As Cheap Shot examined the room, poking around odds and ends, he discovered and pocketed the following items:
-4 tranquilizer darts
-2 potions of healing
-1 manual on operating an electric wrench
-3 No.2 pencils
-1 flashlight
-1 electric wrench
He proceeded to ask common questions to the employees of this area such as "So how does the ship work? Oh, don't leave any details out."
Fortunately for him, he was set in the Tour Group at a discount price.
"These are the sleeping quarters. You come here for a good time. Moving on," said the guide walking into the next room "this is the library - all maps and documents about the ship are located here. Except the special ones."
"Oooooh." said the tourists.
"Next, we have the observatory, this is where the weather control systems are operated and visuals are produced. Many of our skilled technicians and weather wizards work here."
"Aaaaah."
"The next room is the Time Travel Computer Deck... rather nice. Much like a video-arcade, we can use this to time travel. Some haven't returned, but when they do, they get a large bonus."
"Ha."
"This next area, is one we don't often show visitors. It's the cockpit." giggling, the tour guide showed them in. "Take a look around. Just be aware there may be a few odds and ends hanging about. With robot pilots, that happens. Oh, and don't press any buttons. The robots will try to kill you, and in failing that will kill us all. So please, don't kill us all. Teehee!"
Cheap Shot observed the robots movement and the control panel. The ship seemed to be steered by what looked like a rotating stick and a button that said 'On' and 'Off'. There were various other panels as well, including ones that seemed to have directions to making breakfast cereals and a CD player.
There were various slots and computer disk insertion sites as well. Although there currently seemed to be no way of actually accessing the monitors.
Looking around carefully, there was a small nail file, a pair of wire cutters (in the hands of one of the maintenance crew, however) and three pages of error code written on them. One of the robot pilots sorted these papers around, and occasionally pressed a blue button labelled 'Feed'.
After watching for a few minutes, the controls direction-wise for the ship seem to be pretty straight forward. Everything else was still a bizarre amount of breakfast cereals and nothing specials as of right now.
Cheap Shot surveyed the scene. There were a good fifteen tourists, plus the tour guide. Interesting fact, he thought.
"Good morning." said the ape thing, looking fearful (although it had been looking fearful before he saw the turkey impression).
"Right. I need information, see?" said Two Steps.
"Information?"
"Information, see?"
"Well, what do you want to know?"
"Everything. You tell me what you're doing out here."
"Hey - everyone's got to eat some time."
"Getting food, eh? How about why no one else is getting any food?"
"They have to watch THE weather network."
"What's THE weather network? I don't know, see?"
"Well, right now it's fairly sunny out, but it could be snowing any second. THE weather network controls it all. They make predictions five minutes before anything happens. Sometimes they make predictions thirteen at a time and everyone is confused."
"Ah. So why is everyone inside when it's sunny, see?"
"Uh... could you stop saying 'see'?"
"Sorry."
"Right, well I just told you why they're inside. They're afraid if they come outside, that THE weather network will change the weather on us and cause all sorts of problems and sickness and death and salvation and post-mortems and stuff like that."
Two Steps didn't hear the end of the list, but he got the gist of what was going on and continued on his march, saying to an invisible stranger that he would meet forty years later;
"Oh. Hm. You'd probably best be on your way. I know I am."
The two heroes marched out the gate and into a swampy lowland.
As they swung across a large pond on a very unreliable vine, a yellow 3D smiley face with rockets attached to its top and bottom popped up at a high-speed.
"AAAAH!" screamed Scoop and Jack Frost.
"AAAAH!" they screamed again. When they did this a third time, Jack Frost indicated to the smiley face that it was to indentify itself.
"Oh sorry," said the smiley face "I'm High-Speed Head. I'm a super smiley face that flies around ballistically and tries to save people from remotely evil things."
"Way cool." said Scoop "Have you seen the diamond thing?"
"No, but my side-kick may have."
"Your side-kick? How does a 3D smiley face with rockets strapped to its top and bottom get a sidekick, and yet a guy with shovels for feet doesn't?"
"Your guess is as good as mine... I'll call him over. HEY ROCKETBUDDY!" she roared.
What looked like a small model rocket with legs stumbled up. It was gray with a deep blue windshield, along with a sign attached to its back which read "Have one nice day?"
"May I introduce," said the smiley face, swinging her face around to face the rocket "Rocketbuddy. My illiterate and immmature rocket sidekick with feet."
"I ARE ARKETBOOTY!" shouted Rocketbuddy, flapping his wings slightly.
"Nice to meet you, High-Speed and Rocketbuddy... but what are you doing in this ominous swampy lowland?" asked Jack Frost.
"Please," said High-Speed Head "Call me HSH. All superheroes have nicknames - at least the good ones."
Scoop and Jack Frost looked depressedly at the ground and shifted their feet a little.
"Oh don't worry - we'll think up some cute nicknames for you. And we're in the swamp because we were running from the Plastic Space Monkeys of Pain on Xarnonononia VII. Their banana guns were too powerful for us."
"POOPYHEAD." added Rocketbuddy.
"Right. Well, we're looking for a diamond demon from another universe that happens to be filled with all the ultimate chaotic evil that there ever was. Oh by the way, we don't actually know about it." said Scoop "Wanna tag along anyway?"
"Sure, could be fun." said HSH.
"SUGAR WOT WAITER."
"Of course, Rocketbuddy." said Jack Frost.
"Right well, where to start?" asked HSH.
