The Legend of the Bionic Lull
In the Time Before Microwaves, the Giant Sprite Bottle descended from the sky. His name was Matthew Dewey. Inside the Giant Sprite Bottle, many bionic Matthewians lived, working to keep Matthew healthy.
But Matthew had been lulled into a false sense of security, and many other bionic beings inside turned against him.
There were the fearsome “Zee-weapon-eez-ready!” beings, or Zee-ans for short. There were the violent Spikebackies, also sometimes mistakenly called by the name of a splinter group of them, the Pyraspikes. There were the bruteish Stuffedshirtians, one of whom led an army of the spidery Visual-rocks, so named because the brown ones could camouflage themselves as stones. And many areas were conquered by warlords called the Bad-wisecrackers.
But the worst of all were a group of scientists who had many powers, especially Shadiness and Freaky Costumes – the Make-huge-toxic-beasts. They lived up to their name by creating the Raaaaaaring beasts. The worst of all went by the title Make-you-think-you-won. His name was Terrorbats.
He made Matthew sick, and fall asleep as he was flying through space.
Now, long, long ago, in the same galaxy, before the Giant Sprite Bottle had been made, many other bionic people named the Gladiators and the A-gory-sport-watchers lived happily on their green world, Big Ball. They had their own troubles – they had bestial cousins named the Voracious Eaters, and cunningly evil cousins called the Screw-yalls. There were also the Elementary Lord-it-overs.
But their worst trouble came when they discovered an Energy Drink filling inside the Big Ball. They all squabbled over who should control the filling, and totally missed noticing they'd left the cork to the nozzle open, so the Energy Drink leaked out. Thus began the Cork War.
Some secretive, clever scientists used incomprehensible magical science to figure out that the Big Ball would soon break into three big pieces if it kept leaking. Their actual name wasn't known, nor was anything else, so everybody just called them the Grandiose Let-Them-Be. They decided they must do whatever it took to stand up for what was right.
So naturally they made murderous invisible robots called the Batty-terrors (some say Terrorbats was inspired by them).
When that failed miserably, they decided to build the Giant Sprite Bottle instead, and.... send him off to study alien planets for a long, long time. Yeah.
The planet split apart right on schedule, and Matthew Dewey left without doing anything about it.
Most of the Big Ball became the Big Brown Olive, where most of the inhabitants remained. Its water was all lost to one of two other big fragments, the uninhabited Big Blue. And its trees somehow all ended up on the Big Side Salad, which was mostly populated by more Voracious Eaters.
The Grandiose Let-Them-Be were too shamed by their apparent failures to stick around, so they disappeared for the most part, except for three. One was serving out a Life Sentence in prison. Another named And-they're-gone stayed behind. And a third disguised himself as a Matthewian inside the Bottle, named Vell-I-like-ya! It is thought that he was responsible for the Zee-weapon-eez-ready! beings.
Matthew got so lulled into a sense that nothing was wrong by his adventures that he almost forgot he was supposed to put the Big Ball back together again, until one day he happened to look inside himself – no, he didn't pay attention to the actually intelligent bionic beings struggling against evil inside him, but he did notice a pattern in the ground made by the Sharp Moles that reminded him of the Big Brown Olive, Big Blue, and Big Side Salad.
So, he was on his way back, when Terrorbats' sickness hit.
He fell onto the Big Blue.
A camouflage system inside him, that used some of the Energy Drink, leaked out, and created a crust over the bottle that made him appear to be a giant island.
Just moments before this, in a big city inside the Bottle called the Big City (its Matthewians weren't very imaginative), Terrorbats attacked and imprisoned its leader, an elder who went by the title Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy, named Doom-and-gloom. Terrorbats put on a disguise that made him look like the elder, and began ruling the island.
First he sent some of its elemental heroes off to their deaths. These were called the Toe-wahs, because they had a tendency to stub their toes and cry. Earlier one of the Big City's Toe-Wahs had fallen into evil – he was called Knee-deepey because he used to wade in water to try to make the pain in his toes go down. But an evil female Zee-an named Rude-awakener transformed him so he had four legs and stubbed his toes even more.
Another Toe-wah, named Lee Candle, wielded fire, and remained alive in the Big City. He realized something was wrong with the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy and sought out six Matthewians to become heroes as well. In return, he stopped stubbing his toes so much and became another Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy.
