40) --- Pest Control --------------------------------------------------

	"What the hell we fighting for?
	 Just surrender and it won't hurt at all 
	 You just got time to say your prayers
	 While you're waiting for the Hammer to Fall."
			-- Queen

    "Well, I guess that's that," Trevor said as the Terrapin Corps
surveyed the carnage they had wrought.  Nothing was left of the Sable
Air Force except for about three planes that had decided that fleeing
was the better part of valor.  The rest were laying about as crashed
wrecks or as metal confetti.  Three or four only existed as small piles
of subatomic particles.  "Now all we've got to do is pay the bill, 
which I am _not_ about to do!"  Philip attempted to respond, but a 
voice from above cut him off.
    "WRONG, CHUMPS!  You have to deal with ME!" The little group looked
up towards the sound.
    "Who, or what, was _that_?" Trevor queried, pulling the Suburban
around to search the sky.
    "I don't know," Aeri answered, but Philip cut them off as he locked
his sensors on the rapidly approaching object.
    "Wait, gang, _Look_," he pointed.  "Up in the sky."
    "It's a bird," Aerianne stated, basing her judgement on its size.
    "No, it's a plane," Rufus replied, thinking it too fast for a bird.
    "No, it's -- " Philip tried to announce, but he was cut off as the 
others finally saw what he was seeing.
    He came out of the sky, floating like the last autumn leaf,
heralded by the the wind's harshest cry, trailed by a red rippling 
cloak that snapped and whipped on the gusts like an unfurled flag.  He
landed, touching the earth lightly.
    A graceful sight.  
    At least it would have been, if only he wasn't so GROSS!
    "EWWW!" the group chorused.
    "Hi, I'm SUPERLIZARD!"
    Trevor, in an uncharacteristically religious moment, whispered 
"Jesus Christ!"
    "Oh," he boomed back.  "You know my full name: Jesus Christ 
SuperLizard.  Have we met?"
    To himself, Trevor recited the pertinent lines from Spaceballs.  
"'What's your name?' 'Barf.' 'What's your full name?' 'Barf-olomew!'"  
This was still looking like it was going to be a long day...

		<<<Bad To The Bone : George Thorogood>>>

    "SUPERLIZARD?" chorused Gordo, Rufus, and Aerianne.  Philip just 
groaned.
    "You must be kidding..." Trevor murmured.
    "Unfortunately, he _isn't_," Philip replied.
    But the evidence to support Trevor's viewpoint seemed overwhelming.  
After all, this character was only six inches tall.  But, on the other 
hand, he did have the blue spandex (complete with a yellow "L" on his 
chest) and a red cape flowing behind him.

    Gordo flew closer in order to get a closer look at their diminutive
adversary.  "You realize, he doesn't appear so tough..." >SLAM!< Gordo 
hit the ground as SuperLizard reached out, grabbed him, and judo- 
flipped Gordo into the pavement.
    "I'm experiencing pain... I don't like it..." Gordo was musing.
What's the appropriate thing to say, 'Ow'?"
    Trevor considered the situation and, recognizing the passage from 
the Star Trek episode "Deja Q," shrugged and replied, "'Ow'."
    "OW!", he roared as he tried to extract himself from the custom-
made crater.

    Trevor, seeing that Gordo had been fed a full helping of asphalt,
decided that the direct approach was inadvisable.  Instead, he decided 
to use diplomacy.
    Gunboat Diplomacy.
    "Get ready to fire everything on my mark," Trevor said as he lined
up the Suburban for a strafing run.  Rufus nodded, and then seconds
later announced, "You've got the guns."
    Trevor said "Good" as he smiled thinly.  And as the lizard came 
into his targeting reticle, he fired.

    SuperLizard looked up as the Suburban opened up with everything it
had.  He looked surprised for a moment, but then yawned as his neck 
frill spread open to full size, nicely deflecting the bullets that were 
flying at him.  The majority of them just pinged off his frill or his 
body, while the others just plain missed.  As for the missiles?  
SuperLizard stood his ground as they homed in on him and detonated.
    
