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sharperthewriter · 2 years ago

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Chapter 5 of the 16th Annual Kim Possible Fannies Awards

Chapter 5 – The Retirement Part, Part III

Gasps filled the room, and several guests rose to their feet in excitement for the moment. Cell phones all over were hurriedly grabbed to film, including Kim’s.

“Electronique, my snickerdoodle, my schatz…” Dementor reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring box. “Will you—”

“Noooo!” a bellowing cry rang out, startling the table of heroes. Many cameras turned to where a sobbing Hego now stood, his arm outstretched toward the couple at the stage. “Electronique, I love you!”

An even louder chorus of gasps was followed by silence, broken only by Ron and Wade leaning toward one another and whispering in drawn-out unison, “Awkweird...”

And then, all chaos broke loose.

“You stole my act!” the villain in red cried, leaping to his feet.

“Are you kidding me!? I’ve been trying to get into VILE since two-thousand one! Stop ruining my chance!” yelled the furious man in yellow.

“You’re dried out and crusty, old-timer!” retorted the other.

“Uhm, excuse me?” said Ron, waving to get their attention. “Who are you?”

The two answered in unison, trying to shout each other down.

“The Mustard Meister!”

“The Tomato Tyrant!”

Kim and Wade looked at each other blank-faced as the two condiment-themed villains began a fierce argument, while Sheila had stood up and was backing away from her brothers’ table in horror. Mego had taken a similar approach and was simply striding toward the exit, while the clearly intoxicated man in a blue suit and domino mask was stumblingly climbing atop the table. The Wegos were cackling and holding up their champagne glasses to him, egging it on.

“How dare you!” Dementor said shrilly, standing and raising his fists in anger. “Zis is my party! My moment!”

Hego had begun singing a horribly out of tune rendition of “Longer” by Dan Fogelberg atop the table, while Electronique backed against the stage in shock.

Laughter rang out as numerous cell phones switched between filming between Hego, Electronique, and Dementor, but a moment later attention was drawn back to the feud between the condiment villains as the Mustard Meister shrilly shouted, “You pipsqueak!”

Before anyone could react, he had shoved the Tomato Tyrant’s face into his plate of moussaka. The younger villain’s response was to flail wildly until his hand found the skewer of a gyro, which he then began swiping at his opponent like a sword.

“All right! Food fight, seriously!” shouted Motor Ed from somewhere on the villains’ side.

“Eddie? When did he get here?” asked Drew, but his only answer was to be fiercely grabbed by Sheila and pulled away from the action as Motor Ed threw a bowl of orzo at no one in particular. Kim, Ron, and Wade ducked under their table to hide—just in time, as the Tomato Tyrant retaliated on his rival by firing a ketchup gun, the contents of which hit many of the guests and made it even as far as the Global Justice table.

Ron recoiled when the ketchup hit the tablecloth that protected them, and then looked to Kim.

“Well…I’m not sure what else we should have expected, at a villain party,” said Kim after a moment.

“Should we make a break for it when the condiments stop flying?” Wade asked.

“No,” Kim said, shaking her head. “I want to make sure Dementor is really retiring. But…”

A plate shattered on the floor next to their table, and food-covered shards slid into their hiding place.

“…Wait until things calm down a bit?” Wade asked.

“Knowing this crowd, that might take a while…” Ron mused.

Rufus inspected the bits of food on the plate, stealing a piece of olive as the other three sighed and sat back to wait out the chaos.

“Zhis is my party you…you kotzbrockens!” Dementor wailed, his hands in fists above his head and his voice rasping in rage.

Hego had stumbled off the table, having slipped on a salad bowl, and red-faced and bleary eyed was still singing as he stumbled his way toward a furious Electronique.

“It was only a fling!” the Czech woman cried angrily, near tears from the embarrassment.

Dementor gasped. “Liebling, you were unfaithful to me!?”

Food continued to fly around the room, with some villains participating in fun and others in angry retaliation as they hadn’t been quick enough to escape as Kim, Ron, and Wade had. The trio couldn’t help themselves but to peer out at the sound of Electronique’s shrill scream as Hego reached the stage and it appeared he and Dementor may come to blows. The Mustard Meister was presently trying to choke the Tomato Tyrant with his cape, and Motor Ed was trailing after Duff Killigan who was mounting a table near his own.

“Seriously dude, that’s crossing a line. It’s just a party, seriously!”

“I dinna care!” Duff said angrily as he teed up and took aim with his nine iron. The eyes of the trio of heroes hiding beneath the table moved in slow unison, following Duff’s aim, to where DNAmy had dipped Monkey Fist low and the pair were engaged in a passionate locking of lips.

“Dude, we don’t want to get arrested!” Motor Ed pleaded again.

“Fore!” Duff shouted loudly, getting the attention of nearly all in the room.

Kim was already moving, her skirts lifted as she ran toward the intoxicated and unaware pair of villains. The exploding golf ball was struck and flew toward its target, but Kim grabbed a serving tray from a table as she ran and threw it just in time to intercept the golf ball’s path. The small object collided with the tray instead of its potential victims and exploded in mid-air, further gaining the attention of the partygoers.

“Lassie, stay out of this! These are matters of the heart!” said Duff angrily.

He swung at another ball, but his aim was off as Kim raced toward him. The ball sailed toward the stage, where Dementor and Electronique stepped out of the way as an oblivious Hego slowly turned, wondering what had so startled the other two. The golf ball whizzed just past his head and struck the back wall, raining another shower of sparks down.

Kim kicked Duff’s club out of his hands and glared at him, knowing she couldn’t engage in a full-on fight given the setting. To her surprise, the Scotsman simply grit his teeth and looked helplessly past her to where Amy was having her way with Fist. It was less than a minute of action, but it had been enough for the sparks from the explosion to light some of the tapestry décor and the tablecloths on fire.

“Ahhh me and Rufus can help!” Ron said frantically as he and Wade scrambled out from under the table. Ron poured a glass of champagne on one small cinder, which only caused it to flare. “Yahhhh!” he cried, jumping back, Rufus clinging to his shoulder.

Kim had turned and crossed the room to the Mustard Meister, where she detached his cape from his costume and pulled it out of his hands in a flourish, to the relief of the gasping Tomato Tyrant.

“You two need to spend some time on separate shelves of the fridge,” she said with a frown.

“Ahhh Kim! Fire!” Ron shouted, now batting at a rather substantial flame with his dinner napkin.

Several of the other guests had started to do the same, the food fight mostly forgotten with the new and greater concern. Kim spun around and saw the flames starting to catch in seemingly every direction. Killigan was on his knees in front of Fist, holding one of his hands and pleading as Amy tried and failed to drag her drunken conquest away. Hego had tripped and fallen on his rear trying to put out the fire on the stage. Dementor himself was screaming in an incoherent rage, ranting in both German and English and stomping around at the front of the stage.

Before Kim could even think what to do next, suddenly the emergency sprinklers came on overhead. All activity in the room ceased amid groans as everyone, hero and villain alike, were drenched, and the small fires were put out. Kim looked over to the far exit where Sheila stood with a smirk, her hand on the fire alarm, and Drew next to her who merely gaped.

