

            Elvira snorted out a laugh. “Don’t be silly. I am Neas.”

            The jaws of Benson, Rigby, and Mordecai dropped.

            “No…way,” Rigby uttered in his state of shock.

            “Yes way, Rigby,” Elvira reiterated, a huge smile on her pale, makeup-heavy face. “It’s really me, fellas.”

            “But which one are you?” Mordecai inquired.

            “Oh, honey, never ask a girl her age,” Elvira coyly remarked.

            “This doesn’t make sense,” a baffled Benson said. “You’re a TV hostess!”

            “Across multiple dimensions,” Elvira elucidated. “It’s a side gig I took up after I retired from saving the multiverse.”

            “So, that other TARDIS we found back in the TV studio…?” Mordecai queried.

            “It’s mine,” Elvira shamefully confessed. “It’s been burnt out for quite a long time, which was why I’d taken up being the horror hostess for ‘Elvira’s Movie Macabre’.” She briefly struck a pose that was signature to her program in front of them. “Unfortunately, I was stuck in the worst dimension to air it in. The ratings there were terrible! Luckily, I found a way to broadcast it across the infinite D.C., more as a call for help than for entertainment purposes.”

            “And that’s when Shel stepped in,” Benson stated.

            “Exactly,” Elvira corroborated. “The second you guys showed up, I figured my butt had been saved. That lil’ Disney Princess regeneration of me was at a time in my lives when I was clever enough to solve all the problems of the multiverse.”

            “You mean you’re no longer as clever as you used to be?” Rigby inferred.

            “I still know stuff…just not a lot of stuff,” Elvira desolately said.

            “I guess years of retirement can dull even a Time Lord brain,” Benson observed, which didn’t quell Elvira’s dismay very much. “But I still have faith that you can help save Shel and, by extension, yourself.”

            “That I can do,” Elvira avowed with pride. “And I’ll do it with all your help.”

            As she turned back to the TARDIS controls and used the computer to detect Shel’s Time Lord signature within the multiverse, an extremely perplexed David scratched his head and muttered, “I still have no idea what’s going on.”

            Mordecai didn’t envy the poor guy. “Welcome to our world, dude.”

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            Shel snapped awake, unable to recall how she even lost consciousness in the first place. Then she saw Jack standing in front of her and was suddenly reminded of what happened. They were in the TARDIS console room. She was feeling guilty over how she reacted to Benson nearly getting Jack and everyone back in the TV studio killed. When she took one look at Slater, he blinded her with some sort of flashing device and everything went dark afterwards.

            They were no longer in her TARDIS but a musty janitor closet. It still wasn’t enough for Shel to go on, which was why she asked Jack, “Where are we? Are we back in the TV studio?”

            “No,” Jack robotically answered, sounding even more like the Terminator character he resembled. It made Shel wonder, for a fleeting second, if Benson was right about Jack possibly being one all along.

            She attempted to get up from the sitting position she awoke in, only to be jerked back down. As she suddenly realized, she had been handcuffed to a steel shelf. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out who put her in that situation. “Jack, why am I handcuffed?!”

            Slater barely looked her way as he cleaned his gun. “The other TARDIS is here in this building. It showed up shortly before we did. And I’m gonna destroy it with this.” He pulled a gold, spherical object out of his pocket that looked a lot like a data orb to Shel. A closer examination verified that it was, once she noticed the Gallifreyan hieroglyphics etched on the golden casing.

            “Who gave you that?” she asked him.

            “The USF did.”

            “How did they get access to Time Lord technology?”

            Slater didn’t answer her question. Instead, he pocketed the data orb and told her (again in that Terminator-like tone), “I have orders to turn you in to the USF, Shel. You are the dimension-hopper I was assigned to hunt down.”

            “What?!” the dumbfounded Shel exclaimed. “Why do they want me?!”

            “Your activity in the infinite D.C.,” Jack explained. “It’s what led to the rifts between worlds. That unstable TARDIS we found in the studio is evidence of it.”

            “That isn’t my TARDIS, Jack! It’s one that was left there by another regeneration of me who’s still out there somewhere!”

            “I have to look at the facts here, Shel.”

            “Jack, please!” Shel tearfully pleaded. “You know how you’re always saying ‘Big mistake’? Well, you’re making the biggest mistake ever right now! Reconsider what you’re doing and be the hero that I know you are!”

            Jack was morally conflicted. Shel had always been one of his greatest friends. It hurt him seeing what he was doing to her. And yet, he could not ignore his duty as a multiverse agent of the USF. “I’m sorry, Shel,” he lamented.

            He walked out of the storage closet, leaving behind the heartbroken Shel.

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            Shel’s TARDIS materialized into the dimension that it ascertained to be where Shel was. The ship appeared amidst a busy area in front of a Manhattan high-rise, right beside the unusual monument of a corporation logo. It caught the eye of many but no more so than when Elvira stepped out with Mordecai, Rigby, Benson, and David. As expected, most of the bystanders recognized her, but there was no time to give autographs (well, maybe a few).

            The Mistress of the Dark and her companions rushed into the building, which was apparently owned by someone named “Clamp” from the sign below the corporation monument outside. A tour was in progress upon their entrance, and the tour guide was one who Elvira seemed to have recognized.