These new City Heroes were:
Vacuumer, a clean-freak forger who wore the Canola Mask, Who's-not-there?, which made him invisible. He also specialized in making more Canola Masks, and had practiced whining a lot so he would make a good Toe-wah. He wielded fire too.
No-comma, a teacher whose mask was the Wow-your-grammar-sux mask, which enabled her to mark up her students' papers for even the slightest infraction, but she preferred blue ink over red so she wouldn't scare kids. She wielded water.
When-you-were-little, a gruff historian who loved mudslinging, and used his Read-at-night mask to learn as many embarrassing facts about his friends' childhoods as he could find time for.
A-new-one, a carver who was even better than When-you-were-little at insulting people, and would always come up with new slights for every occasion. He controlled stone and manipulated people with his Come-now mask.
Math-pow, a clever prankster and vehicle tester who loved to use technical know-how to come up with fast vehicles that often crashed, and also to concoct elaborate hoaxes and pranks that usually involved objects carefully balanced on the edges of half-open doors. He controlled wind, and his mask, the Mirage-key, enabled him to create illusions.
And finally, Nudge-you, a scholar who didn't like to talk, and would rather get your attention by nudging and pointing at whatever he wanted you to notice. He also could move objects telekinetically with the Move-that-for-you mask. He wielded ice.
Terrorbats first sent the evil Morbidstalk plant against the City Heroes, but they defeated it by collecting the six Wonderful Frisbees to slice it to bits. Then he sent out the robotic police of the Big City, the Vacuumies, but Vacuumer knew too much about them and was able to help the Toe-wahs dodge them. He also sent the mutated Knee-deepey and a brute named Creaky against them, both of whom now worked for the Shady Poachers organization, but they were outsmarted.
Sadly, Terrorbats was able to fool the Matthewians long enough to command them to get inside little Psychodelic Cages, which made them forget their past lives. The cages also weakened them into Toe-bunglers, diminutive beings with big toes, so they would stub their toes a lot even without having elemental powers.
Terrorbats had earlier hired Vacuumer to make a powerful Mask of Boredom, the Canola Yawney, which he believed would enable time to seem to flow very slowly for the Toe-bunglers so he could tell them a fake version of history that painted Terrorbats as the good guy. But Vacuumer didn't give Terrorbats the mask – so the villain tried to steal it, but Lee Candle blocked his attack, and was killed, giving the City Heroes a chance to trap him in an Ice Cube.
It was at this time that Matthew fell asleep, and the bottle crashed, causing the Bad Shake. The bottle's lid cracked as the carbonated pop expanded for a while.
The Toe-wah knew it was only a matter of time before the ice melted, so they traveled through one of these cracks to the crusted outer surface of the Giant Sprite Bottle, and named the land there Matthew Dewey Island after their fallen leader. Then they returned to the Big City to bring the Toe-bunglers up to this new land.
But Terrorbats called out mentally to summon an army of the Visual-rock spiders, led by Rude-awakener and by a Stuffshirtian named Sillydoormat. The spiders' bites mutated the Toe-wah into Horrible bestial versions of themselves, but with the help of mysterious but wise Aha-guys and the powerful cyclops Keep-an-eye-on-you, eventually overcame the enemies and brought the Toe-bunglers to the new land. In the process, the Toe-wah became Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys and divided their people into six villages, each elder leading one.
There was the icy Frozen Coca-Cola village, led by Nudge-you.
The jungle village of Leaky-Rooves, led by Math-pow.
The desert fortress of Poke-Aura, led A-new-one.
The underground realm of A-new-kind-o'-Oreo, led by When-you-were-little.
The all-female Gal Corner, led by No-comma.
And finally the volcanic castle village of Talk-or-roast, led by Vacuumer.
Terrorbats used Infectious Canola to control many Raaaaring beasts and send them against the Toe-bunglers, especially the Man-that's-big crabs, the Tail-jabber scorpions, the What-are-ya-called-again? dino-lizard-snake... things... the My-neck-can-reach-ya tigers and oxen, and the Buzzy-drama dragonflies.