As her gown was drenched and as many of the other women in attendance began complaining over the ruin of their attire, Kim walked confidently up to Sheila and Drew, who were of course the only ones safe from the deluge.

“Good thinking, you two!” Kim said as she brushed her wet hair from her eyes and stepped into the dry space along the wall.

“Look, I just wanted to shut Hego up,” Sheila said, looking uncomfortable.

Ron and Wade had approached the trio, their tuxedos dripping, and together the group surveyed the room.

The fires were out. Dementor and Electronique now seemed to be yelling at each other as Hego stood nearby sobbing and trying to interject. The Mustard Meister and Tomato Tyrant were still screaming at each other, though no one was paying them any mind due to the sprinklers still showering everyone with water. And after a quick glance around, they finally spotted Duff Killigan slipping through puddles and fallen food items on his way to the door, carrying a semi-conscious Monkey Fist over his shoulder with DNAmy attempting to follow, albeit slower. Nearly everyone else in the room were groaning over the state of their clothes, except for Motor Ed who was approaching their group.

“Dude, ‘Cous, way to take control, seriously,” Ed said, slapping Drew on the back.

The group cringed as Motor Ed shook out his mullet like a dog and then surveyed all of them before his eyes settled on Kim.

“Whoa, Red, that’s a good look for you,” he said with a grin, looking her up and down in her drenched and now rather revealing gown.

“Hey!” was the response Ron mustered as he stepped between them, blocking Ed’s view of Kim.

“I didn’t even want to come,” Drew grumbled, but as his eyes drifted to the stage he began to perk up.

It appeared as though Dementor, Electronique, and Hego would all come to blows soon if something wasn’t done. Drew’s sour expression began to brighten as he realized that his former-rival’s party had been ruined. He turned quickly to Sheila, but she was already grinning knowingly.

Kim eyed the pair suspiciously, wondering if they could have somehow planned any of it. But as a shout from Dementor heralded the beginning of the fight, she rushed away to try to stop it.

Motor Ed looked after Kim with a low whistle, but when he saw a blue shimmering begin across Ron’s skin he gave an innocent gesture and stepped closer to Drew.

Drew cleared his throat and gave a shout. “Hector!”

Elsewhere in the room, a slim man in a tux startled and looked around until he made eye contact with his boss.

“Clean this mess up!”

#kim possible #fanfiction #16KPFA #chapter 5 #drakken x shego #drakgo #drakken #shego #motor ed #electronique #professor dementor #hego #dnamy #monkey fist

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split-n-splice · 4 years ago

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you live, you learn / you love, you learn / you cry, you learn / you lose, you learn / you bleed, you learn / you scream, you learn ~ "You Learn" by Alanis Morissette Time for a brief intermission for some backstory. I have my reasons. This may clash with the flow a little bit, but oh well. Regular linear timeline will resume Ch27: Aura Of Others

[Chapter Guide]

26. Intermission: Jagged Little Pill

New Years Eve held promise. A new year, a new start, a new resolution, a new her. The troubled city now knew her not as Shilo Gough, a local nobody, but as a rising superheroine by the alias of Shego.

It had taken a heap of good behavior to get out on probation just to go home in time for the winter holidays, though her siblings had been deemed low-risk and returned officially months ago once the restoration of the neighborhood had been completed. It helped that the grand unveiling of Team Go and her return to Go City had come a month early out of necessity.

At first, she eagerly embraced the new double-lifestyle, even if she wore an anklet at all times to track her whereabouts and the activity level of the new innate gift only Shego was permitted to use. It at least meant getting out of the facility and distancing herself from the research teams which wanted to dissect her under the guise of helping.

She’d thought going home to rejoin her family would mean returning to some normalcy, but December hadn’t gone great, as she’d been called into action no less than three times a week. Overall, it really hadn’t been her year, so it didn’t surprise her that even the season of gift-giving, comfy sweaters, and cookies was put on the back burner in favor of demanding hero duty.

She convinced herself she didn’t mind the distraction from Yuletide festivities. It beat sitting at home looking at gift tags signed From Santa in inelegant print or noticing the distinct lack of music that somehow made the house several degrees colder. Spending time with family was disheartening when it was incomplete anyway, but she’d run herself so far into the ground by Christmas that the best gift she could hope for was to be buried in her blankets – not running through the streets after the criminal of the week. Even with Global Justice’s so-called assistance, she’d hardly had a good night’s rest since coming home.

End of the month meant another refill on her prescription. The narcotic was uniquely formulated for her and came from no ordinary pharmacy.

Shilo – Shego – and her brothers-turned-teammates, Hego and Mego, had just wrapped up the Christmas caper and smiled and waved for the press and wished an early Happy New Year to all of Go City when they were collectively pulled aside by agents in the shadows. A woman with an eye patch congratulated them on a job well done, but a pat on the back was the extent of their reward when it came down to it. Mego sniffed and grinned, happy for the attention from a pretty lady doling out compliments, and Hego proudly announced it was all in a day’s work. Shego sighed and held out her hand in anticipation of the usual delivery she’d received from Betty personally for the past three months.

From there, they dressed back into street clothes in one of the agency’s many secret boltholes found throughout Go City, and Shego shook herself out in relief to be Shilo again. Her brothers wanted to walk home together, her sandwiched between them, so the relief was short-lived.

“There’s safety in numbers,” reminded Hugo, grabbing her arm to tow her along. He was filling out around the shoulders and torso, and lately his idea of a gentle grip had begun leaving bruises.

“Oh, come on!” Shilo whined. She recomposed herself quickly then to tease her older sibling instead, “What do you need me for? You can walk home yourself. You’re a big boy.” It was no exaggeration either. Hugo was little more than seventeen, but over the past year had developed a pair of guns capable of intimidating professional wrestlers. The jocks at their new school, which Hugo had been attending for months now, gave him a wide berth, so she heard.

Milo sprang three steps ahead in the snow suddenly, proclaiming his independence, “I don’t need either of you! Anyone comes after me, I’ll sock it to ‘em.” He boxed at the air with pale bony knuckles, a far cry from Hugo. Affected with the onset of puberty and ganglier than ever, the tween tripped over his own legs and slipped, falling to the icy sidewalk. In a perfect world, he’d be home next to Mom, taking a piano lesson or baking sugar cookies – not out on the streets, excited to pick up the slack for policemen or secret agents.

Shilo’s fist curled in her pocket, palm growing warm around her refilled prescription. Her other hand reached down to grab one of Milo’s as he stuck both of his up in the air, expectantly waiting for a sibling on either side to grab hold. Shilo was glad Hugo released her to take Milo’s other hand, and while she would have been happy to drag her little brother through the slush, her big brother spoiled the fun by lifting him to his feet with ease.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m just going to the mall,” she swore. “I’ll be home by three.”

“That’s what you said last time,” noted Milo, ambling along next to her. At least his tiny body put something between her and Hugo now. “Dad made dinner! Do you know what he made?”