"We decided here was good." said Jack Frost.
"Okay... well how about that mysterious and ominous cave over there?" said HSH.
"Or maybe that mysterious and ominous woods over there?" asked Scoop.
"Or maybe that mysterious and ominous space port over there?" suggested Jack Frost, pointing to it.
"HUNNNGEEE." moaned Rocketbuddy.
Scoop decided to enforce himself as the group leader, as it seemed no one else was quite competent enough to lead the way in this party. He lead them into the mysterious and ominous Forest of Woods, and there they began to search for the Spa Cream and the diamond demon thing.
After a while of walking through the marshy and twig-filled ground, and dodging trees, the group decided that they hadn't actually been focusing on the task at hand and had instead been trying to figure out nicknames for Scoop.
"Well this is getting us nowhere fast..." muttered Scoop.
"Yeah." agreed the others.
"Hey - what's that over there?" said Jack Frost, suddenly pointing into the trees.
"What? I don't see anything." said HSH.
"GUMPY." said Rocketbuddy.
"Hm. Oh well." said Scoop.
They continued along, looking under rocks and up trees to find the cream and the diamond thing, but it didn't seem to matter. It just didn't seem to be there.
Finally, they came to an unsteady rickety bridge, hoisted by unreliable vines. It was crossing a bubbly green stream of liquid, that occassionally let bubbles into the air. And there, on the other side of it, was a ruined building of some sort. It was slightly sinking in the mud around it.
"Hm..." the group hmmed. Would they cross and enter the mysterious building?
The two walked around the cornerous mountain, and entered the house that was there. The first sight they saw was a family that looked extremely tired staring at Ping-Pong as he made eight weather updates at one time, and the weather outside changed violently.
"Holy Carmanola Bars!" said Unbelievable Man "No wonder they have to watch it all the time! With the weather changing so rapidly, you could be killed or badly damaged at any moment."
"Precisely."
"That Ping-Pong! I'll show him a thing or two if I ever get my hands on him..."
"What about us? How can we get back to warn the other superheroes?"
"I don't know. Let's ask these people... excuse me, ma'am? Ma'am? Hello?"
"Shhh." said the woman.
"You need to stop watching that television."
"Shhh - if we stop watching, and the bus stops going more than 50 miles per hour, it will blow up and we won't know what to expect."
"How can we help these people?" asked Unbelievable.
"Make it ten steps." said Two Steps, producing a small yellow metal object with an attena protruding from it.
"A radio," he said "We can use it to hear the weather predictions as we walk around."
"What if the batteries run out?"
"Eleven steps..." sighed Two Steps showing Unbelievable Man four hundred miles of extension cord.
"Cool. Okay, so let's get the other superheroes and try and... what?"
"We have to find a way to stop the weather signals being put out by Perrywinkle's weather ship, and re-regulate the weather on this planet so these people don't have to watch television all the time and have a life and be healthy and not starving and stuff."
"Right... uh, I'm afraid to ask, but how do we do that?"
"We'll need radioactive energy. That's how we can generate our own power, because all other electrical power is being sucked out by television."
"Okay... where can we get that?"
"I don't know. Weren't you saying something about radioactive-"
"Monkeys! Yes, we can use their energy-"
"To intercept the signals and-"
"Save the planet!"
"YES!" the two yelled and high-fived.
"Shhh." said the woman.
"But, you'll be hurt by radioactive monkeys."
"Not with that fishskin suit I won't."
"We'll both need them."
"Yeah... even I don't know where to get them, though!"
"Let's ask the other heroes. We'll have them split up, but first, we'll have to see if they have some ideas."
"I've got to know what that is." thought Cheap Shot. He lifted up his body onto a conveiniently located open air vent and crawled through, unnoticed by the robot pilots, he crawled overhead of Perrywinkle and looked down. "A watch? The daft fool doesn't know how it works?" he mutted, and then ran quickly back to the guide who was explaining why the bridge was essential to breathing. It was heavily guarded by what looked like mechanical spiders.
"These Zotar crystals, from the core of the planet Zantar take the vaccuums energy and turn it into oxygen."
"Impossible." scoffed a tourist.
"We thought so too, until it worked."
"Oh. My my my... how much do they cost?"
"They're not for sale, I'm afraid, but it provides a constant air source for us, and the planet's gravity keeps us in orbit. Teehee!"
They continued into the West Wing, where signals were being given off to transmit an extremely bizarre pattern of electrons to cause weather changes on Zantar.
Cheap Shot looked back at the mechanical spiders, whose heat sensors 'eyed' him hungrily. There were four spiders, occassionally one would walk across the hall.
"Uh," said Cheap Shot "Where do these robots come into all this?"
"Oh, the Gumkobots? Well, that's a funny story. We don't have time now, come this way, please."
Cheap Shot followed, realizing that this ship was so busy, if a random person walked through it, no one would really notice. Nobody knew him aside from Ping-Pong and Perrywinkle, and Walrus Man - but they were all pre-occupied.
Walking carefully past the Gumkobots, he re-entered the cockpit and took a closer look around. Many switches and dials seemed to be programmed very solidly into it. The robots constantly typed more and more of a senseless code on the monitors. This was indeed a crazy ship.
He thought he might try to complete his original plan, when a Gumkobot came in the room. It bipped and fizzled for a moment, and then a robot pilot got up, took a battery out of a drawer and replaced the dying one in the Gumkobot.
"Hm..." said Cheap Shot, having a new thought about how to control the radio waves.