For a thousand years they warred against these beasts, until one strange Talk-or-roastian (who was really an Average Matthewian in disguise – that is, the original type of Matthewian who all the others were based on, of the element of light – but had forgotten this) Had An Adventure There And Back Again, and was shunned for it. His name was Take-you-along, because he was fated to bring an overcurious Toe-bungler named Tap-dance-happy along to his near doom.
But on that first adventure, he brought six special stones to a Super-Value shrine, which had many mystical powers. This one summoned six more Toe-wah to the island.
This special hero team was named the Matthew Heroes because it was their job to heal and reawaken the Giant Bottle.
Talk-huge, the tempermental hero of fire, who wore the How'd-ya-hit-me? mask that shielded him from any harm except surprise attacks.
Golly, the friendly female hero of water, who could breathe water with her Kow-tow-to-fish mask.
Poe-hah-too, the hero of stone who could make a joke even out of Edgar-Allen-Poe type horrific situations. His Car-Comet mask enabled him to zoom zoom.
A-new-wah, the hero of earth who could make enemies find new reasons to cry with his Pack-a-real-punch mask.
Cold-puck, the aloof hero of ice whose I-can-see-through-you mask enabled him to see even the most cunningly hidden enemies and artifacts. He also loved hockey.
And then there was Louie, the airhead hero of air, whose grin-shaped mask, the Me-truefly, enabled him to hover, which when combined with his power over air enabled him to fly.
After these heroes arrived, Take-you-along had other Adventures.
At one point, in Poke-Aura, he encountered a sneaky salesman named Achoo, who sold special “No comment” balls for a popular sport of that town, Goalie. Later he met the ill-fated Tap-dance-happy, took him along, and lost him to the enemy – so he had to rescue him from a hive of Buzzy-drama, as well as Math-pow. He earned some respect from the elders and was assigned the honored job of Secretary, which he found boring, but tried to keep up with writing historical records anyways.
Most importantly, he formed the Secretary's Cooperation, a group of Toe-bunglers that helped the Toe-wah fight Terrorbats's beasts. The Matthew Heroes fought their way past the Raaarings, and even turned into two fused beings of three each, forcing the Raaarings to give them the name Can't-eat-ya. Finally, Terrorbats Made Them Think They Beat Him. They all celebrated, but Terrorbats released a new threat onto the island.
These were the Bugborg, unstoppable but very cute round robots that were tasked with cleaning off the crust from the surface of the Giant Bottle. The robots' secret power was their Brainyucks, living creatures in their heads that could clamp onto a face to mind-control them. They were led by the Bah-Humbug-Hags.
The Toe-wah Matthew defeated the Bugborg by trapping the Hags in another Ice Cube, but they fell into a secret collection of Energy Drink, and were transformed into the Toe-Wah New Forms.
Elite Bugborg Whoyagonnacall? were released, and stole the New Heroes' elemental powers, and made them share their mask powers too. They did this by stealing the heroes' Symbolism. And then they went to a Rubik's cube and started to try to solve it.
But Vacuumer had given Talk-huge the Yawney, and he bored the Whoyagonnacall so that they fell apart before they could solve it. Only their Brainyucks remained, and these were thrown into a deep hole.
Around this time, the Toe-bunglers were rebuilt into as close to the original Matthewian forms as the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys could manage, and took on the old species name again. Take-you-along took along a fire villager named Jolly, and his pet Us-yall-ride-it crab, Peekaboo, on a quest to follow the Flashlight Beam cast by the Mask of Light, the Canola Average-okeydokey. It was believed they were looking for a Seventh Toe-wah.
By then Terrorbats had healed, and sent out his Rockstars to hunt down Take-you-along with their Electric Guitars.
But this plan backfired when one of the Rockstars killed Jolly, and Take-you-along realized the error of his ways. He decided to change his name to Taking-you-back-home, and transformed into the hero of light.
He defeated the Rockstars, and Terrorbats Made Him Think He Won – and in the process revived Jolly, who finally learned to live up to his own name. Taking-you-back-home helped take everybody back home to the Big City, so the New Heroes could start the process of reawakening the Giant Sprite Bottle.
Meanwhile, the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys told everybody of their history.