“Fishcakes,” she sighed, nodding. She’d barely choked down the cold leftovers that night when she snuck in at six in the evening. Anyway, 6:00PM wasn’t that late. Back when she still visited her best friend at her house down the street, she used to come home at a quarter to nine, if at all. But that was before Lady Fate came to Go City. Now that she had a superpower and could defend herself better than ever, it made an early curfew pretty silly.

Shilo opened her mouth to argue when a fluttering past her head made her duck and topple into her spindly little brother. A curse nearly escaped her lips as she locked her eyes on the offending – pigeon? – flapping away to join its flock in a skeletal snowy elm at the corner. In the past month, she’d had a lot of things hurled her way, and it was becoming second nature to dodge at the faintest sign of a projectile. So her heart hammering in her chest was justified as Milo shoved her away.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose when a nasally voice behind them called, “Excuse me?”

Hugo turned, even though Shilo grabbed Milo and kept towing him along. “Can I help you, sir?” asked her big brother to the civilian behind them. Shilo clenched her jaw. Didn’t they have a rule? Don’t talk to strangers. Not outside of uniform, anyway. It wasn’t conducive to keeping a secret—

“You’re Team Go. Right?”

Shilo whipped around to lock her eyes on the stranger, freezing on the spot.

Milo on the other hand bounced free of her grip. She grabbed for him again, but he’d bound up to Hugo’s side to proudly announce, “Yes! Yes, we are.”

Hugo cuffed him on the shoulder, and just about threw him into a snowdrift by doing so had he not caught him in his other paw. “I’m – we are not,” corrected Hugo in a practiced statement. “But maybe I can help you?”

The man stood in a grungy old parka trimmed with a collar of white, stained and weathered. He wrung his hands, duct-tape mending the holes in his leather gloves. “I’m Dr. Robinson,” he introduced, and struck out a hand to shake. The grimy man didn’t look like a doctor. He wasn’t one of Global Justice’s anyway.

Hugo didn’t take the hand and he most certainly didn’t give his name. It was probably the smartest thing he’d done all day. “Pleasure,” he said, and repeated once more, firmly, “Can I help you?”

The man’s beak-like nose pointed at them all in turn. Shilo’s stomach twisted as it was aimed in her direction for a millisecond too long, and she stepped forward to take her place between her brothers. The thin lips of the down-on-his-luck doctor, if he was even a doctor at all, split into a wide grin he quickly smothered. That was enough of a clue there was a screw loose. “Actually, I was thinking I could help you.”

“We’re good,” said Shilo, grabbing her brothers by the arms.

Hugo was unmovable. He crossed his arms over his chest and scoffed. “You. Help us? Do we look lost to you?”

“They might need help,” mumbled Milo. Shilo elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“I can – I have – you are Team Go!” Robinson insisted. “Aren’t you?” He sounded a little desperate.

Hugo had been about to steer them away when he shot a look back at the sketchy figure. “I told you, if you need help—”

“I don’t need help,” swore the prideful shivering man, his laugh wavering as he flapped his hands about and lurched forward. “I don’t need you. But you could really use me. I can – I’m like you, see?” He stuck out his hands as if to flip them the bird or show them his fingers. All ten digits were accounted for, but by the wild flick of his eyes as he waited for them to react, he had lost his marbles.

Eyebrows rose at Dr. Robinson. An exchange of glances, and Hugo and Milo burst into laughter. Dr. Robinson looked to his hands, all over himself, and up at them as something strange crossed his face. Disbelief, maybe. Disbelief that two young heroes were laughing at him.

“You can’t see it,” he muttered, sounding halfway out of his mind. “I-I have a gift like you!” he defended as the boys doubled over in infectious laughter. “You just can’t see it! You don’t have the eyes for it,” he squawked, voice shrill with desperation.

“Someone needs to come take Dr. Cuckoo back to the funny farm,” chortled Milo.

Hugo had a hard time reining it in. He thumped Milo so hard on the back that the boy fell into the snow again. “Get me a phonebook!” he guffawed. “We need to find this guy a shrink.”

Milo looked up at Hugo from where he lay, beaming ear to ear, and a new wave of laughter shook him and brought him to tears.

Shilo shoved her big brother, but he didn’t budge. “Leave him alone, you guys.”

The balking man shrank back from them. “I’ll show you!” he squawked, as if it were a threat. He looked beyond them, a hand outstretched and fingers clawing the air in a vaguely come-hither motion, but nothing at all happened. He paled. He shook his head like a wet dog, greasy ginger hair splattering droplets of melted snow. Shilo backed out of range as the man ground out something animalistic she couldn’t decipher. His face twisted and he clawed at his features.

He looked undoubtedly crazy in that moment. He was probably on something, she decided.

She couldn’t complain when Hugo took her by the shoulders, pulling her back from the sketchy derelict tripping out. She caught Milo by the hood of his jacket as the three of them left the questionable individual to have a meltdown there on the snowy sidewalk.

++X++

By the time Shilo reached the mall, the cuckoo lunatic had been left behind along with the worries of Shego’s hero duties, if only for a little while. She peeked over her shoulder, casting a quick glance about for signs of her brothers she’d barely escaped from, before ducking behind the hedge and around the wall to the side of the shopping center where the average civilian had no business loitering.

She smelled her before she saw her. Debatably cooler than the snow around her and seemingly indifferent to the winter chill, a fair blonde leaned against the brick and mortar wall, pink mini skirt daringly short and snow-white stockings spotless. As Shilo sauntered up to the pink-clad girl, striving to match her flippant air, a cigarette was offered to her. She took a drag – she couldn’t not with Priscilla’s critical eyes surveying her – and licked her lips to taste the trace of Priscilla’s cherry lip gloss left on the filter.

Shilo fought against the urge to choke. She swallowed and kept her cool. “So. The usual?”

“Yeah. Why not,” said Priscilla between drags, and patted a fanny pack on her hip to jingle the change inside. “I won a bet with Mickey, so it’s on me.”

“What was the bet?” Shilo was handed the smoke again too soon, Prissy’s smirk egging her on. Unenthused but compliant, she took another puff as the mischievous girl grinned at her. She couldn’t help laughing back and coughing as she did so. It was a good excuse to drop the spent butt on the ground. “What?” she snickered in demand and shook the girl’s shoulder. “Priss, what did you do?”

When her best friend since daycare made a sly gesture with hand and cheek, Shilo shoved her and stumbled away, an awkward bark of laughter erupting from her.

“That’s disgusting!” Shilo declared through her laugh. She wove her fingers behind her back to hide the unsettled burning in her palms as they walked back around toward the front. She grinned nonetheless, cheeks pinched as she failed to fight off a blush. “Don’t even joke like that.”

“Call it what you want, Shi. I call it easy money. It got me ten bucks.”

Priscilla was as proud and smug and comfortable in her own skin as ever. After the hectic year she’d had, Shilo’s gut twisted as she doubted she’d find that level of confidence. The extent of her experience on that front had been Seven Minutes in Heaven with Mickey at Priscilla’s thirteenth birthday party a few years back, and given the resulting locked braces, it wasn’t such a fond memory. And now with her new looks, boyishly short hair, and sickly pasty-pale skin, she was in no hurry to expand on that experience.

