« What's The Deal? | Clash of the Cosmic Comedians ||
Previously…
The day has come.
The mad god Tim Allen has finally launched his last assault on human culture. It is only a matter of time before he forces humanity prostrate before Home Improvement re-runs.
Earth has but one last hope: Jerry Seinfeld, champion of the SCP Foundation. Bootstrapped with cybernetic enhancements to his innate magical abilities, Seinfeld is the sole person able to summon even a fraction of Tim Allen's power. The people of Earth can only pray that this buys Seinfeld enough time to figure out how to defeat Tim Allen, once and for all.
This day was long prophecized, but when the two met on the field of battle, they both vanished into the sky, far from any prying eyes.
What happens now is up to them and them alone.
Unleash the power in…
CLASH
OF THE
COSMIC COMEDIANS
Jerry Seinfeld shook himself awake. He had been unconscious. This fight, the clash with Tim Allen, had it all been just a dream?
Oh, no. He had just passed out when the g-forces pulled the blood out of his brain and into his feet. He shook his head and tried to grasp a sense of place. All he could see was blinding whiteness. All he could hear was a roaring wind. All he could feel was the weight of Tim Allen ramming his sternum into the sky.
Okay. That was a pretty clear picture. Now, what could he do about it?
He could feel the raw energy streaming out of Tim Allen's body. Thanks to the Foundation's enhancements, Seinfeld could feel the stolen, repurposed power gathering inside his core. His hands were pinned against Tim's body by the supersonic winds, but he could still move his fingers to perform a simple repulsion spell. His hands sparked and-
Boom. An azure shockwave split the clouds, and the men were thrown apart. Seinfeld tumbled end over end before he summoned the energy to stabilize himself. He looked up just in time to see Tim Allen rocketing toward him, wielding a flaming power drill and a wicked smile. Jerry flailed out of the way, only catching a scorched glancing blow across his side.
Tim's flaming path curved back around for another charge. Instinctively, Jerry threw up his hands. A violet wall materialized between the two superhumans.
The mad god burst through it effortlessly. It shattered into a cone of psionic shards that buffeted Seinfeld's face. Tim Allen stopped just short of impaling him. He looked down upon Seinfeld with crimson eyes.
"Still getting used to your powers? That's endearing. I've had a decade to prepare for this, Jerry." His voice was enough to shake Jerry's entire body.
"Oh, interesting," Jerry said. "I'm surprised you took that long to practice getting your ass kicked!" He launched at Tim Allen with arms outstretched, ready to nail him in the stomach with a blast of ethereal energy.
Tim Allen caught him by the shoulders and tossed him upwards at ten times the speed of sound. Jerry flew feet-first like a missile. The air compressed against his soles, enveloping his body in a burning heat that he could only barely keep from destroying his suit.
Seinfeld was cooling down, but not slowing down — the air was getting thinner. He was leaving Earth's atmosphere, and fast.
Tim Allen appeared, speeding alongside him. He drew a pair of red-hot hammers and swung them at Seinfeld's core. It was all Seinfeld could do to squirm out of the way of the strikes; even the near-misses left scorch trails on his suit. He needed to redirect the fight somewhere else, get back on even ground. He focused his energy in one direction, a pulse that propelled them through the vacuum of space until they finally smashed-
Seinfeld struggled onto his hands and knees, ears still ringing. He coughed out a lungful of dust and stone shards but found himself unable to breathe back in.
Tim Allen's voice rumbled in Seinfeld's mind. "Jerry, your magic is as unrefined as it is unoriginal. Where's the passion? Where's the thematic resonance?"
He looked up. Tim Allen was hovering above him, framed against the planet Earth.
"And really, Jerry," Tim Allen continued. "The Moon? What an unoriginal setting for a final battle."
Seinfeld clambered to his feet in the new crater the two had made. He focused his power on matter creation. A bubble of air spontaneously coalesced, and he wheezed, "You can choose next time, how about that?"