They arrived at the city to learn from Doom-and-gloom that Matthew Dewey wasn't just asleep, he was dying – and they had to go on a big voyage, to an island named Big Voyage (its inhabitants had the same imagination problem), and retrieve the powerful Canola Ignoble-geekdom, the mask of Get A Life. It had the ability to give people rude awakenings, but of a more well-intentioned sort that could shake people out of their indifference... and revive them if they had just died, due to a pun-based glitch in its coding.
So, the New Heroes went there, only to be promptly thwomped to utter defeat by the Pyraspikes, who wanted the Ignoble-geekdom for themselves – though they didn't seem to understand what would happen if they actually got it.
Then Jolly, Taking-you-back-home, and five other Mathewians set out to try to find out what happened. But Taking-you-back-home was turned away by a special barrier, and had to take himself back home.
Jolly's group went through a scary land ruled by the corrupt Cars-and-knees, a repairman who was supposed to fix cars and damaged bionic beings, but did a lousy job of it. They managed to find one car that still worked, and took it to the Big Voyage island.
When they got there, a red star in the sky, imaginatively called the Red Star, blasted them with mysterious lightning, and turned them into the powerful Toe-wah I-need-geekdom, who could use electronics really well.
Jolly, hero of Fire whose mask was the Cool-luck-skill, enabling him to pull off really cool moves that took a lot of luck and skill.
Hah-hah-hah, female hero of water, who was really good at friendly jokes, but had a nervous breakdown when the Red Star accidentally gave her a moustache and chronic headaches thanks to her Elderly-imitation mask, which was supposed to help her find the mask of Get A Life, but all it did was make her see ghosts.
King-Kong-dude, whose You-tell-us mask let him read minds. He wielded air.
Hulky, the athletic sharpshooter who wore the Sand-knock mask, which let him hit even a particle of sand with a projectile at long range accurately. Wielded stone.
New-pair-o-boots, the earth hero, an inventor who could make new shoes out of anything. He was also famous for making Boxerboot robots, which could be worn like boots to control their feet, and also had punching arms to fight Bugborgs. He tried for a long time to make Spockflight boots, but gladly gave up the many disastrous attempts when as a hero he gained the Canola Glidin', which enabled him to fly.
Most importantly, there was the hero of ice, who was purest at heart and most devoted to doing what was right, even if it would cost him his life – Made-oreos. He could turn snow into the most delicious cookies, making him highly popular. The only person who had a problem with him was Hah-hah-hah, because his mask enabled him to seem to be a ghost, the Canola I-dunno-if-I-saw-a-ghost-or-not.
These Toe-wah tracked down the Ignoble-geekdom, defeating the Pyraspikes and the end of the 7,700,007-stair tunnel underneath the volcanic My-valor mountain. They had help from six Matthewians of the island – one of them being the disguised Grandiose Let-Them-Be, Vell-I-like-ya, as well as the powerful titan Ax-on-steroids. The Pyraspikes were aided by Brutalguy.
But just as they collected the mask, it fled from them, diving beneath the water to a big marine place called Big Marine Place. The Toe-wuh I-need-geekdom chased, becoming the Toe-wuh Marine.
They got six new mask powers:
Jolly got the Get-yer-Arthur-on, which enabled him to resemble a medieval dragon... oh, and had a sonar power too.
Hah-hah-hah got the Facts-on-animals mask, which enabled her to learn to imitate sea creatures and even copy any powers or abilities they had. It also had the wonderful benefits of not having a moustache, giving her headaches, or making her see ghosts. Plus, she got wings just to look cool.
King-Kong-Dude got stuck with a Canola Splat, a mask that could enable random sea monsters to go all king kong on anyone nearby, including himself. He carried two projectile launchers to help defend himself against his own summoned creatures if need be.
Hulky got a Get-real-heavy mask, making him even hulkier.
New-pair-o-boots got a Volt-cloak mask, which projected a forcefield that made him partially invisible, and dampened sound as well.
And finally, poor Made-oreos got stuck with a disturbing If-all-else-fails-try-necromancy, which enabled him to control corpses.
Here the Marine Heroes ran into heavily mutated forms of the Bad-wisecrackers, the ancient warlords who had been cast into a prison but had escaped. After everybody ran around, grabbing the mask and trying in vain to Get A Life, Made-oreos finally captured the mask, and sacrificed his life. Matthew Dewey's life was saved. And in his last action, the hero of ice teleported his friends back to the Big City.