“Jeez,” muttered Shilo with a shake of her head. She got a grip on herself and glanced back to the cigarette butt smoldering in the snow. She stopped herself from wiping her mouth before she could smudge Shego’s makeup, and kept her disbelief or disgust or whatever it was she felt to herself as they made for the mall arcade.

As per usual, ten dollars split between two players went quick. Just to extend their stay a little longer, Shilo forfeited some of her own hard-earned babysitting money to the machines.

She wasn’t complaining though. It was a scrap of normalcy she couldn’t find back home. Back home, there was no Mom, no cookies, no music, no joy – only phone calls for appointments with doctors and for interviews, toddlers who never stopped crying, and a father who drank too much these days. It was hardly home at all, and she was hardly even Shilo there anymore. She was just Shego, waiting on standby to be called upon for a hero emergency. Even her prohibited rendezvous with Priscilla felt too much like just going through the motions, but she refused to think of that.

Tickets were redeemed for a handful of cheap toys. Fake spiders and bouncy balls were thrown off the second-story to the level below, landing in the hair of unsuspecting passerby, or bounce-bounce-bouncing across the plaza to inevitably bounce out of sight, disappearing either into a shop or into the expensive indoor garden sporting a water feature at the heart of the mall.

Eventually a beer-bellied security guard walking toward them was their cue to scram.

The small rush paled in comparison to the adrenaline surges she’d have in the heat of battle over the past month, but it was enough to bring a smile to her face and feel normal. Shilo laughed along with Priscilla as they held each other’s hands, taking turns practically dragging the other as they made the dash for the far end of the mall.

Suddenly she was tugged aside and into a parlor. The parlor Shilo had her sights on was still several shops away and involved pizza, not piercings, but she humored Priscilla as the girl sought out the gaudiest hoops and filled her in on a spiel of flimflam about what was trendy at the school they once attended together.

It was a blow she wasn’t ready for, but Shilo tried to keep the smile on her face. They didn’t go to school together anymore. There had been years they didn’t share the same classes, but they’d always shared the same school – until now. Shilo was due to start private school clear on the other end of town soon, and Priscilla would go on attending in the local district. That alone was enough to feel like a guillotine had separated them – but Shilo shook her head and smiled at her reflection as Priscilla held up earrings featuring the eyes of peacock feathers to her ears, still pressing she should have them re-pierced.

With no extra cash for earrings, let alone even considering paying for piercings, Shilo wasn’t so sure about trying the old ice and needle trick again.

Her mouth stayed shut as Priscilla fidgeted with the rack of earrings, taking a nicer pair to hide in her sleeve. Shilo said nothing still as a hand smacked her on the butt, earrings slipped into her back pocket with a sleight of hand. She shot her friend an unhappy look through the mirror.

Priscilla coughed into her fist, “Wet blanket.”

Shilo was soon casting a glance back as they left the parlor. A few shops away, Priscilla retrieved the earrings from Shilo’s back pocket. “These will look good on you,” she said decisively, brandishing the stolen item. “Don’t you think?”

The tag sporting a pair of green rhinestone earrings was deposited in her hand. “Yeah,” said Shilo, pushing the evidence back out of sight into her pocket. She scanned the crowd of shoppers, seeking out anyone in uniform, but even when her search came up empty, she couldn’t relax. The best of GJ’s spies didn’t stand out anyway.

They finally made it to the food court. Shilo pulled out her change and counted nickels and dimes for a slice of pizza that once tasted like greasy cardboard but was now a delectable slice of heaven after the diet she’d been restricted to at the research center for the better half of the year.

Priscilla, with her bowl of chili cheese fries, criticized her for her choice in grub as she joined Shilo at a table. She showily unzipped her jacket, letting her crop top show for all to see, like she was really all that. Still, Shilo pulled into herself just a little, fixing her eyes down on the pizza that had gone cold while waiting for her friend. She was sweltering hot, but she zipped her own coat up a little tighter. She couldn’t go around showing off her skin like that anymore. Her sickly complexion attracted enough stares, and she didn’t need to be recognized as Shego for her pallid green skin alone.

Shilo had taken all of two bites, more focused on digesting the gossip around school and the neighborhood than she was on eating, when Priscilla licked her fingers suggestively and Shilo had to look back down again.

“Eleven o’clock,” said Priscilla, plucking up another chili-saturated crimp-cut fry. Shilo raised her brow in question, and Priscilla rolled her eyes. “My eleven,” reiterated her friend, and a chili cheese fry was used as a pointer before being scarfed down. “Don’t look now, but there’s a total creep checking you out.” If anyone was looking their way, it sure wasn’t because of Shilo.

“What?” she blurted and looked anyway. She didn’t find anyone staring at her, but she did see something just familiar enough to catch her eye: a raggedy parka and a head of dirty red hair.

It was the raving lunatic from earlier. He was counting change in the palm of his hand. Looking to menus. Checking his pockets and finding a hole.

The mall food court wasn’t the best place to find a meal on a budget, but Shilo turned back to her pizza, choosing not to think too hard on it. Where the beak-nosed man chose to scrounge a meal was none of her concern.

Except, now it sort of was. It was Shego’s concern. An oath to protect and aid the citizens of Go City and adjacent towns had been sworn on live television for thousands to see just a few short weeks ago. She’d been given a crash course on emergency aid, combat, and etiquette in preparation for her introduction as a guardian of the public.

She hadn’t needed a whole lot drilling to be told to be a Good Samaritan, even if she’d protested the extremes the supervising agency wanted her to go to. Shego had a reputation, but she wasn’t Shego right now. She was Shilo, and Shilo’s best friend was giving her a funny look at she stood.

It was no big deal. She had some leftover change in her pocket. Enough for something more substantial than an overpriced plain corndog she could see Robinson settling for as he stepped toward a counter.

++X++

By the time the sketchy man sat down at their table, he’d already blathered a bit about himself, as if in an attempt to put her at ease and make up for the poor first impression. He dealt with exotics, namely wildlife, so he claimed. The winged world was Dr. Robinson’s specialty, and he’d devoted his life to rescuing and rehabilitating birds of all kinds, from condors to hummingbirds. A glimpse at scars decorating his arms stood testimony, carved into him from beaks and claws of every size, worn like badges of honor.

“So…you’re a veterinarian?”

“Was,” corrected Dr. Robinson, and corrected himself again. “I-I mean. I’m qualified! I just…don’t have my office anymore.”

Across from Shilo, Prissy Priscilla heaved a sigh and leaned heavily on her fist. For the first time since the scruffy panhandler sat down at their table, she spoke, wondering, “Now what do you do?” Shilo knew better than to believe her friend was genuinely interested. It was merely a dig at an exposed sore spot.

Dr. Robinson was quiet for a moment before answering, “I’m in between jobs,” in between bites of chili cheese fries. Prissy had forfeited the snack to him after claiming she was on a diet anyway.

Shilo relaxed only slightly. He was just a veterinarian. There was a distinction between a mere animal vet and the doctors that had poked and probed her and studied her for weeks – months – on end in the name of science and the greater good.