"I'm hoping there won't be a next time." Allen held his arms out straight, wrists glowing red. A laser beam blasted out, straight at Jerry's face.
It bounced away harmlessly. In Jerry's place, a ghostly Elaine was standing, mirror in hand. She shrugged.
"How's that for thematic resonance?" Jerry flew at Tim from the side, his empowered fists connecting with his ribcage. Tim Allen went flying. He regained control and skidded to a stop in midair.
He spun about to face Seinfeld, but was met by a spectral George Costanza furrowing his brow. He yelled, "George is gettin' upset!"
George lifted his fists and spiked Tim Allen into the lunar soil. A veritable squad of Georges sprang out of thin air to pummel him with their hands and feet.
"ENOUGH," Tim Allen boomed. The sheer force shredded his attackers into a fine mist. He braced against the ground and prepared to leap forward.
Jerry was quicker. He shouted, "I think it's time for a bottle episode!" Chains sprung from the ground and wrapped around Tim Allen's limbs as if they were alive. "Because one of us knows how to write good television."
Tim Allen's voice rose to a frantic yell. "I'll show you good television-"
The chains cracked, then shattered. He tackled Jerry once more, carrying him up and away from the surface of the Moon. They were moving faster now, faster than they had ever gone before.
"At least one of us knows how to make a critically-acclaimed animated film," Tim Allen growled.
"Oh yeah," said Seinfeld. "You're great when someone else is writing the words for you!"
Magma coursed through Tim Allen's veins. "We'll see how smug you are when I slam your face into the rings of Saturn!"
The duo accelerated onward and onward. Jerry looked up, and saw the distorted shape of Saturn approaching-
They blasted into a field of dust and were blown apart. As Jerry sputtered and coughed, Tim Allen glanced around, confused. "Wait, where are the rings? I was sure they were here."
Jerry blew out the last bit of dust from his airways. "I have to say," he said, "that was substantially less cinematic than I had imagined."
Tim Allen pouted. "Are Saturn's rings just a bunch of dust?"
"Yeah," Jerry said, "I was picturing a 'battle for the fate of the cosmos' kind of setting, but this has more of a 'cleaning under my couch' vibe."
The mad god directed his attention back at him. "No matter. Prepare to die, Seinfeld." He closed his eyes as countless rocket pods sprouted from his back like wings. "To infinity…" he yelled, "and BEYOND!" A storm of missiles shot from his body, all locked on to Jerry Seinfeld's heat signature.
Seinfeld backtracked through the vacuum as he swirled his hands in a familiar summoning ritual, plumbing his energy core for every ounce of power he had. "From the depths of Hell, I summon thee…" he shouted, "NEWMAN!"
A great portal of darkness opened up, and from it emerged Newman's infernal visage. He opened his hellish maw and devoured the missile swarm with a single bite.
Seinfeld breathed hard. That had taken more out of him than he had hoped; his augments were short-circuiting under the strain.
"Enough games," Tim Allen yelled. "It's time to end this." He flew forward and caught Jerry again, dragging him through outer space at nearly the speed of light-
They tumbled into the Earth's atmosphere as a colossal fireball. Jerry's augments cracked and splintered inside his body as he pushed them past their limits to summon a psionic barrier around the pair.
The fireball slammed into the centre of a colossal field of wheat. A massive plume of dirt pierced the sky, and the fiery shockwave set the field alight. Jerry stumbled to his knees in the churning soil. He felt the burning absence in his body — his augments had failed entirely. All the extra power the Foundation had given him, it was all gone.
Tim Allen floated to the ground, unharmed. "It's over. Let's finish this."
"But, but," Jerry wheezed, "the prophecy. It said," he coughed, "it said we'd fight at a volcano."
"There never was a prophecy, Jerry. I created that tablet. I altered the molecular structure to create the illusion of age, and I hid it where I knew it would be found."
Jerry's eyes went wide. "But why?"
