"MisterFour"

By: MisterFour of the Iconian Knights

MisterFour was recently asked why he never included himself in his stories.
This was his answer...

Mr.4 woke up aboard the IK Capitol Ship Hecate and lay there, thinking about his Warhammer and the conflict ahead. His dreams had been disjointed and full of blue deserts and moons of molten brass...weeping suns like Dali paintings... He shook his head and made his coffee, knowing that if space were an ocean, then the Hecate was going into treacherous, blood-filled waters. The outpost station known as Trindicate had been sending reports of sporadic conflicts with Mercenary Bandits, and then communications had been completely lost.

The Mess hall was largely vacant, all personnel manning stations or performing last minute maintenance on their ships. Every pilot possessed an instinct, a sense for when there was going to be battle...you couldn't see it straight ahead, only in corners or behind closed doors, shuffling and pacing like a minotaur, bellowing it's rage in Minoan labyrinths of stone and blood.

Mr.4 looked at his simple bowl of oatmeal. He felt calm, as if he was on the uppermost floor of some Earth city structure, gazing down upon tenemant apartments far below, as if he were the CEO of some mega corporation, a millionaire, and not an Archon Knight about to go into conflict. Then there was the klaxon wail of impending battle. A few eye blinks and he was striding to the main flight corridor, followed by Squiggy the Vorpal Bunny.

"Sir, we have reports of fighting just outside of Trindicate Station...interceptors report several wings patrolling the area, and the wreckage of the Metropolis Capitol Ship...all hands lost..." Disturbing, he thought. That means the Mercenary Bandit group known as the Skell had finally made their move, after years of heightening agression, all because of a dispute over ripstar fields. He knew it would come to this.

"Squiggy, I want you to stay near the Ghostrider's. I have been informed I have to go solo."

"Sir, that's impossible! Who will be your wingman?"

Mr.4's answer was cut short by Overlord Bloodstar.

"Gentlemen, it is war out there...the Skell have finally crossed the line between honor and brutality...Trindicate station is in ruins..." There was the sudden sound as the pilots started speaking at once, horrified...

"We count the dead in the thousands, with casualties on both sides...the Skell have even fired on Medical Freighters, despite treaties a hundred years old..." More cries of outrage echoed in the hold.

"Knights, this is a punitive mission, now. Make those bandits pay in blood..."

A voice of triumph, everyone felt the rush, the adrenaline.

"All of you shall form a part of a pincer maneuver, we shall trap them between the teeth of our firepower, the Hecate on one side, with all of the combined wings of our ships, and Mr.4 on the other." Everyone murmured their approval. RabidChicken patted Four on the shoulder, and more than a few congratulated him. The flashes of cameras everywhere, and Four posed a little.

"Hey, what can I say." He said to a nearby ensign.

"Knights, show no mercy..."

There was the sudden rush as the men and women of the Iconian Knights boarded thier ships, the Hold was a cacophony of hydraulics, warning sounds, ship systems powering up and vidscreens lighting up, showing battle reports.

Mr.4 signed several autographs and then made his way to his Warhammer, refitted with the words
"[censored]" on each side. A couple of reporters shouted questions to him.

"Hey Four! Are you nervous about the conflict?"

"Hell no, I got the funk. I'm psycerifico. They're all doomed. I think I'll fight with my eyes closed. Tell you what, remove my lats, technicians...I wanna make this interesting."

While the techs went to work another reporter asked, "Four, what do you plan on doing after this battle?"

"Oh, I finally finished some medical research I have been working on. I have synthesized a chemical compound that will allow humans to live forever. So I cured Death, good job, huh?"

"Any other advice, Four?"

"Yeah, humility is for people who aren't the greatest frikkin' pilots in all of Fringe space, like me. I totally rock the house. Oh by the way-" Four reached into his back pocket and threw a manual into the throng of reporters.

"I was bored so I managed to construct the Unified Field Theory. I also disproved Quantum mechanics. Turns out it's all based on ether. Oh yeah, the Earth is hollow and it was the man on the grassy knoll. While I was at it, also turns out that with a few simple quadrilineal algebraic equations I was able to prove that Stephen Hawking was totally way off. So somebody publish this. God I am beautiful."

Four put on his helmet and closed the hatch of his Warhammer, the afterburners filling the ship with a vibrational hum, the HUD flashing to life in an electric rush of polygons.

Four maneuvered his starfighter out of the Hold and into space, the cold and endless night all around him...he was complete, here, at home. The first wing of Skell interceptors came ahead of a Capitol Ship, the Gargoyle, bristling with weaponry, steel and black in the vacuum reaches.

"Aww, man, I gotta fight all that. This sucks. I need a toothpick. Waitaminute, how about some theme music."

Four made a few quick adjustments, the interceptors closing in, sharks in the sea of stars that was space.

The Peter Gunn theme filled the cockpit.

The first 52 Interceptors were pretty difficult, even by Mr.4's standards. At last, as he was swerving hard, completely out of plasmas, his shields torn to so much galactic dust and light, his fingers constantly hitting the S and D keys because he kept forgetting he had no lats, his ship was utterly annihilated with a lucky nuclear weapon. As the white light engulfed his craft, he realized that it was a bad idea to use a trackball instead of a mouse...

Floating outward from the explosion, he tore off his flight suit to reveal a blue costume, red cape and a red S on his chest. He flew forward, the interceptors firing streams of missiles, and he used the Force to send them back, destroying the remaining starcraft. Then red heat rays shot from his eyes and cut the Capitol Ship Gargoyle completely in two. The explosion was spectacular, done by Industrial Light and Magic, it took one thousand hours to do, was done by one hundred Korean children in sweat shops working for a bowl of rice a day, and still put the entire production way over budget.

Hurtling towards the earth at time-rending speeds, Four flew around it until time stopped and went backwards, so he was able to prevent the destruction of the Trindiate station as well as World War II.

Finally, sitting in a lawn chair at the Playboy mansion, surrounded by adoring Playmates, Four congratulated Hugh Hefner on a good fiscal year, as well as a perfect vodka martini.

MisterFour: There, I wrote about myself! Happy??



jmstokes@unforgettable.com

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