It was no surprise Priscilla didn’t share the same concerns. After all, she hadn’t been quarantined after the incident back in April. She was eyeballing the man, relaxed and critical, not leery or suspicious as Shilo was, and not even a crowd of shoppers to eavesdrop deterred her from asking aloud, “You got bud? You stink like it.”

Before Shilo could kick her under the table to silently reprimand her for going around saying rude things or inquiring on illegal substances so openly, Dr. Robinson scooted his chair back. His eyes flickered from Prissy to Shilo and back. He was in no rush to voice a reply.

“She can keep a secret,” promised Priscilla on Shilo’s behalf, lowering her voice. “Right, Shi?”

“I…I do not have any on hand,” said the man carefully, withdrawing the tray of fries with him.

Priscilla puffed. “Well, you’re old, right?” she said. Shilo almost kicked her again, but she must have known it was coming, because her boot met open air.

Robinson frowned. “I’m only thirty—,” he began indignantly.

“Perfect,” said Priscilla with a smile.

Shilo couldn’t say she agreed with Priscilla’s newfound interest in the man or the ploy she was weaving. If she had a choice, she’d choose not to be part of it, but as things were, she didn’t have much of a say in the matter – because Prissy would do what Prissy pleased, and whether Shilo tagged along was up to her own moral code, which at the moment was a grey area. She couldn’t just leave her best friend to venture off with a strange man alone without someone to back her up.

Dark snow clouds made it impossible to see the sun setting, but it was growing ever darker by the minute as they left the mall, a clear indicator it was past curfew and high time she head home to fix dinner and prepare for a grand countdown on live television tonight – but Priscilla was pushy and always got her way, grabbing Shilo by the hand to insist she not be a spoilsport. The thought of leaving her alone with the shifty man made her stomach twist, so she yielded easily to the pressure and let Prissy pull her after the guy.

A tobacco store was soon located, and while Prissy was getting her latest nicotine fix, unabashedly chain-smoking away as they waited around the corner of yet another shop they legally had no business with, Shilo had to whisper over to wonder why they were still following Dr. Robinson. The man had just left them a second time to run inside the liquor store to make another purchase with Priscilla’s cash.

“Psh. Because he’s cool?” answered Prissy under her breath. She held up the cigarette as though it were proof, and passed it over.

Shilo took a hesitant drag, but couldn’t help shuddering to think of where Prissy’s lips may have been just hours ago. Whispered chatter and answers to questions she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask in the first place were interrupted soon enough by Dr. Robinson’s return.

“Cool,” praised Prissy, inspecting the label on the bottle she was presented with. Shilo recognized the brand as something her own father drank. The sight of hard liquor in her friend’s hands made her insides writhe.

“Well. I’ll see you girls around,” said the nervous man as he began to retreat into the shadows of the alleyway. It had begun to snow again, and it seemed to concern him as he glanced skyward. “I really must be getting home.”

“I thought you were homeless?” blurted Priscilla, already following him before Shilo could make a grab for her. “I’ve got a garage you can crash in if you need it.” Surely she just wanted to squeeze more favors out of him in return for her pocket change.

“Oh, no. I have an apartment. Not far from here.” Nerves flashed in his eyes as Priscilla sauntered toward him. “There’s no – it’s – it’s really no place for girls like you. It’s condemned, you see—”

Prissy sounded giddy as she grinned and giggled, “Sounds creepy. That where you keep the goods, Robby?”

“Priss!” Shilo called, still standing cemented to the spot where she’d been left.

Her best friend shadowing the scruffy man paused and glanced back just as she’d been about to grab his arm. “What?” she asked back, smiling innocently. “Too good for a little fun now? Is that it? Don’t be a drag, Shi.”

Shilo glanced back toward the street, and back to Priscilla slowly backing away toward Robinson as the man retreated. “We need to head home,” she insisted.

“I don’t have a curfew,” scoffed Priss. “You can go home if you’re so afraid of the dark.”

It wasn’t the dark she was afraid of. Most of the criminals she’d dealt with so far didn’t care what time it was. But leaving Priscilla alone with a strange man wasn’t happening. Shilo at least had a means of defending herself and others too, and if anything bad happened because she left Prissy alone with some creepy exiled veterinarian, she’d never be able to live with herself.

So for the sake of her best friend, she followed.

Shilo knew they didn’t belong there the moment they entered Robinson’s neck of the woods. She had a hunch Priscilla knew as well. Her best friend began to look nervous for a change as they ventured deeper into the sketchy neighborhood.

The uneasy girl even reached across in an attempt to hold Shilo’s hand, as she used to when they were in a rough area – but after an accidental zap, kept them to herself. Alienated by her own alien fire, Shilo did the same, keeping her fingers safely tucked in her armpits and accepting the chill in the gap between her and her best friend. If she didn’t get a grip on Lady Fate’s gift soon, the organization overseeing her underaged superhero team might insist she wear “fire-proof” gloves full time, for the safety of those around her, like Priscilla.

Priscilla didn’t seem terribly concerned for her own safety though, considering how willing she was to follow the strange man through the driving snow. They were led further from home with each step they took, and it was indisputably past sundown when Robinson cut into a dead-end alley.

He waved for them to follow him into the dark niche, out of view of potential witnesses. If it weren’t for the blanket of white snow, it might have been too dark to see anything at all. It didn’t make the rickety old fire escape the man gestured to any more welcoming though.

“It’s. Up here,” he said through chattering teeth, and breathed on his hands, still bound up in soggy worn gloves. He strained to smile, barely visible in the dark, and tried to jokily add, “This would be so much easier if one could fly.”

Shilo unfolded her arms and cast a glance up and down the street. There was no one coming from either direction. This man and her best friend already knew her secret. There was no harm in lighting up a hand to let some of the energy burn off. If anything, it served as a warning for Robinson, and might cause the ankle bracelet to ping for Global Justice to send out an agent to investigate or collect her for the unauthorized use.

She didn’t expect Priscilla to scoff at the sight of her green luminescence. Lip raised and eyes rolling, the girl turned her back to Shilo’s glow. Shilo recalled it, snuffing out the lantern-like plasma radiating and bubbling from her hand. She at least used the residual warmth in her palm to rub her other hand and return some feeling to her frozen fingers.

Her stomach twisted into a knot as she watched the tall man lift Priscilla up by the waist to aid in getting her footing on the hanging ladder above.

“You should wait down there, Shi,” called Priscilla through her exertion as she meticulously scaled her way up to the first landing. “Don’t think it’ll hold ya.”

Shilo said nothing. It was a dig at her feather-light weight. It wasn’t hard to see she was still on the scrawny side, still recovering from her bad experience at a research facility that had allegedly been shut down. Knobby bones, gaunt features barely filling out, and pants that needed help staying up on her hips wasn’t a good feeling, but she was making progress day by day. Personal trainers had been helping her recondition with diet and exercise, but she still felt like a shadow of her past self. She really wasn’t fit yet to be out fighting criminals of any degree – not that any minor should be out doing such risky work in the first place.

Eyeing the man extending his grubby paws out toward her, she knew without a doubt she could at least take him on, glow or no glow. Before he could assist her, with or without asking, she leapt up as high as she could, catching a grip on the slippery bars and scrabbling with her feet as her hands melted the ice coating the metal. She climbed and clawed her way up after Priscilla as her friend stepped back, clapping slowly.

