From davet@hrc63.co.uk Tue Jul 4 08:45:38 1989 From: davet@hrc63.co.uk (Dave Thorpe) Subject: Nigel the Hedgehog, chapters 8 and 9
The Saga of Nigel the Hedgehog
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Chapter VIII
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Authors: Chapters I - VII >
Kelvin > Chris > Aktar > Pete > Gary > Kelvin > Chris > Pete
> Gary > Aktar
Nigel did not need to sit and think for long. He was used to VERY long cylinders covered in vaseline (but thats another story). He quickly removed his right boot and slipped his hand down to the toe end, pulling out a hot-air burner and a huge canvas that he always kept for these occasions. "Pooh, pretty cheesy!", Nigel held his nose, he had forgotten about his super toes and their ability to stink the place out. He held the burner up in the air with his right hand and waved the balloon-like canvas with the other, remembering to pick up his boot as he took off. Up, up in the air he floated singing suitably jolly hedgehog songs as he ascended. Nigel steered the balloon with his feet by swivelling them one way or the other. When he was directly above the awesome castle he let go of his canvas, dropped the burner and fell gracefully onto the point of a flag-pole on which the evil overlord's fearsome flag flew freely from. "Ow!" cried our hero as in agony he leapt off the flag-pole and onto the turret of the highest tower. He peered over the edge and suddenly remembered one of his great weaknesses, he was terrified of heights! As his legs turned to jelly he felt himself…
all over to make sure he was alright. Then he stepped off the ledge, after all, as he said to himself, 'I might have been frightened, but I am a hero'. The tower top was deserted, only a trapdoor in the floor led down ( Well, I say trapdoor, it sounds a bit medieval, it was actually a sunroof, made of glass, and a little cracked ). He opened it ( It smashed behind him as the cracks took their toll ), and climbed into the darkened musty depths ( of a well lit and ventilated room ). Nigel began to fear that his imagination was running away with him, and was sure when he saw, in his minds eye, himself running away with an imaginary imagination ( What does an imaginary imagination look like ?, it's hard to describe, use your imagination ). He pulled himself together ( He felt, literally ), and set off down what passed for a corridor ( it seemed like a giant sewage pipe, leading, in that amazing way your imagination knows, into oblivion ). He saw a huge, ugly growth in the side of the pipe, sorry, corridor , on it hung ( by a noose ) a notice. It read :
| Hallucinogenic Projector |
| Do not believe everything you see |
————————————————————————- 'Is this the real world, is this just fantasy … ', Nigel seemed to hear the words of the Queen song ringing in his ears ….
Nigel used his "do not start shitting yourself in all situations" power to walk past the sign on the noose without shitting himself as he has been doing all too frequently. Unfortunately he was so preoccupied with getting past the Projector he missed the army of Soldier Gonads advancing towards him in an oppressingly military fashion, tripped over them and fell into a stagnant, stenching pot of fresh …. ( NO not mince) Then the Projector changed its tune ( it has a built in jukebox as well ) but Nigel didn't realise what was happening and found himself nostalgicall in a four poster bed with Nancy , Goney-babes Wizard-man, Ronny, and a pillow. He was just about to pull out his pack of ribbed-extralarge-frillybitsontheend- Mates-…..
when….
he snapped out of this boring idea and pulled out his anti-hallucinogenic pills
from his utility belt and swiftly gulped down two with extraordinary skill.