    "YES!" Trevor exclaimed as he pumped his fist in the air.  "Scratch
one Lizard!"  He watched expectantly as the smoke cleared.
    The Lizard was unaffected.  In fact, it seemed mildly ticked, as it
took to the air towards the Suburban.
    "Uh...right.  This is _bad_..." Trevor blanched as he approached.
Rufus looked confused for a moment, and then gasped in pain as the 
lizard ripped off two of the Suburban's wheels.  The same ones that 
were keeping the Suburban aloft.
    The Suburban began to lose altitude, and fast.

    At the same time, Zoner and company had been watching the battle
from the (relative) safety of the Wedge.  Strangely (or not so 
strangely), the Wedge hadn't been hit by _anything_ major through the
entire battle, and those assembled were taking the full advantage of
the fact.
   They watched as the girl in the power armor aimed her arm cannon at
the reptile.  There was a flash of azure-white light, and everyone
flinched.  When they looked back (where there _should_ have been a
small crater), they saw the Lizard still there, smiling.

   "You know, you could hurt someone with that," Jesus Superlizard 
said as he grabbed Aerianne by her gun arm and flung her over his 
shoulder.  Her cannon was ripped from her arm, along with some of the 
CVR, as she crashed into a dumpster.  Aeri shakily pulled herself out 
of the dumpster, and silently admitted to herself that she might be 
out of her league.

    "Jesus H!"  Philip exclaimed as Aerianne crashed.
    "Yes?" said the Lizard as he turned.
    "Ok, bub," Philip said, accelerating towards the lizard.  "Payback
tiiiiiiiiiiiiime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Philip's battle cry turned into 
a choked scream, as the superpowered lizard grabbed Philip by the 
armored ankles, and began to spin him around.

    Trevor struggled to maintain control of the Suburban (and failed)
as the flying juggernaut lost altitude and control.
    "Brace for impact!" Rufus exclaimed as the Suburban plummeted
towards a group of small buildings near the Wedge.
    The Suburban impacted, hard; and then scraped forward for several
yards before coming to a stop just bare inches from hitting a bright-
red Dodge Daytona that was parked near one of the buildings. [Boingy,
boingy, boingy, boingy... -Eds.]
    "Damn, that was close," Trevor said as he pulled himself out of
the wrecked Suburban and made his way towards the Wedge.  Rufus shakily
unplugged himself from the Suburban's dash, and joined him.
    "Now what?" Rufus asked.  Trevor was about to answer, but was cut
off as a scream cut across their earphones, as Philip's armored form
flew over the campus, and towards the eastern horizon.
    "oh my god...." Rufus gasped.

41) --- Call the Orkin Woman ------------------------------------------

  "To defend/This is the Pact/But when life's scorned/And damage done 	
   To avenge/This is the Pact"
    			-- Blue Oyster Cult, "Vengeance (The Pact)"
	
    "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!" yelled Aerianne as the lizard flung
Philip away from the battle.  "philip...." she trailed off as he flew
out of sight.  She looked at the lizard, who was laughing up a storm.
    "HA!  You guys couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag!"
Superlizard mocked them.  "Even _that_ geek was a wimp!" And the lizard
doubled over with laughter at his own joke.  Aerianne, seeing this 
little reptile acting so boastful and tough, felt a change come over 
her.  Her sudden despair slowly turned to solid anger.  She began to 
check her systems for battle.  As she did so, Trevor come over out of 
concern for her sudden silence.
    "Aeri, what are you doing?" asked Trevor as she made the last 
check.  Everything was ready.
    "It's time to squish a pest," she said with bitter resolve.  She 
pressed a button on her CVR, setting off minor explosive charges which
shed the armor without harming her, and revealing a very familiar 
battlesuit underneath.  With a scream of rage, she activated her 
thrusters and accelerated towards the SuperLizard.  Trevor was
surprised, to say the least, since he had never _seen_ the Akagiyama-23
armor, but Aerianne was beyond caring.
    That lizard was going to _pay_.
    