“Me-ow,” jibbed Prissy. “Where’s the catsuit?”

“It’s not a catsuit,” Shilo hissed. At least she hadn’t called her Team Go uniform a onesie again.

She felt the shake of the metal platform underfoot then, and shot a glance down to Robinson hefting himself up. He was tall enough he didn’t have to jump, but his upper body strength was unexpected as he hoisted himself up. Being cornered on a fire escape wouldn’t concern Shilo so much if she was alone, but Priscilla was already climbing precariously higher.

Several stories up was a broken window, fully kicked in to allow safe entry. Snow blew in after them as they trespassed into the condemned building. The man’s so-called apartment exceeded expectations – at least in terms of how decrepit and dilapidated it was. Robinson might have known his way around in the dark, and Priscilla might have made a show of rolling her eyes about it, but Shilo lit the way with her radium-green plasma as there were no working utilities. Still, water could be heard dripping as if they were walking through a cave system, and filthy icicles hanging like stalactites in places didn’t bode well. Graffiti decorated the walls, some partly obscured by the mold and stains. Rats could be heard squeaking and scurrying about out of sight.

Shilo was barely glad Robinson led the way because the last thing she needed was his malodorous breath on the back of her neck to urge her onward. She had to continuously remind herself that the only reason she was following him at all was to keep herself between him and her friend.

Up a multitude of staircases and finally through a door that had been busted off its hinges, and Dr. Robinson sighed hugely and spread his arms abruptly, making Shilo jump back and snap out an arm to stop Priscilla in her tracks.

“Home sweet home!” he announced. “Mi casa es su casa.” He ducked around the wall, and a dim orange light flickered on with the hiss of propane, and then he was popping back into view, shuffling away into the dark depths of the cluttered room. “Top floor. You’re welcome to come meet my friends up on the roof, if you’d like. If you’ll excuse me, I’m late with dinner.”

Robinson was already heading for another staircase, grabbing a sack of birdseed off a shelf as he went. A door opened at the top, a gust of freezing air and a few snowflakes blew in, and then he was gone.

The moment they were left alone, Shilo shook her hand as if to put out a match, and she turned to Priscilla. “We shouldn’t be here,” she stated. It was true. It had to be true – because what teenage girl should be hanging around with some creepy thirty-whatever year old homeless man squatting in a condemned building?

“No way,” Priscilla protested, holding up the bottle of booze and cracking it open. “This guy’s cool.”

Their definitions of cool had seriously diverged over the past year. Shilo grabbed the neck of the bottle and pulled it down before Prissy could take a gulp. “You can get high at home. This isn’t worth it,” she pressed. She shouldn’t have even had to say so.

Prissy cracked a grin then and jerked the bottle away, taking a defiant swig anyway. The alcohol looked like it tasted bitter. “I’m exploring my options,” she said nonchalantly. “This guy might be able to hook me up with a little more. Y’never know.” She shrugged. “If he can, you’ll try it with me, won’t you?”

Shilo gawped, rendered just short of speechless. “No!” she blurted, the answer one of pure reflex.

The bleached-blonde’s mischievous smile vanished, replaced by a frown. “God, Shi. Don’t be a prude,” she hissed, shoving Shilo’s shoulder. “Don’t tell me that goodie-two-shoes shit has gotten to you?”

It had and it hadn’t. She was being pressured into the lifestyle with ultimatums, and there was a new code of conduct she had to follow, but even if she didn’t have to save face as an up-and-coming superhero, what Prissy was asking was still out of the question. Otherworldly gifts and an outrageous double-life had nothing to do with her resolve to get out of Robinson’s shabby niche of the city.

“That’s not it,” Shilo argued. “I have responsibilities! I have to get home for dinner, and get ready to go on air tonight for the countdown, and—,” she was interrupted before she could go over the entire list of reasons she couldn’t stay – why they shouldn’t stay.

“If you’re too busy to be my friend anymore, just say so, Shilo.” The words stung, but they were second to Priscilla’s dark eyes boring into her like a stake to the heart.

She reeled then, but Priscilla caught her wrist before she could step back. She was drawn into a sudden hug, Prissy’s arms nearly crushing the breath out of her in a hold that didn’t feel so great. It was a far cry from the buoyant girlish embraces they used to bounce and crash into when they were seven, ten, twelve, a year ago – and Shilo’s stomach twisted into a knot now as newfound reservations made her pause to peer over her best friend’s shoulder to check her hands for warning signs of igniting before letting her own arms loop around the girl to squeeze her back. Prissy didn’t stay long enough.

Cold sticky lips pressed to Shilo’s cheek, the ginger kiss devoid of affection. “If you need me to disappear from your life, I can do that for ya,” was not what she needed her best friend to whisper in her ear.

The arms around her slipped away, leaving Shilo bewildered and cold and hugging herself as she reluctantly let the girl withdraw from the hug. Priscilla spun around on her heel then to trot off after the shabby creep up the creaky staircase and onto the roof. A momentary cold gust blew in again, chilling Shilo to the bone.

Her throat was too thick to swallow, much less call after her friend to tell Priscilla she was being too melodramatic. The girl was the sort for theatrics – but the past month since Shilo had been home, things had been indisputably different. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t noticed. She knew Priscilla’s fake smiles when she saw them, knew when Prissy was kidding around, knew when she was overreacting. She knew her best friend. And she knew her well enough to know she’d just made neither an offer nor a threat.

It was a promise.

Shilo didn’t even feel her legs move when she lurched forward suddenly. She flew up the steps and just about kicked the door open, her heart hammering as she burst out onto the snowy rooftop. She whirled around, scanning the white-blanketed surroundings as icy wind blew through her, a flurry of snowflakes breezing past the hems of her jacket to sting her burning skin.

Dr. Robinson was spotted beside a shack-like structure, chattering and gesticulating to himself. The bottle of liquor in his hand made her stomach churn and she scanned the snow for signs of tracks that lead to the parapet, but there were none, as far as she could see. He cocked an eyebrow as she stalked toward him, fists glowing.

“Where’s Priss?” she demanded, stepping past him to take a look inside the stinking little rooftop shed. There was nothing but racks and cubby holes to be found inside, filled with dozens of sleeping and cooing pigeons.

“Your friend? I haven’t seen her,” said Robinson. “But I can help you look.”

“Bullshit.” Shilo whipped around to face him, her eyes drawn to the liquor in his grip. “She just came up here. Who were you talking to?” Her voice was rising. Frantic sparks of green energy were jumping from her fingers. She clenched her fists tight again.

“My pigeon,” Robinson answered, sweeping a small white dove off the nearest roost outside the coop. The symbol of peace, white as the falling snow, perched serenely on his finger. His smile was less white, less peaceful, as he offered a reasonable explanation, “It’s dark inside. Maybe your friend slipped past you.”

Shilo was backing away now, blinking and reeling, if not a little dazed. She scanned the rooftop once more, hardly hearing his offer again to help her look as she circled the one and only thing her best friend could possibly be hiding behind, but the girl was nowhere to be found. No tracks in the snow lead to the edge to indicate foul play.