            “Kate?!” she uttered, her pale blue eyes enlarged as she looked across the lobby towards the young brunette tour guide wearing a bizarre (and probably mandatory) hat.

            “Who’s she?” Mordecai asked.

            “Remember my friends from Kingston Falls – that little town where I first met Gizmo?” Elvira recalled to the blue jay. She gestured to the tour guide and said, “That’s Kate Beringer, Billy’s girlfriend.” It then dawned on Elvira which dimension they were in. “We’re back in Gizmo’s world!”

            “Well, that’s good news,” Benson happily said. “I’m sure Gizmo would be happy to know we’re back in his home. Lemme go and get the lil’ fella.”

            He was about to head back out to the TARDIS until Elvira restrained him.

            “We don’t have time,” she told him in the most urgent manner. “Shel’s not the only one here. According to the TARDIS computer, the other Type-Z’s here, too. And I’m gonna need you guys to find it, while I look for Shel.”

            “How are we supposed to find the other TARDIS in this building?!” Rigby griped. “Did you see how big this place is from outside?!”

            “Kate’s tour,” Elvira replied, again gesturing towards Beringer and the guests she guided through the lobby. “Just act like the tourists you already are and, when you get to a spot you think the other Type-Z is, say ya gotta take a leak or somethin’ and scout the area.”

            It was a horrible plan, but it was the only one they got at the moment.

            While Mordecai, Rigby, Benson, and David joined up with Kate’s tour group, Elvira used her celebrity status to get up through the floors of the Clamp building. She even asked those who approached her for a picture and an autograph if they had seen a young blonde who looked like a storybook princess (the best description of Shel she could come up with).

            “I don’t believe it,” she heard an old voice say, turning her head and receiving a bit of a surprise when she saw a man who looked like Grandpa Munster walking her way. “As I live and breathe! If it isn’t the Mistress of the Dark herself here in Clamp Tower!”

            Elvira feigned being flattered as she shook the gentleman’s hand. “Yes, and you might be…?”

            The elderly Dracula man didn’t hide his dissatisfaction at her failure to recognize him; nonetheless, he was humbled enough to introduce himself. “Folks ‘round here call me ‘Grandpa Fred’. I host my own macabre show right here in Clamp Tower, though my audience isn’t as broad as yours.”

            “Well, if there’s anyone who knows about broad things…” Elvira seductively adjusted her sizable bosom to highlight her point.

            The playful demeanor she put on for Fred dropped once she noticed the young handsome man in a modest suit and tie who accompanied the old Dracula. “Oh, where are my manners?” Fred said as he himself remembered the young man standing beside him. “Miss Elvira, this is my friend…”

            “Billy Peltzer,” Elvira spontaneously blurted out. For her, it had been several lifetimes since she crossed paths with Billy. He was just a teenager then, left with the heavy responsibility of an adorable yet complicated Mogwai. Look at him now, Elvira thought while frozen in the moment. All grown up and working in an office building.

            “Y-You know my name?” an awestruck Billy stammered.

            Elvira mentally slapped herself. Of course he doesn’t recognize you, stupid! The last time he saw you, ya didn’t have the beehive hair and the boobs weren’t as huge as they are now!

            “I try to make it a habit to know my fans’ names,” she covered.

            Billy was overwhelmed. “Oh, wow! I’m honored…especially since we’ve never met in person before!”

            “Billy and I were just talking about this research lab they’ve got upstairs – genetic research,” Fred told Elvira. “They’ve been foolin’ around with animals and whatnot. Maybe even strange creatures from other planets.”

            Though Fred was speaking hyperbolically, he inadvertently motivated Elvira to go further up the tower and investigate the research lab. Billy tagged along, not only to hang out with the Elvira but also to get away from his boring desk job. When they arrived at the lab (Elvira once again using her celebrity credentials to get them past the front desk), they happened on various odd experiments conducted by a science team led by a rather menacing looking man with dark bushy eyebrows and slicked back salt-and-pepper hair.

            “Saruman?!” Elvira assumed him to be. “How did he get all the way here?!”

            “No, that’s Dr. Cushing Catheter,” Billy told her. “I see him every now and then on the lower floors.”

            “That makes more sense,” Elvira said. Her eyes darted over the entire lab, finding not a single trace of Shel. “Ugh! She’s not here.”

            “Your friend?”

            “Yeah. C’mon, Billy. Let’s…”

            She paused just as she and Billy heard a familiar tune being chirped from one of the nearest cages in the lab covered by a sheet. “Is that…?” Billy began to ask with hopeful elation, rushing over to the cage and partially lifting the sheet.

            Staring back at them with big precious eyes was a very grateful Mogwai.

            “Gizmo!” Both Billy and Elvira cheered.

            “Wait. How do you know Gizmo?” Billy asked Elvira.

            She couldn’t believe that she goofed again. “Well, I…uh…”

            “You two are not supposed to be here,” an eerily calm voice spoke from behind them. Elvira and Billy turned to face the laboratory employee that caught them. Elvira couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw it to be Shel – or a version of her that looked as drearily as Elvira herself.