		      <<<Headlong : Queen>>>
		    
    The lizard, still gloating, hadn't heard the quick exchange between 
Trevor and Aerianne, nor the explosive bolts going off.  What did catch 
his attention was the sudden thruster fire and the battle cry from 
Aerianne.  He turned, and saw her coming straight at him, fist pulled 
back for a punch.
    <Pitiful,> he thought right before she hit him, expecting her to 
pulp her hand on impact and fall back in pain.  Instead, much to 
Superlizard's surprise, the punch impacted hard and sent him flying 
backwards.  "WHAT?!?!" he yelled as flew through the air through two 
walls before being stopped by a third.  <This isn't POSSIBLE!!> he 
thought as he pulled himself out of the wall.  He flew towards 
Aerianne, a snarl on his face.  "Let's see how tough you _really_ are!" 
he said as he moved to engage.  Aerianne turned to face the challenge.
    Battle was joined.

    SuperLizard's first punch sent Aeri flying across the quad from
whence she came; her jets fired and she dodged as the lizard flew in 
for another punch.  And then the combatants left the confines of the
campus entirely; opting instead to do major property damage to the
surrounding city of Worcester, Massachusetts.
    People watched as a column of smoke, debris, and flying cars 
traveled across the city.
    "Didn't I see this in Project A-Ko once?" Vaughn offhandedly 
commented from the safety of the Wedge.

    Meanwhile, the reason for the Battle Royale, Philip, flew over the
Atlantic ocean in a nice parabolic arc (ax^2+bx+c for those math majors 
in the audience).
    "It might have been a good idea to make this thing sealable," he
said as the suit began to graze the upper atmosphere and lose pressure
and oxygen.  "At least it's heat resistant!" he managed to blurt out
as he began to black out.

    Back in Massachussets, SuperLizard and Aerianne flew across the 
city, each trying to gain some sort of advantage.  They rocketed down 
Main Street into the tunnel, surprising the people who where driving 
within, and they dodged among the cars.  JHC flew under one and threw 
it up into her path; Aerianne had only enough time to raise her left 
arm and yell "AKAGIYAMA MISSILES!" before the car hit.
    The Saab 900 Turbo erupted into a nice little fireball, and she
shot through the flames.

    A whistling in his ear.  That was the first thing that Philip
noticed as he regained consciousness.  Curious as to what it was, he
turned his head, and almost had it sheared off as friction came into
effect.  He struggled to shift his head forwards, and by the time he
had done so, his eyes had opened, and he could see what his external
cameras were seeing.
    --Earth, rushing up towards him--a coastline, a country-- 
mountains, cities, fields--
    Philip desperately kicked in his jets and maneuvering thrusters in
an attempt to stop or slow down.  It did help, but only enough to spin
him around so his rear was facing down when he hit.

    Aerianne and the Lizard flew around each other in the air in some
kind of sick and twisted takeoff on Tom Lehrer's "Masochism Tango," 
each trying to gain some kind of advantage with which to vaporize the 
other.  JHC (as the Terrapin Corps had taken to calling him) had 
actually managed to make some dents in Aeri's armor, and she had 
likewise been able to take a few chunks out of the diminutive lizard's 
greenish-brown hide.  She was currently engaged in dodging his small, 
yet powerful fist.  She launched another volley of mini-missiles from 
her launcher, but the lizard dodged them with ease.
    "Alright," she exclaimed through clenched teeth, "This is getting
boring.  DARK JACOBI METEOR WHIP!" she ordered as she held her right 
hand forward in a fist.  There was a small flash of light from the 
launcher on her wrist as a black cord-like object flew towards JHC.  As 
it continued its flight, it uncoiled to reveal a three-piece bola-type 
contraption.  To the Lizard's surprise, the bola managed to wrap itself
around his left arm and, as it finished coiling itself, the three black 
spheres on the ends of the cords exploded.  Aerianne let out a sigh of 
relief, thinking that the battle was finally over.
    Thinking that, however, until the lizard extracted itself from the
pile of rubble that had buried it.
    "That.  Tickled." he said.
    Aeri's eyes widened, and her shoulders dropped a fraction of an 
inch. "Why me?" 