Nigel continued down the corridor until he came to a low door-way, but there was ample room for our super-hero to walk com4tably through it. As he entered the huge medi-eval ish courtyard in front of him Nigel could hear cheers and happy cries echoing off the lofty walls around him. He began to walk around the court-yard, this time obeying the many "KEEP OFF THE GRASS" signs. As Nigel approached a large arch-way the wails of laughter intensified, his imagination was running wild - thinking about what could be behind the huge wooden gates of the arch-way. The gates were guarded by two towers either side. A spiral staircase ran up to one. Nigel promptly galloped up the stairs, killed the two (undoubtedly ignorant) guards in the Watchtower with two neat james_bond_would_be_proud_of rabbit punches. Then he crossed over into the other linked tower, over the arch. Here he found a large wooden lever with the words "PULL ME" scrawled across it. Nigel was unsurprising sceptical about this but pulled the lever anyway … shhhhcreeek … the huge ancient wooden doors beneath him opened hydraulically. Nigel sprinted down the stairs and to his amazement, the open arch-way revealed …
The vastly obese figure of Dingo Skidneys, Nigel's boss from MI5, strapped down on a medieval rack being stretched while a saucy sheep whipped him with a wet lettuce leaf. "Aha, there you are, Nigel. At last!" shouted Dingo, after he had finished screaming with a strange mixture of agony and ecstasy. "Isn't it about time that you got back to pursuing your goal? I don't pay you for nothing, you know." Nigel backed out obsequiously and removed a slip of paper from his utility belt, this was the outline of his mission. It said:
* * * * * * * * ONE POUND OF BANANAS * * * * A LOAF OF CUT GRANARY BREAD * * (with no added preservative) * * * * SEVEN GALLONS OF MILK * * * * * * * *
Oh no, our superhero had the wrong piece of paper!
Well, it looked like a trip to the supermarket was in order. Nigel swiftly left the castle ( in the unopposed way that is so easy to manage on a sidetrack from the plot ), and headed for the shops. He managed easily to find the Milk and Banana's, although, naturally, the shopping trolley was hard to cope with, as usual. However, the Granary Bread was harder to find. It could be found in many forms, but only uncut bread was available without preservatives, so he got a loaf of that instead. On return to the castle, Nigel found Dingo in the same situation, although with slightly greater ecstasy and agony. Dingo commented, 'Well Nigel, you have proved your worth once again, not many hedgehogs would have used their own intelligence and bring me an alternative loaf like that, very well done. Now, having shown your brilliance, this is what you must do, defeat the overlord. If you lean closer, I will tell you what to do ….
Nigel didn't think it would be this easy, and it isn't. The skill that The Grand Wizard Testicle of Chaos had given him was accidently used and he teleported to a much more interesting location. Hmm, he thought as he scanned the seas around himself, "I seem to be in the middle of the ocean on an inflatable bed with only one person for company. The GRAND WIZARD himself. "hello Nigel, I see you have used my power", spake the wizard. "er, yes but it would be really quite helpfull if I went back to where I came from as I was about to be told what to do.", explained Nigel, desperate that he may be missing a vital part of the plot. "Oh, very well then", said Wiz'. Kerbam! He was back with his boss who was saying "……and that my friend is all there is to it. Now run along will you and get on with it." The door shut and Nigel was alone again in the Castle. Where would he go and what would he do?
As Nigel stared at the huge doors in-front of him he spotted small sign just to the right of the gate. As he approached, he read the sign with disbelief :
* * * * TO THE OVERLORD'S OFFICE ——> * * * *
The sign pointed to tower in the corner of the court-yard. As Nigel reached the landing at the top of the stone stairway of the tower he was faced with a carved wooden door, tatooed with grotesque seemingly chaotic creatures, mutated orcs,goblins,hob-goblins,nob-goblins,wheelers, ogres' heads,trolls, and nilbogs. Anyway enough of fantasy. Nigel reached for his utility belt pulling out an old 2nd. World War cold black luger - even super-heros had spending budgets. Nigel stealthely crept towards the door, then took two paces back and charged towards the door. SMACK … his small hedgehog-like frame caused no damage whatsoever on the solid oak door. Instead Nigel thought he should try a different ploy … KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK …
"Who's there?", was the reply from the other side as could be expected. "Nigel" replied our hero using his o-so-sexy let's have a chortle skill ( one of many in his repertoire ). "Nigel who??", was the reply from a rather agitated being whose voice was almost recognisable. "Nigel my hair every morning", came the super-witty, piece-de-resistance, line which he had been saving up to use all his life. Well, did he chortle or did he CHORTLE? He rolled about the floor smashing into the oak door on numerous occasions, rolled down one of those open gutters, down through the sewage pipes, up backwards past the towers, through a skylight, bounced off some sheep in wolf's clothing, and landed back in front of an open oak door. There stood the overlord staring at this extremely dubious round prickly thing, whilst playing with…