"I wanted to give humanity one last chance," Tim Allen explained, "to love me of their own volition. So I prepared the greatest spectacle in the universe: a climactic battle between the two most powerful cultural icons of the modern day."
"Is that really what we are?"
"I don't know, Jerry, have you ever seen Ed Sheeran shoot lasers from his eyes? We're timeless, you and I."
"You don't know how to get people to love you, Tim. You don't understand what audiences want."
"How dare you say that to me. I know exactly what audiences want, Jerry. I've been pleasing them my whole life." Tim's eyes sparkled with fire. An axe, glowing red-hot, materialized in his hands, and he raised it above his head.
Jerry sputtered, dragging himself backwards on the dirt. "You're wrong, Tim. We're not timeless. Things aren't what they were in the nineties. Modern audiences just don't want to hear old white men complain about women and political correctness."
The axe lowered slightly. "Wait, they don't?"
"No, Tim. Your content has to evolve, or you'll fade into obscurity. Go travel. Talk to strangers. Maybe pick a type of insect and get really into it for a couple of years. Get some perspective."
Tim shook his head, indignant. "No, no, you're trying to trick me. You want to dilute my brand. People love the bold, transgressive, and original things I've been saying for thirty years."
"I'm not trying to trick you, Tim," Jerry said, back against the wall of the crater. "I'm successfully tricking you."
"What?" Tim Allen gasped. "What did you do?"
Seinfeld held up one hand. It was glowing faintly violet. "I snuck in the back door while you were busy attempting introspection, and implemented one of the first things I learned as a comedian: a sleep spell. But I threw in a twist, just for you."
"No, no!" The axe in his hands dematerialized, and he grabbed his head. He stumbled. "What's happening to me?"
"I'm giving you exactly what you want, Tim." As Tim Allen slumped to the ground, Jerry Seinfeld pulled himself to his feet. "Stasis."
Tim Allen felt the hot spotlight on his face. He opened his eyes.
He was standing in a brightly lit workshop filled with tools. A sign in the back said "TOOL TIME". To his right, he saw the smiling face of Al Borland. He was speaking. "…isn't that right, Tim?"
"Huh?" Tim said. He heard a crowd laughing, somewhere.
"What happened, Tim? Were you drifting off?" Al elbowed him playfully.
"Oh, I… I must've been. I was daydreaming." Another round of laughter.
"Well," Al said, "you were just about to show us how the table saw worked."
"Of course, of course." Tim smiled. The spotlight on his face grew hotter.
The crowd laughed again, and Tim Allen was content.
Later…
Director Blake sat down in a cheap chair facing the visitation window. She spoke into a microphone.
"Jerry, I thought you should know. We've had a breakthrough in Tim Allen's containment. With targeted amnestics, we've wiped his memory clean of all of his anomalous techniques. He's functionally neutralized. Even if he ever chooses to wake up from his coma, he'll be harmless."
Seinfeld turned his chair around to face the window, and Director Blake behind it. His arms were folded across his orange jumpsuit. "Well, isn't that just peachy."
Blake tilted her head. "You seem tense. Is something wrong?"
"Well," he said, "I guess I just can't believe that this is how it ends."
"We're the Foundation, Jerry. We contain. It's what we do."
"I get that. But still. The protagonist just gets locked up, and that's the end?"
"Jerry, I'm not sure what you're-"
He threw up his hands. "The hero of the story! He just ends up imprisoned. That's not narratively satisfying. Who would be satisfied with that?"
"I'm sorry, Jerry," she said earnestly. "This isn't a story. It's real life. There are no protagonists here."
"Certainly not on your side of the glass."
"Okay, Jerry. Look. I think I have something that might cheer you up. I talked to the guards, and they let me supply you with some entertainment." She passed a rectangular object through the letter slot, but Jerry wasn't looking. "I'll see you some other time. Take care." Director Blake stood up, and walked away.
When she was out of sight, he glanced at the table. The object was a box set of DVD's. It was labeled: Last Man Standing: The Complete Series.
He sighed. "God damn it."
THE END
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