With the cold of desertion sinking in, Shilo didn’t waste her breath calling for a friend who clearly didn’t want to hold a friendship any longer. At what point her shoulders fell in defeat and she traced the path back through the dark condemned high-rise, she wasn’t sure, but it came shortly after the threat of tears welled up.

She was freezing and soaked from head to toe by the time she trudged home to her own neighborhood, crushed and hours past curfew. She was already late, but stopping by her best friend’s house on the way to ask if she was home hadn’t helped anything. She’d worn a fake smile and everything – but as promised, the girl had vanished. It felt that way anyway, when the girl’s parents refused to answer the door. Unsurprising, as they’d made it clear weeks ago that they didn’t want her around once they’d learned of her tracking anklet and supposed probation, as if she was the bad influence or some kind of criminal now.

Given everything that had turned her life upside down the past year, questioning if the girl ever existed at all really was the last thing she needed.

What she needed was to forget about the empty space left by the stake yanked out of her heart like a massive thorn, and her numb fingers and toes, and her stuffy nose, and the scolding she’d received the second she came walking through her front door.

Discarding sodden slush-covered clothes to the hamper, Shilo reached into every pocket, as per habit, to empty them. A few pennies, a soggy receipt, a plastic spider, shoplifted rhinestone earrings – something was missing. Heart beginning to thud a desperate beat as her hands grew warm, Shilo turned each pocket inside out to be sure.

Shego’s suppressant medication had gone missing.

#The Company You Keep fic #Shego #Team Go

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beyondthepanels · 4 years ago

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Going through a bunch of old boxes of stuff found a box full of Spiderman toys I think I bought a lot of them over the years some really cool things! Vintage mega mego metal mego pocket heroes secret wars Spider-Man toy biz spidey and many more! #toys #spiderman #mego #marvel #collections #collecting #toycollecting (at New York, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGdaFIyhQIJ/?igshid=14hzvn2w024jo

#toys #spiderman #mego #marvel #collections #collecting #toycollecting

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fovcomicfigure · 4 years ago

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^+^ 1979 DC Comics GENERAL ZOD Mego POCKET SUPER HEROES Action Figure Loose https://ift.tt/3c0MyXu

#comic_figure #figure

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mikesvintage · 4 years ago

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Added some Mego Pocket Super Heroes to the register case! Open until 8pm tonight! Buying, Selling and Trading! (at Mikes Vintage Toys) https://www.instagram.com/p/CEubfRPhWfj/?igshid=1iht13dl7escc

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marcuserrico · 7 years ago

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'Star Wars' Toy Pro Spills 40 Years of Secrets: Everything You Wanted to Know About the Kenner Classics

Designer Mark Boudreaux in his office with the Millennium Falcon vehicles he has designed over the past 40 years. (Credit: Hasbro)

In 1976, Mark Boudreaux was a University of Cincinnati design student on the hunt for a local work-study gig — and he hit the jackpot. He landed a job “down the street” at Kenner Products‘ “Prelim” design department. Before long, he was at ground zero of the Star Wars toy boom, helping conceptualize some of the signature products in the Kenner line, including the Millennium Falcon. Four decades later, Boudreaux is still “on the boards” as senior principal designer of Star Wars/action brands at Hasbro (which acquired Kenner in 1991). For the 40th anniversary of the release of Star Wars: A New Hope, Boudreaux met with Yahoo Movies to talk toys. Here, in Boudreaux’s words, is a first-hand history of Star Wars playthings.

By the late-’70s, Kenner was banking on TV-related toys, as bigger rivals like Mego and Mattel locked up the most famous film and comic-book characters.

Mark Boudreaux: At the time, Kenner would have been working on Six Million Dollar Man — Steve Austin — and we also came across a property called Man From Atlantis with Patrick Duffy. … I was given the responsibility of “Hey, he needs some sort of vehicle, what can you come up with?” … So one of the first things was this toy concept called the Aqua-Terra Pod.

Those toys would soon be an afterthought. While Mego and Mattel ultimately passed on the Star Wars license, Boudreaux’s boss, fellow University of Cincinnati alum Jim Swearingen, trekked out to Lucasfilm headquarters, read the script for A New Hope, and was hooked.

I started working at Kenner in January ’77. In February, we first saw the trailer of Star Wars and all immediately became fans.

My direct design manager [Swearingen] had the opportunity to go out to California and he got a really good idea of what Star Wars was all about. He quickly realized that this was not just a movie about characters, but it was also about their ships and going from world to world. You had classic good and evil, you had great characters and environments and ships — something you could really sink your teeth into.

But with the film’s May 25, 1977, release looming, Kenner faced a big problem.

Once Kenner started getting into Star Wars it was pretty much all hands on deck, 24/7. As I mentioned, we didn’t see the trailer until February ’77 so that didn’t give us much time to actually put product on the shelves. It became very apparent that even though we put all resources to bear on developing Star Wars, we really weren’t going to get plastic product out until ’78.

Boudreaux “on the boards” in his Kenner office in the mid-’80s. (Credit: Mark Boudreaux/Hasbro)

I recall being in brainstorms with the rest of the designers and said, “How might we go about putting Star Wars under the tree for that holiday season in ’77?” The idea was to come up with the Early Bird Special — it would essentially be a promise of four figures [Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and R2-D2] mailed directly to you and in that envelope was included a cardboard display with little plastic clips that as you purchased your initial wave of characters you’d be able to display them proudly. I think there were some membership cards, maybe some stickers and things.

And they asked me to put together some preliminary conceptual documents — some artwork, fabricate some envelopes so that we can show our management team what the thoughts were. And it was quite an interesting conversation, if I recall, going to upper management and saying, “Hey, you know, we want to sell an empty cardboard box for under the tree.”

Kenner’s original Early Bird Certificate Package featured a cardboard standup, “Space Club” membership card, and stickers. Along with a line of deluxe 6-inch “Black Series” figures to pay tribute to the original Kenner line, Hasbro has released a 40th anniversary version of the Early Bird set, this time including Darth Vader. (Credit: Hasbro)

In addition to Luke, Leia, Chewie, and Artoo, the first wave included eight other action figures: Han Solo, C-3PO, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, Death Squad Commander, Sand People (a.k.a. Tusken Raider), and Jawa. The earliest vehicles soon followed: Luke’s landspeeder, X-wing fighter, and TIE fighter.

Design, engineering, manufacturing all came together and sat down — I wasn’t always privy to the top-level discussions — but I believe they started and said, “You know what, it’s really about the characters. What are the core group of figures we can execute first? Obviously that included the core heroes, the core villains, and some of the ancillary characters — Jawas, things like that.

Swearingen realized early on that the size of the toys would need to be scaled down to work within the scale of the Star Wars universe.

He understood that for us to be able to develop really meaningful playsets and vehicles, the figures would need to be something other than our traditional 12-inch figure. For a long time G.I. Joe was 12-inch as well. It was the gold standard for a lot of product that had been developed. But he had the insight to say, “We have to take a different approach to this,” and he started thinking about this, he made some mock-ups. The team got together and decided that having that 3 3/4-inch scale would really allow us to create the type of product we were looking to do. That 3 3/4-inch scale made the figures large enough so you could have a recognizable portrait, which the design team thought was very important.