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The Saga of Nigel the Hedgehog
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Chapter IX
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Path: Chapters I - VIII >
Gary > Pete > Kelvin > Chris
As The Overlord towered above our super-hero Nigel could see all the way up his kilt. The Overlord was dressed in full Scottish dress and Nigel now knew what was worn underneath kilts, not a pretty sight, were all main characters always hung like blue whales Nigel wondered. Suddenly The Overlord bellowed, "Seize him men". Two short stout men wearing horizontally striped black and white jerseys, black flannel trousers, and silly-looking berets darted from behind The Overlord towards Nigel. Nigel's reactions weren't quick enough this time as his eyes were still fixed upon The Overlord's love-gun. The Overlord's two powerful assistants over-powered him and promptly tied his paws securely with strong rope. Our tied and gagged hero was then carried down a spiral staircase into a dimly lit cellar. The cellar was littered with weird and wonderful(or so thought Nigel) gadgets and contraptions. Nigel naturally assumed that they were products from "Second Skin" but then he realised that he was in a huge torture chamber - which was used for its original purpose. Nigel was then tied to a large bench, his arms fastened above him and his legs, apart, fastened below him. Then to his horror a huge rotating circular saw started to make its way towards Nigel's wedding-tackle. The Overlord then entered the cellar with a broad, evil smile on his face …
Nigel was worried, not unnaturaly. As the gonad removing equipment came towards our hero, inch by creeping inch, the massive tungsten diamond tip blades making a terrible howl as they whirled through the air the Overlord gloated over our prickly friend in this prickly predicament. The Overlord started to tell our hero all about his plans for world dominmation by replacing peoples gonads with genetically altered sheep/gonads and controlling thier minds from below. He also said (angrily) that the rampant gonads Nigel had encountered during the plot were left over from this master plan, you see he had carried this plan out some years ago and it had been fully successful, men were controlled by thier gonads and he had power over the world. Unfortunately it had seemed to females that men had always been controlled by thier lunch-boxes, so nobody even noticed that they were now under the power of the overlord. I mean he had been making men screw up the political situation for years, we were at the brink of nuclear war and destruction of the planet, people daily ran over hedgehogs, but nobody gave a fuck. Well actually that is just about all they ever got round to these days, and everyone was really quite happy about it. Except of course the hedghogs who bore the brunt of it by being squashed flat on the roads. The Overlord had long since given up on humans as a lost cause and left them to it (yes I do mean it like that) and had decided that the most intelligent and influencial race on the Earth was (yes you've guessed it) HEDGHOG. This gaining of knowledge enlightened Nigel but he was still about to lose his precious meat-and-two-veg, how could he get out of this one?
Nigel writhed desperately, his super brain running through all the possible escape routes. "Hmm, if I could only pull a super strong spine out this scenario would be no problem", Nigel thought aloud, rather conveniently. He twisted his head around and, just in the nick of time, removed a particularly vicious looking needle from his back and blew it at the saw. The needle jammed into the saw's axle. This was more than the ancient machinery could tolerate and with a huge walloping, banging sort of sound the whole caboodle exploded sending Nigel flying through the air and out through the closed doors like a bullet. Amazingly enough…
He flew into a room he had not previously encountered ( Not very suprising - having only seen the cellar ), in which stood, on a massive plinth, in the very centre of the room, a control pedestal. Landing, rather uncom4tably ( He got up and actually had to brush himself down ! ), Nigel found himself at the base of the plinth. Climbing up to the pedestal, Nigel found it had lots of controls and screens, for controlling gonads worldwide. There was also a big red button, with don't press this written beside it. At this moment the Overlord walked in, followed by his lackies, carrying sub-machine guns. 'Get down from there !' he shouted, and motioned to his men to open fire. As Nigel ducked behind the console, the air about him was filled with lead. Hesitantly, Nigel reached up to the controls ( Miraculously, the whole pedestal seemed unharmed ), and hit the red button. The pedestal glowed yellow, then red, the white, then blue with pink blotches, and then exploded in firey splendor. Nigel was propelled by the force of the blast, straight out of the window, and high into the air. Luckily, Nigel was wearing his gyrocopter backpack ( Why was that not mentioned earlier ? ), and flew gracefully off, away from the overlords castle, which exploded in a chain reaction, leaving only a massive crater, and a vague head shape in the smoke. Nigel seemed to hear words floating in the air, 'The World Shall Hear From Me Again'. At last men were free from control by their gonads, Nigel thought, as he flew into the sunset … … but over the world, things continued all the same !
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