    Philip awoke slowly.  The first thing he noticed was that he wasn't
dead.  Relieved that he wasn't, he lifted himself up to get a look at 
where he was.  Since his helmet systems had been fried, he took it off 
and let it drop.  He looked around.
    It looked like a manufacturing center, and apparently production
had been temporarily halted with the appearance of their uninvited
guest.  Most of the people just stared as he looked up at the hole in
the roof.  Some of them muttered among themselves in a language he 
didn't understand.
    "Nice hole," he muttered, turning to look at the room again.  Not
understanding what they were for, he looked down to see what he had
landed in.  His eyes widened.
    LEGOs.
    He had landed in a vat of LEGOs.
    "Excuse me!" he said, as he waded his way to the edge of the vat.
"Excuse me? Could you tell me where I am?" The people who he approached
drew back.  "Anyone here speak english?" One man came forward.  "Just 
so I can tell my friends what this dream was about, ok... where am I?"
    "You're in Billund, Denmark, young man," the man said in heavily
accented english.
    "Billund?" Philip asked in an incredulous whisper.  The man nodded.
Philip popped the chestplate of his hardsuit, pulled out the 'lego-on-
a-string' that he had been wearing for a while, and locked it closed
again.  He held it between his armored fingers, and squeezed the knobs
on top.
    Nothing happened.
    "Frick, must have been a dud-EYOUCH!" he yelped as the golden LEGO
sent an electric charge across his suit and over his skin.  He dropped 
it in shock, and it disappeared in the mass of LEGOs beneath him.  
"Damn, now it's gone," he said as he leaned over to look for it.  But 
as he looked, he noticed that the LEGO's were...  moving? He turned to 
investigate, but was cut off as tentacles and psuedopods made out of 
LEGOs enveloped him.

		      <<<Changes: YES>>>

    "What the hell is HAPPENING?!?!?!" he attempted to scream, but no
sound was audible to the rest of the people there, as he was being 
covered from head to foot by layer-upon-layer of LEGOs.
    He tried to move his arm in an attempt to free himself from the
suddenly-sentient pile of children's toys, but his eyes widened when he
saw a gigantic LEGO fist instead of his normal hand.
    The light bulb slowly flickered to life above Philip Moyer's head.
    "Hmm... I wonder... a gun, I need a gu -- "  As he pondered, some 
of the spare LEGO pieces that were lying around formed themselves into 
a perfect replica of a M-134 minigun.
    "COOL!"

42) --- Running on Empty ----------------------------------------------

"You may be right/It's all a waste of time/I guess that's just a chance
 I'm prepared to take/A danger I'm prepared to face/Cut to the chase.."
			-- RUSH, "Cut to the Chase"

    As the Legos snapped into place in Philip's latest twisted idea for
his armor, he half-expected to see a small Autobot symbol appear.  He
smiled to himself for the idea.  <Oh, if Prime could see me now... 
heheheh>
    Even though he was thoroughly enjoying this, the back of his mind 
tickled with the idea that he was forgetting something.  He thought 
back to what he was doing right before he found the --
    "AERI!!!!!!!!"
    The Danes, accustomed as they were to Philip's fiddling with the 
LEGOs, were still taken aback as Philip shaped the blocks into a 
miniature version of a Federation Runabout-class ship and took off.