It also let you hold a lot of characters in your hand all at once. If you were kids running around the block you could just stuff the figures in your pocket, grab a couple of vehicles, and you were off. One of your friends was in a TIE fighter, you were in an X-wing, and you’d have dogfights running around the neighborhood. It was that intuitive design sense that my boss had.

Watch: The Best Vintage Star Wars Toy Commercials:

yahoo

Team Kenner then established a template for its future Star Wars saga toy-making.

As you might recall, the movies were out for over a year at the theaters at the time. There was no such thing as computers and DVRs and Blu-rays and all that fun stuff.

We were three years in between films, so we had time to backfill product if we couldn’t do it all at once. We went for landspeeder, TIE fighter, X-wing because they were a little easier to execute. Something like a Millennium Falcon or a Tydirium [Imperial] Shuttle, those are a bit more complicated, a bit more expensive… those tend to be in the second and third year of the line. And that’s pretty much how it worked for those first three films.

Boudreaux, who became a Kenner full-timer in 1978, was asked to take on a big assignment for the second phase of A New Hope toys.

Members of our design team and marketing would talk with Lucasfilm about what product we should try to shoot for, what really were the core vehicles and figures we should do first. They said, “Hey, Mark, we got this Millennium Falcon to do. Would you like to go ahead and do it?” And I’d go, “Yeah, yeah, sure. Why not?” We were fortunate. We didn’t start this until ’78, so we fortunate to know what the Falcon was all about. It was a character in its own right. It was such an important story element. To have all of our heroes come together there, to have a base of operations that allows them to go from place to place. We knew about all the features: we knew about the gunner station, we knew about the remote probe, things like that. So we tried to incorporate those into the toy.

Boudreaux’s original design blueprint for the 1978 toy Falcon (Credit: Mark Boudreaux/Hasbro)

My responsibility was to take a big blank sheet of paper on our drawing board and determine how large should it be based on our character sizes, what type of features could we incorporate, how would we do the gun turret, how might we open the cockpit, how would we have landing gear.

Lucasfilm has always been a really great partner with Kenner and Hasbro. They would give us as much conceptual art as possible. Back in the day it was usually 8x10s, hopefully in color, a lot of times in black and white, and we would just go from there.

Lucasfilm provided Kenner’s design team with detailed photos of movie-used models, including the original Falcon. (Credit: Mark Boudreaux/Hasbro)

As I mentioned, we had our own model shop. So I would go ahead and do pencil drawings, to do layout, and those layouts would then be given to our model shop and they would make a one-off model of the Falcon. We used that model to demonstrate the features to all the folks in management. Once it got the go-ahead it went to the production designer who would create the actual toys.

Kenner’s Prelim design team made a functional, full-scale plastic model based on Boudreaux’s designs to demonstrate the features. (Photo: Mark Boudreaux/Hasbro)

Though more finely sculpted, Kenner’s final toy version of the Falcon hewed closely to the mock-up. (Credit: Hasbro)

Kenner had the opportunity to essentially allow fans to relive what they had seen on screen by producing the vehicles and figures and creatures and playsets — that was something really special. All of a sudden, now you could continue the fantasy that you saw on the screen or you could adapt it to your own. Heck, you could have Greedo flying the Millennium Falcon. That was so cool about Star Wars. There were so many points of entry [for] the fantasy.

Like the film, Kenner’s Star Wars line became an instant smash. Stores struggled to keep shelves stocked with product. And George Lucas and his crew were just as psyched by the toys as everyone else.

Lucasfilm was always very, very helpful [trying] to determine what would be the best product to come out with for the first year, second year, third year. We would go through an approval process. We have conceptual approval. Then we usually do a first model or there are some renderings. There was one trip where we actually went out to Mr. Lucas’s home for Empire Strikes Back and had a presentation for Mr. Lucas. That was quite a fascinating trip, to be a twentysomething designer in the midst of Mr. Lucas and all of his friends and partners and also [Lucasfilm concept artist turned filmmaker] Joe Johnston and other designers that were there. It was cool having the actual Star Wars designers come up to us and say, “Hey, this toy is really cool.”

And while those early toys had their issues, they also had their charms.

I’m in love with 1977 figure sculpts because they were at the forefront of design. They’re just as nice in a lot of ways as our most elaborate Black Series figures at this point. Each time we’ve done something, it’s the very best we could do within the technology.

Because Star Wars has been around for 40 years, it gives us the opportunity to do updated characters, updated vehicles, where it’s appropriate. We’ve done five Millennium Falcons. I’m just as proud of the first one we worked on as the one we just did for The Force Awakens. They’re each a little different but we put our hearts and souls into all the things we do. As fans we say, “We haven’t done this for a while, maybe it’s time to do an updated version,” but it’s never because we felt disappointed in the first version that we did.

Boudreaux’s drafting table, pencil, and “big sheet of blank paper” have been replaced by computers; here’s a look at his digital designs for Hasbro’s Force Awakens toy Falcon. (Credit: Mark Boudreaux/Hasbro)

Boudreaux had a hand in several of the most significant toys in Star Wars history, yet some of his favorites are more obscure.

The Millennium Falcon is obviously No. 1. I’m a lover of Boba Fett and I’ve had the opportunity to work on multiple Slave Is — those are the big vehicles. But from a personal point of view, we were able to develop a series of smaller vehicles, called Mini-Rigs, back in the day. And a vehicle called the Cruisemissile Trooper. Those were items that I was given permission to develop, “inspired by” vehicles, what we call “off-camera.”

Kenner’s Mini-Rigs seen here from concept to product. The “off-screen” vehicles were big enough to fit a single action figure. (Credit: Mark Boudreaux/Hasbro)

Things that would fit right into the Star Wars universe but you never saw on screen. They could very easily fit into the story. So, from a very personal perspective, to be able to pen a design that was in an official Star Wars package and related to Star Wars or Empire or Jedi, that was something I always just really appreciated. You don’t get a chance to do a lot of that in the Star Wars universe because it’s so rich on its own. But for someone like myself back in the ’80s to be able to do a design from a fresh piece of paper was really quite cool, something I’m proud of.

Introduced in 1995, Boudreaux’s Cruisemissile Trooper, seen here as a preliminary model, was envisioned as an assault vehicle, where the pilot was part of the ship. (Credit: Hasbro)

Meanwhile, the Hasbro team is cranking out a new line of toys for ‘The Last Jedi.’

Obviously, we’ve been working on the product for quite some time. Lucasfilm is a very good partner. They give us just the right amount of information that is required to do appropriate product but as a fan there are still a lot of things that I don’t know about, and that’s OK. I want to be entertained and surprised just like all the other fans when we see the film. But we can’t wait to see it.

Everybody has put a lot of really hard work into it, and we’re all really excited for it. After seeing Rogue One, that really inspired us even more with all the great content that Disney is generating for Star Wars. We see a bright future for this brand and I hope to be involved with it for many years to come.