This was all started by a picture put up at the Acorn Café. Gadget as... A vaccuum cleaner? (gadget_vac_colored.gif)
This inspired Dave White to write a silly Ranger fanfic called ‘Clean Sweep’ (and a third part later on). (Website maintainters note: This link goes to the full story, part 1-3, including 'Layabout is fair play'.)
This inspired me to write a second part to the fanfic showing Gadget’s revenge, and I even drew a picture.
http://www.theacorncafe.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=16088&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=Tammy+sofa&start=28
Anyway, here is my part, on it’s own.
Layabout is fair play – A continuation of Dave White’s Clean Sweep
By: Stainless Steel Rat
Gadget’s initial laughter died down, though she still had a broad grin. "Oh c’mon guys, you owe me this one. Besides this is so very appropriate!"
She walked over to the transformed pair to examine them more closely. To be honest, she hadn’t been sure what would happen. The device combined a repaired metamorphosiser unit with components from the Fleeblebroxian escape pod Dale had wrecked, and she’d even managed to isolate some of Ditz’s unstable molecules from when he’d reworked the Rangerplane. So the device was at least partly controlled by the psionic feedback from the user. However, to give it an extra whammy, she’d hooked Foxglove’s Orb of Aloysius to the auxiliary power coupler. The results had exceeded her expectations.
Tammy had been turned into a red, fur-lined recliner deckchair. Her head was unchanged, acting as a footrest and clearly still able to move normally. The rest of her was clearly immobilised. Her flattened body was the main seat, and her big, bushy tail stuck up at an angle as a backrest. Her arms and legs had shrunk, and splayed to form the stands it rested on. Both arms were fused together by a furry cross-bar, and so were both legs. Finally, the clothes she’d been wearing had become a decorative fringe around and under the seat part. She could turn her head enough to see her reflection in the metal extractor hood in the middle of the kitchen.
"I look ridiculous! Change me back right now!" she yelled.
"I’d couch my words more carefully, if I were in your position. I can only be pushed sofa.", Gadget said in tones of low menace, from out of line of sight. She was actually grinning, but Tammy couldn’t see that.
Tammy’s tome quickly turned to panic. "I’m really sorry! Change me back, please Gadget?" she pleaded, tearing up.
"Golly, I thought after al the hard work of cleaning the Treehouse, you’d appreciate lounging around. Trust me, it’s not half as nasty as some of the things I had to breathe in while you were using me as a vacuum." Gadget wasn’t really mad any more, but she did feel justified. Maybe a little more teasing would be appropriate, and fun.
"I could fold you up and send you back to your house the way you are. Of course, Bink will probably use you as a trampoline and spill orange juice all over your fur." Tammy was getting almost hysterical, so she sighed. "I should be able to change you back with no problems." This did nothing to reassure the transformed squirrel. "But it will take the machine a few hours to recharge, and in the mean time I want to have a good long rest. As I said, you owe me that much."
She turned to Foxglove, who was in an even more ridiculous predicament. She was now a human scale novelty MP3 player, and in pieces. She’d clearly tried to get out of the way, and fallen over. It hadn’t seemed to have hurt her (or Gadget would have checked on her immediately), at least from the string of naughty words that were issuing from her head. Gadget lifted it up onto the counter, checking her over.
Like Tammy, her head was mostly unchanged, but in her case her mouth was fixed open and had a speaker cone fixed in it. When Gadget looked underneath, she saw no neck, just a pair of power connector ridges like those on a mobile phone, recessed under the fur. Foxglove’s front teeth had been replaced with a little blue LED, and there was a familiar stylised B on her nose.
"Oh, I see, Bluetooth!" she said, half to herself.
Foxglove spoke to her, sounding subdued. It was kind of odd as, the voice also seemed to be coming from her wings. "We really didn’t mean to hurt you! It was all a bit of fun, and I was kind of annoyed you’d used one of my magic items… I guess I let it get a bit out of wing."
"Well, _you’ve_ changed your tune." Gadget said, giggling. She gestured at the rest of the scattered bat. "The first little problem and you go all to pieces." Foxglove winced, or at least her face did, at the bad jokes.