    Aerianne was tiring, and the lizard knew it.  As Aerianne paused 
for a moment to catch her breath, he dove in and gave her a literally 
flying kick, which sent her flying as well.  Aerianne flew backwards 
from the force of the Lizard's kick.  She arced over the campus, and 
hit the Alden Hall bell tower just as it was beginning to play 
"Chariots of Fire".  She impacted hard, wrecking the internal mechanism 
and mercifully stopping the audible pain coming from the speakers.  
However, it didn't stop her physical pain, and she attempted to extract 
herself from the side of the tower.  Seeing the lizard approach, she 
dodged to the side and landed on the roof.  After a few straining 
moments, she ripped off the tower and threw it at the roach.
    JHC shattered the bell tower with his fist, and kept coming.
    "Ohno," she said before the roach hit her under the sternum.  
    Aerianne fell to her knees, gasping.  Everything that she had done
against the SuperLizard had failed, in one way or another.  No matter
how effective it had seemed at the time, it only delayed him, stalled
him; the lizard had proved impervious to physical assaults.  Her armor
had only prolonged the inevitable; there could 'be only one', and that 
one wasn't her.
    As if the lizard knew what she was thinking, he laughed a 
Kurganesque laugh, and punted her into the center of the Quad.  She hit 
the stone in the center with a sickening crunch as her helmet bowl 
shattered, leaving only the framework.
    "Now you die," JHC said as he hovered over her, cracking his 28
knuckles.

                   <<<Hammer To Fall : Queen>>>

    Philip's LEGO Runabout screamed over the Atlantic Ocean towards
Massachusetts.  He had very little time.  He had no idea how long he 
had been away from the battle, and every second he was gone... he 
didn't want to think about it.
    His cameras locked onto Worcester as he flew over the state border
at over Mach 4.  They zoomed, locked, and adjusted automatically as he
approached.
    His eyes widened.  "No," he whispered, despair and anger building
within him.  His glasses gave him the stereo image of SuperLizard, 
hovering over Aerianne, about to deliver the killing punch.
    "HEADS!" he screamed over the tac net as his armor shifted to
protect him.  He did the only thing he could do.  He aimed the 
Runabout, rammed the "throttles" to full, and prayed that God would
forgive him for what he was about to do.

    It is important at this time to note what it is meant when a 
theatre person yells "Heads." It is a warning to the people below the 
speaker that something has just accidentally fallen, and that they 
should be careful and move.  Depending on the inflection and intensity 
of the word, it can mean anything from 'Oops, watch out for that tape 
measure that just fell.' to 'THE SET IS FALLING OUT OF THE FLYS! RUN!'.
In this case, Philip was using the latter version.  
    Aerianne, even though she was on the edge of unconsciousness, heard 
the word over the radio; and being a theatre person, she reacted.  Her 
jets flared to life one last time, propelling her away from the 
suddenly confused roach.  
    "Where the hell are you going?" JHC yelled as Aerianne scooted 
away, but then he stopped as he heard a noise.  "Huh?" The Lizard 
looked up in time to see a Federation Runabout up close and personal.

    The impact was, shall we say, _dramatic_, as the Runabout plowed
into the ground almost dead on the Lizard's head.  Pieces of LEGO flew
everywhere as the ship caved in on itself as it continued it's journey
into the ground.  A very nice and compact crater was created in the 
center of the Quad as the LEGOs finally gave up their momentum to the 
earth.
    The three human males pulled themselves out of where they were
observing near the Wedge, and made their way to Aerianne's side.
    Rufus knelt to check on Aerianne's vital signs.  "She's alive, but
she still needs medical attention.  We need to get her to a 
hospital..."
    "Understood," replied Gordo grimly as he and Trevor moved to pick
her up.  But they were interrupted as a sound came from the LEGO pile.
They turned to look.
    The SuperLizard, battered, but unbowed, extracted himself from the 
wreckage, and moved towards the group.
    "Ladies and Gentlemen," announced Trevor with more than a measure
of controlled calm, "'Timex' is back..."
    Rufus looked at Trevor with a look of uncomprehension.  "'Timex'?"
    Trevor fixed Rufus with his gaze and replied, "Takes a licking...
and keeps on ticking."  Rufus knew that gaze.  It still managed to 
spook him.