Meanwhile, the New Heroes were busy working on various steps to awakening Matthew. They melted the Ice Cube that had trapped the Bah-Humbug-Hags, allowing the Bugborg to clean the crust off the Giant Sprite Bottle. Then they headed to the giant's most vital organ, the Big Heart.
Here they fought several villains called Make-you-think-we-want-to-stop-yous, and were aided by Average Matthewians, and Ignoble-geekdom, who turned himself into a Toe-wah and then awoke Matthew. The Make-you-think-we-want-to-stop-yous were betrayed by Terrorbats, who allowed a Fizz Eruption to destroy them. But the Toe-wah and their allies escaped with powerful vehicles.
But suddenly, horrible news came – Terrorbats had taken over the Bottle, and exiled Matthew from his own body, in the Mask of Get a Life, sending it to the Big Brown Olive planet!
The good guys fought Terrorbats from within, as Matthew tried to organize the Gladiators and A-gory-sport-watchers to stop the Screw-yalls and take over an Empty Bottle. Several important characters at this time were:
Ackbar – whose favorite expression was, “Itsh a trap!”... oh wait, wrong story...
Greenish – a green Gladiator good guy.
Can-ya-take-me-to-da-alienz? – a blue female.
Malcontent – a red exile who was able to do a Crocodile Dundee mind-control trick on the Voracious Eaters.
Meanstreak – a white gladiator that was willing to cheat.
Certificate-of-death – a historical figure who is now dead.
Terrific-skill – a blue gladiator who is good at fighting.
Tumor-worthy-skill – a giant leader of Skrew-yall, famous for his pitiful one-on-one fight against Matthew Dewey.
Click-here – a beetle that Matthew befriended, and awarded by turning into a lifeless shield that enemy swords would hit over and over again... and then occasionally back into a beetle, but inexplicably the beetle seemed to love him all the more for it.
Run-you – the red leader of the A-gory-sport-watchers, who could honestly say to everybody else that he runs their country. He also led the village of Vulcans-R-us.
Very-fix – blue junk scavenger.
Attack-us-please? – rock tribe helper of the Screw-yall.
Tardy-luck – a green adventurer who tends to find useful things but also tends not to show up for work on time.
So-mad – the only known survivor of the disease-inflicted iron tribe. He's not happy about it.
Met-us-halfway – a traitor who later got turned into a snake by the Mask of Get A Life.
Eventually, Terrorbats came to the Big Brown Olive and fought Matthew, who had taken over the Empty Bottle. An army of villains also came out onto the desert world to attack, including Looks-can-kill Rockstars and a hunchback Spikebackie named Neckgone who also led many other Spikebackies who looked like clones of him for some reason. The Screw-yall also joined the fight, too embarrassed by the easy defeat of Tumor-worthy-skill to do anything else.
Talk-huge escaped the Giant Sprite Bottle and used the Glinty Armor to destroy all the Rockstars. The Spikebackies and Screw-yalls surrendered.
Meanwhile, Matthew started the process of re-forming the Big Ball, and a piece of Big Blue broke off and hit Terrorbats, killing him. The Giant Sprite Bottle broke open, and its inhabitants fled. Then Matthew used the Empty Bottle to finish the process, and the Big Ball was re-formed. Yay, celebrations, and stuff.
Later Vell-I-like-ya started killing people, like the gelatinous Tryin'-not-to-seem-crummy, and Cars-and-knees. Cold-puck and Poe-hah-too traveled to the Red Star and Saw Dead People, including a Matthewian named Maverick, but were almost killed by beings who lived on the star called Can't-send-or-keep-ya. A new, highly mysterious being called Goldiflocks waved a hand and made a castle. Meanwhile, a team of people led by a Toe-wah, Order-in-the-court, went on a mission to the Big Side Salad region to try to find the Grandiose Let-Them-Be, and ran into trouble with the Voracious Eaters.
As for Matthew Dewey, he stayed inside the Mask of Get a Life and left. Some said that he was lulled into a false sense that the bionic beings didn't need his help... others that he had learned not to be lulled into false senses of stuff and was actually going on an important mission. Still others think he was just trying to Get A Life, but the world may never know...
Whatever the future may hold, such has been the Legend of the Bionic Lull.