"Don’t worry, I’ll have you back together in a jiffy." Gadget continued, examining the other parts.
The fur covered legs and feet were fixed to a plastic stand with Foxy’s fur colour, forming a docking cradle. It had a USB connector sticking out from the side, obviously on a retractable cable. The interiors of the legs were the same plastic. Foxglove’s body was the main MP3 player, roughly a flattened furry cylinder. At the top, between the matching connectors for Foxglove’s head, there was also a recessed 3.5 mm jack plug. There were also grooves and connectors on each side of upper torso, obviously to hook the wings onto.
The torso had an oval control panel, framed in silver, with a blue back lit LCD display, about an inch square dominating the centre. Along the top were the Skip Backwards, Menu and Skip Forwards buttons, and along the bottom were the Play/Pause and Stop buttons. The conventional symbols were translucent and also backlit in blue. On the other side Foxglove’s stubby tail stuck out, but could be pushed flat into a recess, obviously to lock the control panel. Gadget did so and got a squeak in response from Foxglove.
"Hey, that tickles! Be careful with that!"
It was fascinating to see the volume indicator bar on the LCD display spike in response to her speaking. There were no access panels, so clearly she recharged inductively, via the USB cradle. Gadget placed the body carefully in the dock.
"I can feel my legs again!" Foxglove exclaimed. "Not that I can move them or anything…"
Gadget replied with a grin. "Well it doesn’t look like you managed to harmony-thing."
"Ha, ha!" Foxglove replied in an annoyed tone.
The wings were worth a second look, a set of three triangular panels hinged at the edges to form a line. In the centre of each panel was a circle of blacker fuzz, a flat panel speaker. The thumb claw was the power switch, with a blue LED beside it. Gadget opened one out, then folded it into a triangular pyramid, and concertina-wise to form a single triangle for storage. Each gyration produced an exclamation from Foxglove, clearly audible from the wing speakers.
Finally Gadget slotted them into place on the body, and docked the head on top. Foxglove sighed with relief.
"Oh… that feels good. It was so weird watching you put me back together, and feeling it too. Surely you can change us back now?"
Gadget shook her head. "I told you, the Morphalizer will take time to recharge. And don’t call me Shirley. In the meantime, we are all going out onto the branch behind the kitchen, and you two are going to make it up to me by letting me relax. Rather, you’ll provide the music and Tammy will provide the rest of it, since she is after all something to rest on. It’ll be her way of making restitution."
There was a groan from the couch, though whether it was a complaint about being used as a recliner, or Gadget’s dreadful string of puns was the question.
Gadget knelt down and started pushing Foxglove’s buttons, well more than she already had with her jokes. She scrolled through the menus, muttering to herself. "Anime themes… romantic songs… background music… Action movie soundtracks… Oh, this is hopeless!" She stood up. "You are getting your USB connected to the computer and I’ll download some stuff I like!"
Foxglove moaned. "Not Kraftwerk! Please no… How about the Neon Genesis Evangelion soundtrack, or Van Dread?"
"I happen to _like_ Kraftwerk. Okay, just one album, and I’ll add some other stuff to the play-list."
Gadget quickly set up things outside. It was a beautiful day, perfect for chilling out. Tammy was folded up concertina fashion and mouse-handled through the door. Foxglove followed, in pieces, to be reassembled by Tammy’s tail, wings outstretched. Last of all, Gadget brought out a jam jar lid tray, with a thimble jug of cold apple juice, and a smaller toothpaste cap mug, as well as her well thumbed copy of ‘Advanced Quantum Physics for Rodents’.
After a moment, she went back inside and got a second mug and a piece of straw, and poured out a drink which she put by Tammy’s head. Looking at Foxglove, she said, "Sorry I can’t give you one, but I’m not sure what the liquid would do to you… well I am sure, and it’s not something I want to happen, or you want to happen either. Tell you what, when you’re back to normal, I’ll serve you ice-cream."
Then she climbed into the seat, picked up book and drink, and lost herself in mathematics to the strains of ‘Radio-active’. After a while, she started to doze, and eventually fell asleep in the warm afternoon air.